Windows Azure's first introduction to Web site features improved

I am excited to announce some improvements to the features of the Windows http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13357.html ">azure Web site that we introduced for the first time this summer."

Today's improvements include a new low-cost shared-mode scaling option that supports sharing with CNAME and A-record (which enables bare-domain) as well as custom fields for reserving mode Web sites, through continuous deployment support using CodePlex and GitHub and fastcgi extensibility. All of these improvements are now in the product and can be used immediately.

New Shared zoom Layer

Windows Azure allows you to deploy and host up to 10 Web sites in a free, shared/multiple rented hosting environment. With this free sharing model, you can start developing and testing your Web site without any cost, and it supports the ability to run a Web site that has a daily content of up to 165 MB (5 GB months). All of the free layer features we introduced in June are the same as today's updates.

Starting with today's release, using a new low-cost sharing option (which we are introducing today), and using a "reservation instance" option (which we have supported since June), you can now flex your Web site beyond this functionality. Expanding into one of these patterns is very simple. Simply click the Scale tab of the Windows Azure portal, select the zoom option you want to use, and then tap the Save button. The changes can be applied in just a few seconds, and no code needs to be changed or the application should be redeployed:

Here are some more details about the new sharing options and the existing reservation options:

Shared mode

In today's release, we are introducing a new low-cost "share" scaling model for the Windows Azure Web site. Web sites that run in shared mode are deployed in shared/multiple leased hosting environments. However, unlike the free layer, Web sites in shared mode do not have quotas/caps around the bandwidth in which they can provide services. The first 5 GB of bandwidth you get for a shared Web site each month is free and then exceeds 5 GB of bandwidth, and you need to pay the standard fee "pay as you Go".

Now, with CNAME and A-record, Web sites running in shared mode also support mapping multiple, custom DNS domain names. The new A-record support feature, introduced with today's release, can provide you and your Web site with "Bare domains" (for example, http://microsoft.com other than http://www.microsoft.com). We will also enable SNI based SSL as a built-in feature of the shared-mode Web site in the future (today's release does not support this feature-but it will be added to the share and reservation layer later this year).

When you pay for shared-mode web-site, you use the standard "pay as Go" mode, and our other features in Windows Azure support this mode (which means that there is no upfront cost and you only have to pay for the time you enable the feature). A Web site that runs in shared mode can only be 1.3 cents per hour during the preview (so an average of 9.36 dollars/month).

Instance mode of reservation

In addition to running Web sites in shared mode, we also support extending them to run in the mode of a reserved instance. When running in a reserved instance mode, your site is guaranteed to run in isolation in your own small, medium, or large virtual machine (meaning no other customers are running in it). You can run any number of Web sites in a single virtual machine, and there are no CPU quotas or memory limits.

You can run your site on a single reservation instance virtual machine, and you can expand to have multiple instances to run the site (such as 2 medium-sized virtual machines, and so on). Scaling up or down is simple-simply select the reserve instance virtual machine on the Scale tab on the Windows Azure Portal, select the size of the virtual machine you want, the number of instances you want to run, and then click Save. Changes take effect in seconds:

Unlike shared mode, when running in reserved mode, it is not a one-site charge. Instead, you pay only for the reserved instance virtual machines that you use--and you can run any number of Web sites in it without the extra cost (for example, you can run a single site or 100 Web sites in the reservation instance VM, and they'll cost the same). For small reserved virtual machines, it costs only 8 cents/hour to reserve an instance virtual machine.