Updates to the Azure Platform April 2011

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Last week at Mix11 we announced several updates to the services and offers for the Windows Azure Platform.

To support these announcements, the Windows Azure Platform team also released several new content resources.  

Windows Azure Platform Training Kit April 2011 Update

The April 2011 Update of the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit is now available. The Windows Azure Platform Training Kit includes hands-on labs, presentations, and samples to help you understand how to build applications that utilize Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and the Windows Azure AppFabric.

This is a significant update of the kit that includes several new and updated hands-on labs. Some of the new/updated content includes:

  • New Hands On Labs for Windows Azure Traffic Manager
  • New Hands On Labs for SQL Azure Reporting
  • New Hands On Labs for Windows Phone 7 and the Access Control Service
  • Updated Hands On Labs for Windows Azure Connect Refresh
  • Updated Hands On Labs for CDN Refresh
  • Updated Access Control Hands On Labs
  • Updated Service Bus Hands On Labs for the Service Bus portal update

The setup scripts for all hands-on labs have also been updated to use the Windows Azure SDK 1.4 release and to support VS 2010 SP1.

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You can download the April 2011 update of the Windows Azure Platform Training kit from here: https://bit.ly/WAPTKApr11.

Microsoft is also continuing to publish the hands-on labs directly to MSDN to make it easier for developers to review and use the content without having to download an entire training kit package.  You can browse to all of the Hands On Labs here:  https://bit.ly/WAPCourse.

Windows Azure Accelerator for Umbraco

During Scott Guthrie’s keynote on Day #1 at Mix11, Niels Hartvig the founder of Umbraco also talked about Windows Azure.   Umbraco is a very popular open source, .NET-based CMS application that is powering over 85K sites today.   In the keynote, Niels talked about how Umbraco has been working with the Windows Azure Platform to provide it as an option for running Umbraco sites. 

Niels Hartvig announced the Windows Azure Accelerator for Umbraco and also showed an example of Umbraco’s next major release, which will have integrated support for Windows Azure. 

The Windows Azure Accelerator for Umbraco is now available for download from CodePlex.  

This accelerator is designed to make it very easy to deploy an Umbraco application quickly to Windows Azure.   The accelerator includes a step-by-step guide, scripts, and a simple deployment tool to make it easy to get started. 

I would also recommend watching this 7 minute screencast created by Umbraco.  

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For more information about Umbraco and Windows Azure, please visit Umbraco’s Windows Azure page at:  https://umbraco.com/azure.  

In addition to the keynote presence at Mix11, Microsoft also had three sessions where Umbraco, DotNetNuke, and Kentico all talked about how they are enabling Windows Azure for their apps.   You can find a list of these specific sessions and learn more about running CMS applications on Windows Azure from this new page on WindowsAzure.com.