Microsoft's Azure is not Hailstorm, but what's the laptop battery Microsoft's Azure is not Hailstorm, but what's the laptop batteryMicrosoft has made its Azure cloud computing announcements at PDC, Compaq Laptop Battery ,so now we know what it's doing: it is extending Windows 2008 Server into the online market so that programmers who develop applications in Visual Studio (and other things, see below) can test them locally and deploy them globally. Azure runs the same code but uses a hypervisor to distribute it across multiple machines and, next year, multiple data centres on different continents. Application management is automatic. It's not clear how you'll pay for it, but there will be some form of pay-by-use based on processor time, disk storage and bandwidth.One of the questions that inevitably came up was whether EVO N400c, Presario 900,EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500 Azure was just Hailstorm revisited. See, for example, Ina Fried's Azure manages to avoid a Hailstorm of criticism, and Mary-Jo Foley's Ozzie responds: Is Microsoft Azure just 'Hailstorm' revisited?Hailstorm was the codename of Microsoft's last attempt at cloud computing, which was based on its .Net programming platform, but it was based on using Microsoft services (such as Passport for identity management) rather than Microsoft servers.The .net framework has been a success, but in 2001, world+dog threw a wobbly at the whole idea of relying on Microsoft services. Also,Presario 1700, hosted applications such as Microsoft Office -- which was available over the net -- didn't get any traction. But Azure is a different proposition. As Ray Ozzie tells Mary-Jo:"In that era (Microsoft) believed in pure centralization in 'true integrated storage,' the middle. My DNA tells me — and you can see this in my past and what I've done before — that it's a world of decentralization and that you synchronize the truth amongst many things, both in the center and at the edge on the devices where you need them. So, that's very architectural different." Whether Azure is actually any good is another matter, but it does take the cloud computing idea into distributed and multitenant applications.Armada E500 As Microsoft says:The fundamental assumption in Windows Azure is that there is no single point of failure. No computer by going down will take down your application. If your app is not written in that way ... then fundamentally the application pattern does have to change. Dion Almaer, one of the Google Gears developers who went to the show (but who is not speaking for Google, of course), blogged:Everything that was announced we pretty much knew was happening. EVO N400c, EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500 From the cloud, to the Web (Silverlight 2 / IE 8), and beyond. But, even though we knew about this, I don't know if we thought they were this far along. Microsoft is executing.He concludes:If you are a Microsoft developer you are probably very happy at Ray Ozzie's coming out party. Others on the fence may be interested. For those of us who worry about handing Microsoft control of the browser, plugins to other browsers, the cloud, the server model, and more…. I won't lie to you. I am cautiously observing. Silverlight adoption worries me. We can't fight Microsoft with "don't choose them, remember what they did to you before?" Fear is lame. Instead, FRU 92P1121 ,this is a wake up call to Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, IBM, Sun, [insert other developer / platform players] to get kicking. We can't just be Open, we have to be better! When it comes to being open, Microsoft will argue that Azure is open. 40Y6793, FRU 92P1125, FRU 92P1121 Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio aren't open, of course, though having them in the cloud is a major attraction for companies that already use them. However, as Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, points out, developers "will also be able to choose from a range of open source development tools and technologies, and be able to access Azure services using a variety of common internet standards, including FRU 92P1125,HTTP, REST, WS* and Atom."The Azure platform's goal is to support all developers and their choice of IDE, language EVO N400c, EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500and technology. We are also providing programmable components that can be consumed by other applications, and Microsoft is funding and sponsoring open source software development kits to enable Java and Ruby developers to take advantage of Azure. This is significant as this is the first time we are delivering cross-platform software development kits at40Y6793, FRU 92P1125, FRU 92P1121 the same time as Microsoft Developer Network software development kits. One key thing for Microsoft is that it already hosts a vast amount of "cloud computing" through services such as Hotmail, Live Search, Live ID (formerly Passport), MSN, Spaces, SkyDrive, BizTalk, Windows Live, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500Office Live,40Y6793, CRM and so on -- probably including Windows Update. Like Google, it is already big on the web. Microsoft has a huge incentive to make Azure work well in order to support its own 160 or so services. And if it can do that, it could offer Azure services to the rest of the world at marginal prices, which is essentially what Amazon does now.

