Services Based Hosting – NOT Platform-As-A-Service Services are accessed via Web standard protocols (HTTP/S, Rest, Atom, etc.)

Compute Hosting Load Balanced .NET Web Applications or .NET Web Services (WCF) Agent provides programmatic access to Fabric Services Applications built in Visual Studio 2008 and published using application manifest XML which can include instance, scaling, and

performance directives

Storage Hosting Data storage specification by data type

BLOB = Files, images, binary objects Table = Relational data accessed via LINQ Queues = Message based storage

Fabric Controller allows for application scaling, reliability, and geographic location Applications hosted in multiple VMs, across multiple physical servers, and across multiple data centers Services can be upgraded in-life without a loss of service

Consumption based cost model Compute time, measured in machine hours Bandwidth requirements (transmissions to and from

the Azure data center), measured in GB Storage, measured in GB Transactions, measured as application requests

such as Gets and Puts Customers will have option to pay upfront for usage, post-

pay, or to reserve capacity. ISV Partners will be able to sell Azure Services as

part of their own licensing and pricing model.

October, 2008 - Community Technology Preview No charge for developers during CTP Consumption limited Number of projects limited

??? - Beta 1 ??? - Beta 2 H2 2009 - General Release

Based on Microsoft’s usual release cycle this will most likely mean limited availability through standard developer channels such as MSDN with formal launch in Q1 of 2010

May be tied to Visual Studio 2010 release

Live Services are a set of web services within the Azure Services Platform for building applications

Platform Independent Use Web standard protocols such as HTTP/S, Rest, Atom Pub Provide SDKs for .NET, Java, and Ruby Can be used from any device

Exposes Service Endpoints Indirectly in the Cloud Users can access a global hierarchical namespace that is DNS- and transport- independent

i.e. http://btpartnerservices.servicebus.windows.net/ISVChannel/AccountManagement Services can be located through a stable, Internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location.

Offers Multiple Connection Options One-way messaging between sender and listener supports unicast and multicast datagram distribution Full-duplex connection-oriented sessions between sender and listener support bi-directional

communication Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer sessions with network-boundary traversal create direct

end-to-end connectivity through NAT Supports Publish and Subscribe for Multicasting

The simple publish/subscribe model lets multiple publishers and multiple subscribers simultaneously use the service’s topic management and event distribution system

Componentized Workflow Activities Activities hosted in the cloud platform can receive and send message as well as perform XML

inspection Microsoft .NET Framework activities can be created for control flow

Visual Workflow Creation via Visual Studio Workflow Management

Tools and APIs allow for deployment, management, and tracking of running workflow instances Scalability managed in the Cloud

Transparent scalability of the service’s underlying components and automatic distribution of loads between hosts

Can integrate directly with other .NET Services

Federated Identity and Access Control Access Control Service can federate with third-party Secure Token services to support processing identities from existing systems or from

external organizations. Issuer trust can be set up with a simple Web interface or programmatically through APIs The service directly supports Active Directory and other identity infrastructures Service Bus endpoints can be secured with a Web interface or programmatically, based on Access Control Service rules

Flexible, Standards-Based Service Multiple Credentials

Windows Live Ids X.509 certificates Traditional user names and passwords Managed card and personal cards

Standard Web Protocols, WS-*/REST Multiple "Relying Parties“

Applications that run both inside and outside organizational boundaries can rely on the service Data and connectivity services can use the Access Control Service to validate application and user requests

Built on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Relational database queries like select, joins, Top, OrderBy Blobs and standard data types are supported Full text search will be supported Future support for aggregates, distributed queries, schemas, projections, relationships and other

relational database capabilities Accessed via Web Standards (HTTP/REST)

Example: https://<authority-id>.data.database.windows.net/v1/<container-id>?q='from e in entities where e.Kind=="MyKind" select e'

New Data Model Authority

Directly relates to a single physical data center Can be geographically locked Holds a collection of containers

Container Can hold any objects (Entities), not just tables/rows Largest possible scope for search and update

Entity A single object that represents a set of user-defined properties All operations work on the Entity as a whole, no direct property level change

Currently in Technology Preview No defined business model No defined licensing or pricing

Interoperable Services Web Standards Based (HTTP/REST) Device and programming language independent

Core framework that many of the Live applications are built upon

Windows Live Messenger Windows Spaces

Most services available for use now Licensing for each service varies but the

average is up to 1 million users does not require licensing

Provides synchronization services across any device Storage (online and offline) Membership Synchronization P2P Comms Newsfeed

Platform independent Uses Web Standards (HTTP/REST/Atom/RSS)

Custom client for accessing Mesh Services File synchronization Remote Access

Windows and Non-Windows clients Windows XP/Vista Mac OSX Windows Mobile

Base for other Mesh enabled applications