Windows azure--Comprehensive platform as a service instance

At a previous session of the PDC conference, Microsoft released a blueprint for the future development of the Windows Azure Cloud computing platform. Microsoft has a new way out of a simple infrastructure-servicing framework, developing Windows Azure as a platform service: a comprehensive development tool, service, and management system that meets developers ' own development of usable and scalable applications.

For the next 12-18 months, Microsoft will continue to offer more innovative features for users of Windows Azure platform. New features not only make it easier to migrate existing applications to the cloud, but also strengthen the services available to cloud-hosted applications.

Applications migrate to the cloud at many stages

Microsoft believes that the process of moving applications into the cloud is often divided into many stages. Initially, the application will continue to run without modification, which helps ease the burden of repair and maintenance, but does not take advantage of any cloud-specific functionality. Over time, the application will be updated and constantly modified, so that you can start to take advantage of the additional power that some Windows Azure platforms offer.

Microsoft is embedding Windows Azure in a very complete cloud computing platform. Windows Azure now needs a fairly high-end approach to cloud services: applications have limited access to the underlying operating system, and software that requires an administrator installation is not working properly. By the end of this year, Microsoft will be able to get Windows Azure to implement administrator-level access and Remote Desktop.

To be more compatible with existing applications, Microsoft will introduce a new virtual machine role. This will allow Windows Azure users to upload VHD virtual disks and run them in the cloud. Similarly, server application virtualization will allow server applications to deploy in the cloud without the need for the VHD to be rewritten and packaged. These features will be available at the end of this year's beta release. By next year, virtual machines will be built to allow virtual machines to be created in the cloud. Initially, the functionality of the virtual machine will only support Windows 2008 R2, and by 2011 it will be able to support Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft also offers a lot of cloud-conscious apps. Over the past year, SQL Azure, a cloud-based version of SQL Server, is already close to its traditional version: it will continue to introduce SQL Azure reporting to implement SQL Server reporting in the cloud. These will be seen at the end of the beta and 2011 final versions.

Microsoft will also introduce new building-block technologies, including a caching component (similar to a distributed caching system) and a signal bus (to make it more reliable to deliver information to and from other applications and mobile devices). A smaller and cheaper example of Windows Azure layer is also introduced, equivalent to Amazon's recently released EC2 microscopic example.

The services created by Microsoft for Windows Azure platform are perfect. Compared to Amazon's EC2 and Google's appengine,windows Azure will be a more complete platform: EC2 and app can only be comparable to a few bits and pieces of services (for example, EC2 on a custom virtual machine for the hosting of existing applications is very good), Rather than providing the same complete service.

Still, there are many areas to be improved. The billing system currently lacks the flexibility to consolidate existing Windows Azure billing for third parties. This means that a company must use its own monitoring and billing system if it wants to provide its users with a building block through a Windows Azure application. Windows Azure also has no built-in automation job management and scaling capabilities.

The Pixar animation studio has started developing a prototype version of Windows Azure for his RenderMan renderer. Traditionally, only the largest animation studios can touch RenderMan, because it requires huge hardware investments to build rendering farms. By introducing RenderMan into the cloud, smaller studios can also use RenderMan to render work without worrying about the maintenance of these systems. In this way, RenderMan can be sold as a service to anyone who needs a rendering function.

Windows Azure cannot handle work management or billing. In both cases, Pixar needs to develop its own equipment. Microsoft acknowledges that these are useful for many applications, but at the moment they are not part of the platform.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, once said Microsoft was "dedicated" to the cloud. Microsoft is really trying to make Windows Azure a better platform, and the promise of the cloud is beyond the Windows Azure team itself. In addition, Microsoft claims that, with a few exceptions, all new online application development uses Windows Azure, and that the existing online application migration plan will be implemented in nearly two years. Two notable exceptions are Hotmail and Bing, both of which already have their own set of proprietary server groups.

The original design and development idea for Windows Azure is to become an application-hosted internal platform. However, the company decided to turn it into a service that the third party enjoyed before it had a huge amount of internal usage. Now that the platform is maturing, those internal applications have started migrating. So this makes Windows Azure in a sense, in a way, opposed to EC2 and app. These two products are a means for Amazon and Google to make their infrastructure investments monetization.

With the advent of new features, Windows Azure will undoubtedly become a powerful and flexible cloud computing platform. Microsoft will be wary of the market, and his "dedicated" stance seems to represent this real cloud commitment. But whether such a commitment will be suitable for traditionally conservative businesses and developers, especially small and medium sized businesses, remains to be seen. The cloud migration represents a dramatic change in thinking, and the new Windows Azure feature does not mitigate widespread concerns such as runaway. It is this change of mindset, not any technical problem, that is the most widely accepted barrier to Windows Azure. Now, Microsoft's top priority is to overcome the problem.

Original name: The future of Microsoft Windows Azure:platform as a service author: Peter Bright