Java Developers, Meet Windows Azure.

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Over the past several years Microsoft has worked hard to make sure our cloud platform offers developers a broad set of Microsoft and non-Microsoft development languages and tools. Of course we love .Net and Visual Studio developers, but our work with PHP, Node.js, Python, and Ruby should leave no doubt that Microsoft is also committed to supporting other languages and frameworks that are important to our customers and partners.

One such language is Java, which we know is particularly important to our enterprise customers and ISVs looking to move business applications to the cloud.  This week at Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne in San Francisco Microsoft and its partners made two important announcements that make it much easier for Java developers to create and deploy fully-supported and fully-licensed Java solutions in Windows Azure.

First, together with Oracle, we are delivering a technical preview for Oracle solutions running in Windows Azure.   These are the first joint solutions delivered as part of the partnership we announced with Oracle on June 24, 2013.  Specifically the two companies are announcing a technical preview for several preconfigured virtual machine images that customers and partners can start testing today:

  • A Windows Azure preview of license-included Windows Server virtual machine images running Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server, and the Java Development Kit.
  • Oracle’s bring-your-own-license Oracle Linux virtual machine images running Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server in Windows Azure

These solutions were announced by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson during his keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld, where Microsoft was pleased to be a Diamond sponsor for the first time.  You can learn more about these announcements on Brad’s In the Cloud blog here.

Developers new to Azure who want to start working with these Oracle solutions right away can sign up here.   And you can find technical tutorials and more information about the Oracle Virtual Machine images for Windows Azure on MSDN here.

Second, at JavaOne, Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. and its partner Azul Systems announced the availability of Zulu, an OpenJDK build for Windows Servers on the Windows Azure platform.   The Azul OpenJDK implementation delivers on the promise of a free, open source Java platform for Windows Azure as announced by Microsoft Open Technologies and Azul Systems on July 24, 2013.

The Azul OpenJDK offering is based on the Java 7 SE OpenJDK implementation and has passed all Java certification tests in the Java 7 SE version of the OpenJDK Community TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit).  And, since many Java developers use Eclipse, the team at Microsoft Open Technologies has worked to simplify the deployment of Java applications to the cloud through the Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse with Java. 

Developers who are interested in building solutions based on OpenJDK and Windows Azure can learn more about how to get started on the Microsoft Open Technologies blog here.

As the leader of Developer & Platform Evangelism at Microsoft I am excited to see our company working aggressively with other industry leaders and the open source community truly making Java amazing on Windows Azure.   I encourage you to try out these new offerings and send us your feedback.  And as always you can reach out to me anytime, either using the comments here or on twitter @StevenGuggs.