Windows Azure: IT's New Best Friend

A major revamp of Windows Azure provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities with virtual machine portability, so you can move a workload from your own private cloud to a service provider without changing existing code.

 

Editor's Note: Your Datacenter without Boundaries

With the Windows Azure 90-day free trial, Microsoft has made it very easy to see your own potential for moving to the cloud.

 

Windows Azure for the IT Pro

In his blog post, Bob Hunt notes that Microsoft has primarily marketed Windows Azure to developers. But that has changed.

 

Evaluation Resources

Try Windows Azure Free for 90 Days

Your free trial includes 750 small compute hours per month, 10 web sites, 10 mobile services, 1 SQL database, 35GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions, unlimited inbound bandwidth and 20GB outbound. Download the trial and check out these resources to help with your evaluation:

 

Windows Azure Hands-on Labs Online

Hands -on Labs Online (HOLOs) are online events where you listen to a live presentation and work on lab exercises. As you work on your labs, Microsoft experts can assist and provide guidance by chatting with you one-on-one or by virtually taking control of your lab. Check out these labs in particular:

 

In-Depth Guidance

TechNet Magazine: Build the Next-Generation Cloud Solutions

The efforts to build sophisticated cloud solutions to serve specialized needs are often complicated by inflexible workflows.

 

MSDN Magazine: Running Any Workload at Scale

Bruno Terkaly never thought he would write a how-to article about Linux while working at Microsoft. But that adage “never say never” has proven true, and as suddently he's letting you know that running cloud and Linux-based workloads offers some powerful capabilities.

 

Whitepaper: SharePoint Deployment on Windows Azure Virtual Machines

This paper provides guidance about the benefits of Windows Azure Virtual Machines and explains how to deploy SharePoint Server 2010 on Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

 

Windows Server 2012: The New Era of IT

Windows Server 2012 is the software that brings to life the recent innovations in cloud computing, memory, storage, devices and data, while improving management and efficiency.

 

System Center 2012: Private Cloud Ready

System Center 2012 is now available as the most cost effective and flexible platform for managing your traditional datacenters, private and public clouds, and client computers and devices.

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