Microsoft's Azure is not Hailstorm, but what's the laptop battery

Microsoft has made its Azure cloud computing announcements at PDC, Compaq Laptop Battery

,
so now we know what it's doing: it is extending Windows 2008 Server into the online market so that programmers who develop applications in Visual Studio (and other things, see below) can test them locally and deploy them globally. Azure runs the same code but uses a hypervisor to distribute it across multiple machines and, next year, multiple data centres on different continents. Application management is automatic. It's not clear how you'll pay for it, but there will be some form of pay-by-use based on processor time, disk storage and bandwidth.

One of the questions that inevitably came up was whether EVO N400c, Presario 900,EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500
Azure was just Hailstorm revisited. See, for example, Ina Fried's Azure manages to avoid a Hailstorm of criticism, and Mary-Jo Foley's Ozzie responds: Is Microsoft Azure just 'Hailstorm' revisited?

Hailstorm was the codename of Microsoft's last attempt at cloud computing, which was based on its .Net programming platform, but it was based on using Microsoft services (such as Passport for identity management) rather than Microsoft servers.

The .net framework has been a success, but in 2001, world+dog threw a wobbly at the whole idea of relying on Microsoft services. Also,Presario 1700, hosted applications such as Microsoft Office -- which was available over the net -- didn't get any traction. But Azure is a different proposition. As Ray Ozzie tells Mary-Jo:

"In that era (Microsoft) believed in pure centralization in 'true integrated storage,' the middle. My DNA tells me — and you can see this in my past and what I've done before — that it's a world of decentralization and that you synchronize the truth amongst many things, both in the center and at the edge on the devices where you need them. So, that's very architectural different."

Whether Azure is actually any good is another matter, but it does take the cloud computing idea into distributed and multitenant applications.Armada E500 As Microsoft says:

The fundamental assumption in Windows Azure is that there is no single point of failure. No computer by going down will take down your application. If your app is not written in that way ... then fundamentally the application pattern does have to change.

Dion Almaer, one of the Google Gears developers who went to the show (but who is not speaking for Google, of course), blogged:

Everything that was announced we pretty much knew was happening. EVO N400c, EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500
From the cloud, to the Web (Silverlight 2 / IE 8), and beyond. But, even though we knew about this, I don't know if we thought they were this far along. Microsoft is executing.

He concludes:

If you are a Microsoft developer you are probably very happy at Ray Ozzie's coming out party. Others on the fence may be interested. For those of us who worry about handing Microsoft control of the browser, plugins to other browsers, the cloud, the server model, and more…. I won't lie to you. I am cautiously observing. Silverlight adoption worries me.

We can't fight Microsoft with "don't choose them, remember what they did to you before?" Fear is lame. Instead, FRU 92P1121 ,this is a wake up call to Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, IBM, Sun, [insert other developer / platform players] to get kicking.

We can't just be Open, we have to be better!

When it comes to being open, Microsoft will argue that Azure is open. 40Y6793, FRU 92P1125, FRU 92P1121
Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio aren't open, of course, though having them in the cloud is a major attraction for companies that already use them. However, as Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, points out, developers "will also be able to choose from a range of open source development tools and technologies, and be able to access Azure services using a variety of common internet standards, including FRU 92P1125,HTTP, REST, WS* and Atom."

The Azure platform's goal is to support all developers and their choice of IDE, language EVO N400c, EVO N410c, EVO N600C, EVO N610C, EVO N620C, Presario 1200, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500
and technology. We are also providing programmable components that can be consumed by other applications, and Microsoft is funding and sponsoring open source software development kits to enable Java and Ruby developers to take advantage of Azure.

This is significant as this is the first time we are delivering cross-platform software development kits at40Y6793, FRU 92P1125, FRU 92P1121
the same time as Microsoft Developer Network software development kits.

One key thing for Microsoft is that it already hosts a vast amount of "cloud computing" through services such as Hotmail, Live Search, Live ID (formerly Passport), MSN, Spaces, SkyDrive, BizTalk, Windows Live, Presario 1800, 116314-001, Presario 700, Presario 900, Presario 1700, Presario X1000, Armada E500
Office Live,40Y6793, CRM and so on -- probably including Windows Update. Like Google, it is already big on the web. Microsoft has a huge incentive to make Azure work well in order to support its own 160 or so services. And if it can do that, it could offer Azure services to the rest of the world at marginal prices, which is essentially what Amazon does now.