Windows Azure and the Azure Services Platform: Making Microsoft’s Software-plus-Services Vision a Reality

New platform and services enable developers to create experiences that connect people across all devices by linking personal and business applications through the Web.

Microsoft on Monday announced a version of Windows that runs over the Internet from inside Microsoft's own data centers.

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft is also to offer cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

 

 LOS ANGELES – Oct. 27. 2008 – Today’s powerful computing technology includes cell phones with the processing power of recent PCs, quad-processor computers that have moved from datacenters to retail electronic stores, huge high-definition digital televisions, and more. The Web has grown in similar ways, and today its wealth of information and social networking capabilities make it the first stop when people turn on a PC or notebook.

Meanwhile, developers often have to make technology choices to optimize for a given device or application environment, choices that reduce that device’s capabilities in other circumstances. As a result, current applications don’t always take full advantage of both the power of devices and the power of the Web because they simply aren’t designed to do that.

A new set of platform technologies from Microsoft, unveiled today at the Professional Developers Conference 2008, is designed to change all that. The Azure Services Platform combines the growing power of the Web-based “cloud” and today’s computers and devices with a suite of services designed to help developers deliver compelling new experiences across the PC, Web and mobile phone or PDA.  The new platform extends to developers the ability to rapidly develop and deploy new applications into the cloud, without having to worry about how they will scale up. It gives businesses a new set of choices for how they deploy IT. And consumers benefit through new abilities to see their growing array of digital devices linked together in new and exciting ways.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect says, “Today we’re delivering a game-changing set of technologies that bring new opportunities to the global community of developers. In many ways it’s a turning point for Microsoft. But every time there’s been a major platform shift in our industry, it’s meant new opportunity and growth.”

The Azure Services Platform combines under a single umbrella code names and rumors that have floating around the blogosphere for weeks – code names such as “Strata,” “Zurich” and “Red Dog.” The vision for the platform was first articulated by Ozzie in his October 2005 memo, “The Internet Services Disruption.” Since then, Microsoft has worked to deliver a platform and set of services that allows maximum flexibility and choice for developers, businesses and consumers.

The foundation of the platform is Windows Azure, a new cloud-based operating system that serves as the development, run-time and environment for the Azure Services Platform. It is designed for what Ozzie and Microsoft describe as the “web tier” of computing–a layer that scales to handle the giant computation, storage and networking loads for today’s Web-based world. Windows Azure extends Windows to the Web, where developers can build, deploy and maintain new cloud-based applications using existing skills and familiar tools such as Visual Studio. They’ll also be able to deliver applications built around a collection of developer services that includes Live Services, Microsoft .NET Services, Microsoft SQL Services, Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services. Additionally, developers can soon market new applications built on the platform directly to their own customers.

 

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Check out Windows Azure home page here

Microsoft announces the acquisition of Opalis Software. Why is this important to virtualization projects? Thoughts below, but first some background on the business.

Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business (STB) is a $14.1 billion business.

Within STB, the Management and Services Division is focused on reducing customers' costs and improve IT efficiency to drive businesses forward with a suite of products and services built around the System Center brand. In August 2009, Microsoft reported that the Management and Services Division revenues grew more than 30% from 2008 to 2009, and is now at approximately $1 billion in annual sales.

Financial terms of the acquisition won’t be disclosed. Opalis recently reported 104% increase in new license bookings for calendar Q3 (compared to Q3 2008), selling to enterprise and managed service provider customers.

So how is Opalis Software used? Here's some examples:

• Incident response standardize and automate triage, diagnose and repair processes to reduce the number of incidents.

• Provisioning orchestrate datacenter tools to configure, deploy, and verify IT services in response to an incident or change request. Provision server, storage, or network resources across physical, virtual or cloud environments.

• Virtual service management automate virtual lifecycle management to control server sprawl and extend management best practices, such as incident management and provisioning, to your virtual environments.

• Run book procedures automate re-occurring maintenance and administrative tasks, such as data and file handling, database and application support.

• Cloud Computing automate cloud lifecycle management, to request, provision, release and track costs of cloud resources.

So there's a summary. Brad says much more in his video interview. An analyst at Gartner forecasted that, by end of 2010, at least 50% of the automation and workflow management tasks in support of virtual server infrastructures will be supported by next-gen Run Book Automation-based tools. That's exactly what Opalis has created, and will become part of System Center.

As the CEO of Opalis wrote in his blog post today:

"I believe, with the Opalis technology, Microsoft will have the most complete virtualization stack available from any single vendor."