Microsoft recently announced the rollout of several updates to its Windows Azure cloud platform that should make developers take notice. The updates cover a little bit of everything for Azure, including extended interoperability, revamped learning centers to ease the adoption process, an improved database scale, plus more overall value to give customers additional bang for their buck.
Contributed by wubayou Rating: / 1 December 21, 2011
One area of particular focus that the Azure team stressed with the new updates is the platform’s ease of use. The SQL Azure Management Portal has had its interface redesigned to give users more of a Metro-style feel. Now featuring SQL Azure Federation support, the revamped portal makes monitoring databases easier thanks to new workspaces to help query plans and performance statistics, analyze schemas, and much more. With the aforementioned SQL Azure Federation, users can employ a new sharding pattern to easily manage and elastically scale out databases. Such functionality gives users essentially unlimited scale and simplified multi-tenancy for their cloud applications, as elastic database tiers can be set up easily that will repartition themselves based on an application’s needs. Speaking of needs, those for storage have now been accommodated by Microsoft with the announcement that they are tripling SQL Azure’s maximum database size from 50 GB all the way to 150 GB.
Another way in which Azure customers can benefit from the platform’s improved ease of use is through a risk-free trial, increased subscription flexibility, and better billing. Users can sign up for Azure’s free 90-day trial in just three easy steps to begin sampling all it has to offer. The issue of overage charges has been addressed with the implementation of spending caps for trial users and MSDN subscribers. Through the Windows Azure Management Portal, subscribers can change rate plans instantly and cancel subscriptions as needed. The portal also offers details on billing and usage with invoices and customizable reports. The Azure team said it plans to appease customers with multiple subscriptions in the near future by employing single day invoicing for added detail to eliminate confusion. Lastly, ease of use has been stressed with automatic MSDN detection to alert users of any free Azure benefits that come along with their MSDN subscription.
The meat and potatoes of Azure’s latest updates center on interoperability. Microsoft released the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js, which includes a host of Node.js libraries for Azure blob, table, and queue storage, plus Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js. Those seeking source code for Node.js client libraries can find it via GitHub. In addition, Microsoft added various tutorials and other content to the Windows Azure Node.js developer center to help those looking to get started.
A limited preview of Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Azure has also been released to give users a taste of running Hadoop projects on the Azure platform. Only a limited group of customers will receive access to the preview, and Microsoft is requesting details on specific Big Data scenarios as a part of its selection process. As its final piece of the Azure interoperability puzzle, Microsoft released multiple tools to facilitate Azure developers who work with OSS technologies. Some of the tools released cover the Eclipse/Java, MongoDB, Solr/Lucene, and Memcached technologies, as well as the aforementioned SQL Azure Federation.
The final significant area in which Azure has been upgraded through its latest updates is value. Microsoft instituted various pricing changes to give its customers the best value possible, and that begins with a price cap for exceptionally large SQL Azure databases to lower the effective cost per GB for users with such needs. The company announced that the maximum price per SQL Azure DB would be $499.95, effective immediately. This cap lets customers using databases of 50GB and up to expand even further without having to worry about additional expenses. To demonstrate the savings gained through the new cap, a customer opting for a 150 GB database will see a 67 percent decrease in their effective price per GB.
Microsoft continued its value-driven approach by also cutting Azure’s data transfer prices. Zone 1 customers in North America and Europe can now enjoy data transfers of $0.12 per GB, as opposed to $0.15 per GB. Likewise, Zone 2 customers in the Asia Pacific region will now be charged $0.19 per GB for data transfers, instead of $0.20 per GB. In response to customer feedback, Microsoft eliminated charging for Service Bus usage based on connections in favor of two new billing meters. Relay hours will incur a charge of $0.10 per 100, and message operations will be charged at a rate of $0.01 per 10,000. To help its customers slowly adapt to the changes, Service Bus will be available at no cost until March 31, 2012, and the new billing meters will be put into effect on April 1, 2012.
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