Latest Microsoft Blogs

I've been looking for ways to save money running my (now 12) websites in the cloud lately. Getting insights from logs has been helpful, but I really want more details as to what my app is doing so that I might do less of it. Remember the secret of scaling an application. Have your app do as little as possible. If you do nothing, you can scale infinitely. I like to use tools like Glimpse to profile my apps, check database calls, and explore what's really going on. If you like application insights you may be familiar with New Relic . They are a clever system that profiles apps of all kinds, including sites ASP.NET and Azure. I tweeted this afternoon for folks to hit my site and help me test New Relic. My lovely friends on Twitter promptly...

This morning we released the v2.0 update of the Windows Azure SDK for .NET. This is a major refresh of the Windows Azure SDK with some really great new features and enhancements.  These new capabilities include: Web Sites : Visual Studio Tooling updates for Publishing, Management, and for Diagnostics Cloud Services: Support for new high memory VM sizes, Faster Cloud Service publishing & Visual Studio Tooling for configuring and viewing diagnostics data Storage : Storage Client 2.0 is now included in new projects & Visual Studio Server Explorer now supports working with Storage Tables Service Bus : Updated client library with message pump programming model support, support for browsing messages, and auto-deleting idle messaging entities...

This morning we released some great enhancements to Windows Azure. These new capabilities include: Virtual Networks : New Point-to-Site Connectivity (very cool!), Software VPN Device and Dynamic DNS Support Virtual Machines: Remote PowerShell and Linux SSH provisioning enhancements Cloud Services : Enable Remote Desktop Support Dynamically on Web/Worker Roles Ruby SDK : A new Windows Azure SDK support for Ruby All of these improvements are now available to start using immediately (note: some services are still in preview). Below are more details on them: Virtual Networks: New Point-to-Site Connectivity and Software VPN Device support Last week we announced the general availability of Virtual Network support as part of our IaaS release. Virtual...

This Tuesday, April 23, we’ll be hosting Windows AzureConf – a free online event for and by the Windows Azure community.  It will be streamed online from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM PST via Channel 9 , and you can watch it all for free. I’ll be kicking off the event with a Windows Azure keynote in the morning (a great way to learn more about Windows Azure if you haven’t used it yet!). Following my talk the rest of the day will be full of excellent presentations from members of the Windows Azure community.  You can ask questions from them live and I think you’ll find the day an excellent way to learn more about Windows Azure – as well as hear directly from developers building solutions on it today. Last year’s Windows AzureConf was a great success...

This morning we announced the general availability release of our Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) support for Windows Azure – including our new Virtual Machine and Virtual Network capabilities.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production apps.  If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using it today. In addition to supporting all of the features and capabilities included during the preview, today’s IaaS release also includes some great new enhancements: New VM Image Templates (including SQL Server, BizTalk Server, and SharePoint images) New VM Sizes (including Larger Memory Machines) New...

On April 27, something very cool is happening. A bunch of Windows Azure MVP's and community activists are organizing a Global Windows Azure Bootcamp . This is a completely free, one-day training event for Windows Azure, all organized by the community, and presented in person all over the World. I’m not sure if this is the largest community event ever - it is very cool to see how many places this event is happening.  Below is the location map as it stands today – and new locations are being added daily. Right now there are almost 100 locations and several thousand attendees already registered to take part.  Browse the location listings to find a location near you. If you are interested in learning about Windows Azure or want more...

Today we released some great enhancements to Windows Azure. These new capabilities include: Active Directory : General Availability release of Windows Azure AD – it is now ready for production use! Backup Service : New Service that enables secure offsite backups of Windows Servers in the cloud Web Sites : Monitoring and Diagnostic Enhancements All of these improvements are now available to start using immediately (note: some services are still in preview). Below are more details on them: Active Directory: Announcing the General Availability release I’m excited to announce the General Availability (GA) release of Windows Azure Active Directory!  This means it is ready for production use. All Windows Azure customers can now easily create...

We launched the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure, powered by TechStars , to give early stage startups full access to Windows Azure and to help them succeed by connecting each company to leading technical and business mentors . I’m happy to share that the new spring 2013 class features a healthy mix of exciting solutions and an impressive list of founders whose feedback will directly inform future Windows Azure releases. Today, the ten new teams in the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure , powered by TechStars , moved into their South Lake Union office space. This spring’s Windows Azure class includes: 1Track — Bellevue, WA . 1Track enhances the consumer in-store shopping experience and drives sales for retailers. Airpost.io — Toronto...

Today we released a number of great enhancements to Windows Azure. These new capabilities include: Mobile Services : HTML5/JS (CORS) Client + PhoneGap + Windows Phone 7.5 + .NET Portable Library support Web Sites : Mercurial Source Control + DropBox Deployment support HDInsight : New service that enables you to easily deploy and manage Hadoop Clusters on Azure All of these improvements are now available to start using immediately (note: some services are still in preview). Below are more details on them: Mobile Services: HTML5/JS Client (CORS), PhoneGap, Windows Phone 7.5 Today we are adding support to enable pure HTML5/JS clients (and PhoneGap apps) as well as Windows Phone 7.5 clients to use Windows Azure Mobile Services as a backend. ...

This past weekend we released a number of enhancements to Windows Azure. These new capabilities include: Mobile Services: Android support, East Asia Region Support, iOS dev content SQL Reporting Services: Support in the management portal Active Directory: Support in the azure management portal, user and domain management Availability Monitoring for Cloud Services. Virtual Machines, Web Sites, and Mobile Services Service Bus: New configuration tab and metrics Storage: Ability to download blobs directly in management portal Media Services: New monitoring metrics and quickstart experience Cloud Services: Support for .cer certificate files upload Localization support for five new languages Windows Azure Store Support in 22 Additional Countries All...