Windows Azure PDC 2010 Announcements
Windows Azure PDC Announcements
Here is a list of PDC announcements (excluding AppFabric) made by Bob Muglia during the PDC 2010 Keynote which can be viewed on demand at (https://www.microsoftpdc.com):
Calendar Year 2010
· Virtual Machine (VM) role : increases flexibility to run software of your choice (stateless server components) on Azure platform. Database server is an example of a stateful server which you can’t run on VM role.
· Full IIS : allows multiple web sites per Web role and makes it possible to configure the ASP.NET pipeline
· Elevated Privileges : This allows you to temporarily elevate your privilege (e.g. installation of a software component that requires admin privileges), install a piece of software and downgrade the privileges in preparation for running the application.
· Remote Desktop : Enables the connection into a running Azure role instance for close inspection of the run time aspects of the application and debugging.
· Windows Azure Virtual Network: a collection of network services starting with Windows Azure Connect (formerly Project Sidney) which allows the establishment of IP Sec tunnel for enabling on-premise/cloud hybrid environments
· Extra Small Windows Azure Instance: provides developers a cost effective development and training option
· Windows Azure Marketplace : online marketplace for you to share, buy and sell building block components, premium data sets, training and services needed to build Windows Azure platform applications
The above features will be available by the end of calendar year 2010.
Calendar Year 2011
· Dynamic Content Caching : this capability allows you to cache application generated information in CDN edge nodes. Previously CDN only was able to pull content from Azure Storage.
· CDN SSL Delivery : allows the CDN delivery of content through TLS/SSL links
· Constructing VM role images in the cloud : in future IT Pros will be able to compose VM images on Azure instead of today’s on-premise composition and uploading to Azure
· Windows Server 2003 and 2008 SP2 in VM Role : more guest OS options
· Improved Java Enablement : Java will be a first-class citizen through a set of performance enhancing improvements to Azure roles, Eclipse tooling and Java client libraries for Windows Azure.
App Fabric
· Caching(CTP at PDC) accelerates performance of Windows Azure and SQL Azure based apps by providing a distributed, in-memory application cache.
· Service Bus (CTP at PDC) has been enhanced to add durable messaging for higher enterprise reliability, giving the ability to ensure delivery of messages to third-parties or mobile devices.
· Integration (CTP in CY11) will provide common BizTalk Server integration capabilities (e.g. pipeline, transforms, adapters) on Windows Azure, using out-of-box integration patterns to accelerate and simplify development. It will also deliver higher level business user enablement capabilities such as Business Activity Monitoring and Rules, as well as self-service trading partner community portal and provisioning of business-to-business pipelines.
· Composite Application (CTP in CY11) will provide a multi-tenant, managed service which consumes the .NET based Composition Model definition and automates the deployment and management of the end to end application
SQL Azure
· SQL Azure Reporting CTP: SQL Azure Reporting enables developers to enhance their applications by embedding cloud based reports on information stored in a SQL Azure database
· SQL Azure Data Sync CTP 2: SQL Azure Data Sync enables synchronization of entire databases or specific tables between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Azure and between data centers.
· Database manager for SQL Azure: This capability was formerly referred to as “Project Houston”; this is a new lightweight, web-based database management and querying capability for SQL Azure databases.
Other
TFS on Windows Azure : this is multi-tenant hosted TFS service which enables the integration of globally deployed development teams into a logical one. The demo by Brian Harry hints that this will pretty much offer same level of functionality as the on-premise equivalent. It remains to be seen as how the SharePoint part of TFS will pan out.
Resources
For more details, please visit the following sites:
· PDC 2010 on-demand content: https://www.microsoftpdc.com
· Windows Azure team blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2010/10/28/you-spoke-we-listened-and-responded.aspx.
· Windows Azure AppFabric team blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazureappfabric/.
· SQL Azure team blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/
· Sync Framework team blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/sync/archive/2010/10/28/announcing-sync-framework-4-0-october-2010-ctp.aspx
· Brian Harry’s blog for TFS cloud service: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2010/10/28/tfs-on-windows-azure-at-the-pdc.aspx
-Hanu