Thursday, December 02, 2010

Windows Azure SDK 1.3 release!!

I got a demo from Microsoft of some of the goodies that is being shipped with Windows Azure SDK 1.3 release. It's made significant progress since the previous release, especially in the area of IAAS (infrastrucutre  as a service). The new Windows Azure management portal (Silverlight front-end) is also streamlined to support new features and services. Here's some of the key features budled in new release. Cannot wait to try them out:

VM Role (Beta): Create your own custom VHD based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and deploy it to the cloud. This feature makes it so much easier to migrate existing applications to the cloud, reducing management and hosting costs.
•  Extra Small Instance Size (Beta): Run an extra small compute instance for only $0.05 per hour.
•  Remote Desktop Access: Connect to individual service instances with the remote desktop client as you would with any deployment in a hosted scenario.
•  Full IIS Support in Webroles: Host your web applications in IIS and configure IIS to suit your needs.
•  Elevated Privileges: Perform tasks in a service instance with elevated privileges.
•  Virtual Network (CTP): Use Windows Azure Connect to accomplish IP-level connectivity between on-premises en the cloud.
•  Network Enhancements: Restrict inter-role communication and use fixed ports on InputEndpoints.
•  Performance Improvement: Experience better performance when developing in the development fabric.
Cheers!!