Manuvir Das: Introducing Windows Azure

Posted By: Charles | Oct 27th, 2008 @ 10:15 AM | 151,024 Views | 24 Comments

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Manuvir Das, Director in the Windows Azure team introduces us to Microsoft's new cloud operating system, Windows Azure. Is Windows Azure a new OS from Microsoft? Well, sort of, but not in a strict sense (e.g., Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008). That said, one could say that Windows Azure extends Windows to the cloud. That is, Windows Azure provides a highly scalable virtualization fabric for server-side application execution, deployment, automatic management, and simple storage. Windows Azure provides the base infrastructure for services in the cloud.

Tune in!

Check out the Windows Azure website. and Manuvir's A Lap Around Windows Azure breakout session from PDC 2008.

Tags: Cloud Architecture, Cloud Computing, Cloud Services, Windows Azure

Rating:

Horst0815
"Das Internet ist ein großer Misthaufen"

Your video is in some way better than the PDC keynote. Manuvir explains Azure better (less marketing blabla).

This is similar to Amazon's EC2. And it looks very intresting. I'm looking forward to find out how small organisation can use this.

Charles
Welcome Change

In reply to Horst0815

#Oct 27th, 2008 @ 10:35 AM

Thanks. I know I came away from the interview with a solid understanding of what, exactly, Windows Azure really is. Make sure you also check out the Steve Marx interview.

C

Dan

In reply to Horst0815

#Oct 27th, 2008 @ 10:35 AM

+1, these videos rock Smiley

vesuvius
War and Peace

I know that WCF and WF are based on .NET 2.0. Is Azure (the cloud Kernel) written in managed code?

If not just how much or what sections of it are not managed?

Eric Lin

It makes the programmable web a reality. let's start to get developer to write more and more reusable components on it.

aL_
Blend Behaviors rule

azure is pretty heavy stuff man Smiley

ive got a question though, its been posted elsewhere but i havent gotten a clear awnser.

i know that all the services and stuff in the ctp is hosted by microsoft. that is cool and all but my managers wont feel save putting allthe company data in the hands of someone else, they want to have it running on our server (or server cluster)

will i, at some point in azures future, be able to install it on my cluster? to have my own little cloud on a bunch on machines that i control? (putting aside the agument wether this is "the point" or not, for my company and many others, esp. oss buffs, thats a deal breaker)

staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

The downloads don't seem to work. The Save button goes to save and just vanishes. The Install, appears to do the download, but the installer never starts. {edit} Was my IE7. Closed all and restarted.

LiquidBoy
Silverlight

In my opinion the standout statement in that video went something like this, forgive me ill be paraphrasing a bit... "... Azure will do for the cloud what windows did for the desktop ..."

So true.. well done to everyone that was involved in this project!

cdwatkins

I really like how microsoft is setting up this Azure enviroment, where every application is compleatly scallable, and protected from any kind of hardware errors. What I would like to see though is an extention of the "developer" version of azure (the one used by visual studio), so that we can take azure applications, and run them on our machines using our bandwith. It would be a more "advanced" version as it requires a bit more provisioning, but it would all compleatly scallability from one single computer (like the developer version of azure that already exists), to an intranet behind a company firewall, and then out on the web hosted by someone like microsoft.

There are several reasons for this "corporate" version of azure. I know that you guys pay tons of money for your hardware and bandwith, and that cost will have to be passed on to us companies creating these services, while I can get much cheaper hardware and bandwith if i dont care as much about 24/7 service (not to mention all the support staff that you guys must have for this). The second reason is that not all data can be stored out on the cloud. Especialy very sensative data (credit card #'s, social security #'s, medical records, etc), where it just cant (for reasons of regulations or buiesness reasons) be hosted by someone else.

I dont care if azure takes over all the machines (ie no other OS running), and I would expect to pay a per machine (or cpu/core) cost (as well as a per machine cost for each of the machines that can use the extra services like sql services). But having a uniform way of provisioning a group of 10-100 servers, along with automatic duplication and failover on my own servers would be really nice.