Microsoft Visit – Day 3…Azure and the Windows Paradise

My last day at Microsoft was spent with Doug Hauger, general manager of Windows Azure. Doug

is responsible for bringing to market Microsoft’s cloud hosting strategy and platform. This includes product planning, product marketing, business model, and business development strategies. Previously, Doug was CIO for Microsoft India and held a variety of roles at Microsoft since 1999.

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft datacenters. It is a flexible platform that supports multiple languages and integrates with existing on-premises environment. To build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP.

The Windows Azure platform comprises the following:

• The Windows Azure Service, which hosts applications and stores application data.
• The SQL Azure Database, which hosts relational databases using Microsoft SQL Server technology and supports queries in T-SQL, the query language used by that server.
• The AppFabric Service Bus, which enables disconnected application components to exchange messages across organizational boundaries and is based on Microsoft’s Windows Communication Foundation technology.
• The AppFabric Access Control service, which simplifies authentication and authorization in applications composed of components located in multiple locations on the Internet.

Applications may use all of the services or any subset of them, and usage of each service is billed independently.

Windows Azure pricing is based on the elapsed time that each role instance runs and the compute resources for each instance. In the following sizes (all CPU cores are 1.6 GHz):

• Small, US$0.12/hr – one core, 1.75GB memory, 225GB storage
• Medium, US$0.24/hr – two cores, 3.5GB memory, 490GB storage
• Large, US$0.48/hr – four cores, 7GB memory, 1000GB storage
• Extra large, US$0.96/hr – eight cores, 14GB memory, 2040GB storag

Customers are also billed for Windows Azure storage space occupied (US$0.15 per GB/month), number of storage transactions performed (US$0.01 per 10,000 create, read, update, and delete operations), and input and output usage (US$0.10 per GB input, US$0.15 per GB output).

Needless to say, this is a very sophisticated platform that creates new business growth strategies and competitive positioning for Microsoft.

I have to admit, it was exciting watching the Azure group running through the halls of building 109. It reminds me of the excitement at Microsoft in the early 90’s when they were gobbling up Office share. You could feel a sense of urgency and passion for building something great. Given what Doug has been able to achieve in a relatively short period of time, I’m confident he will succeed.

Off to catch my red eye back to Atlanta. It was a great week in the Windows paradise.