WIndows Azure Starter Page

Intro

• Introducing the Windows Azure Platform
  Using computers in the cloud can make lots of sense. Rather than buying and maintaining your own machines, why not exploit the acres of internet-accessible servers on offer today? Learn about the Windows Azure platform in this white paper.
  
• Introducing Windows Azure
  Cloud computing is here. Running applications on machines in an Internet-accessible data center can bring plenty of advantages. Yet wherever they run, applications are built on some kind of platform. For on-premises applications, this platform usually includes an operating system, some way to store data, and perhaps more. Applications running in the cloud need a similar foundation. The goal of Microsoft's Windows Azure is to provide this. Part of the larger Windows Azure platform, Windows Azure is a platform for running Windows applications and storing data in the cloud.
  
• Windows Azure and ISVs – A Guide for Decision Makers
  Why should an independent software vendor (ISV) care about cloud computing? The answer is simple: Using the cloud has the potential to increase an ISV's revenues and/or decrease its costs. Running code and storing data on computers in large Internet-accessible data centers owned and operated by another organization can offer compelling advantages. If you are responsible for charting your course as an ISV, you'll want to consider how cloud computing can positively impact your business. This white paper explains how ISVs can benefit by using Windows Azure.
  
• Windows Azure Security Overview
  This document describes the array of security controls implemented within Windows Azure, so customers can evaluate if these capabilities and controls are suitable for their unique requirements.
  
• An Introduction to Windows Azure AppFabric for Developers
  This overview paper introduces the Services Bus and Access Control for the Windows Azure platform AppFabric and how they fit together.
  
• Overview of Microsoft SQL Azure
  Companies today are faced with ever-increasing amounts of data from numerous sources that need to be shared across a variety of devices. Meeting these needs requires constant investment in servers, operating systems, storage, and networking. Microsoft® SQL Azure Database, provides an improved way to respond to these challenges with enhanced manageability, scalability, and developer agility. This whitepaper provides an overview of the SQL Azure Database. It lays out the advantages for using a cloud-based relational database service, and also describes practical usage scenarios that help you understand how SQL Azure Database can be used to optimize business solutions.
  
• Getting Started with SQL Azure
  SQL Azure Database is a cloud based relational database service from Microsoft. SQL Azure provides relational database functionality as a utility service. Cloud-based database solutions such as SQL Azure can provide many benefits, including rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability, and reduced management overhead. This document provides guidelines on how to sign up for SQL Azure and how to get started creating SQL Azure servers and databases.
  
• Similarities and Differences - SQL Azure vs. SQL Server
  SQL Azure Database is a cloud database service from Microsoft. SQL Azure provides web-facing database functionality as a utility service. Cloud-based database solutions such as SQL Azure can provide many benefits, including rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability, and reduced management overhead. This paper provides an architectural overview of SQL Azure Database, and describes how you can use SQL Azure to augment your existing on-premises data infrastructure or as your complete database solution.
  
• Windows Azure Platform Storage: An Overview
  This whitepaper presents an overview of the Windows Azure and SQL Azure storage offerings, including a description of the different data types, available storage mechanisms, and a review of the different considerations between on-premises data and cloud-based data.
  
• Microsoft Codename "Dallas" – Whitepaper
  Microsoft Codename "Dallas" is a new cloud service that provides a global marketplace for information including data, web services, and analytics. This whitepaper provides an overview on key features, typical scenarios and the architectural layout.
  
• System Integrator Whitepaper
  This white paper describes how Microsoft® system integrator partners are using Windows Azure™, an Internet-scale cloud services platform that is hosted in Microsoft data centers, to develop applications and services that are quick to deploy, easy to manage, readily scalable, and competitively priced.
  
• Windows Azure Drive Whitepaper– Using a Durable Drive for your NTFS Cloud Applications
  Customers have told us that one of the challenges is taking their already running Windows applications and running them in the cloud while making sure their data is durable while using the standard Windows NTFS APIs. With Windows Azure Drive, your Windows Azure applications running in the cloud can use existing NTFS APIs to access a durable drive. This can significantly ease the migration of existing Windows applications to the cloud. The Windows Azure application can read from or write to a drive letter (e.g., X:\) that represents a durable NTFS volume for storing and accessing data. The durable drive is implemented as a Windows Azure Page Blob containing an NTFS-formatted Virtual Hard Drive (VHD). This paper describes what a Windows Azure Drive is and how to use it.

For developers, developers, developers

• Cloud Optimization – Expanding Capabilities, while Aligning Computing and Business Needs - A framework for making business decisions about cloud computing.
  Cloud computing now provides organizations with new ways to deploy and maintain enterprise applications— allowing for greater flexibility and reduced complexity. Fully understanding the range of potential cloud computing benefits requires a broad perspective that recognizes that real computing resource optimization aligns computing capabilities with business needs. So, in addition to uptime, organizations can now achieve agility, integration, scalability, accelerated deployment, better utilization, and transparent cost accounting.
  
• Windows Azure Table – Programming Table Storage
  Windows Azure Table provides scalable, available, and durable structured storage in the form of tables. The tables contain entities, and the entities contain properties. The tables are scalable to billions of entities and terabytes of data, and may be partitioned across thousands of servers. The tables support ACID transactions over single entities and rich queries over the entire table. Simple and familiar .NET and REST programming interfaces are provided via ADO.NET Data Services. This paper describes these concepts and the advanced features of Windows Azure Table.
  
• Windows Azure Blob – Programming Blob Storage
  Windows Azure Storage provides durable, scalable, available, and performance-efficient storage services for the cloud, and it does this through familiar and easy-to-use programming interfaces. Windows Azure Blob provides a simple interface for storing named files along with metadata for a file. This paper describes the Windows Azure Blob programming interface and the advanced blob concepts.
  
• Windows Azure Queue - Programming Queue Storage
  Windows Azure Storage provides durable, scalable, available, and performance-efficient storage services for the cloud, and it does this through familiar and easy-to-use programming interfaces. Windows Azure Queue provides reliable storage and delivery of messages for an application. This paper describes the Windows Azure Queue programming interface and the advanced queue concepts.
  
• A Developer's Guide to Access Control for the Windows Azure AppFabric
  This whitepaper shows developers how to use a claims-based identity model and Access Control to implement single sign-on, federated identity, and role based access control in Web applications and services.
  
• A Developer's Guide to Service Bus for the Windows Azure AppFabric
  This whitepaper shows developers how to use the Service Bus to provide a secure, standards-based messaging fabric to connect applications across the Internet.
  
• Security Best Practices For Developing Windows Azure Applications
  This paper focuses on the security challenges and recommended approaches to design and develop more secure applications for Microsoft's Windows Azure platform. Microsoft Security Engineering Center (MSEC) and Microsoft's Online Services Security & Compliance (OSSC) team have partnered with the Windows Azure team to build on the same security principles and processes that Microsoft has developed through years of experience managing security risks in traditional development and operating environments.
  
• Security Guidelines for SQL Azure
  SQL Azure Database is a cloud database service from Microsoft. SQL Azure provides Web-facing database functionality as a utility service. Cloud-based database solutions such as SQL Azure can provide many benefits, including rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability, and reduced management overhead. This document provides an overview of security guidelines for customers who connect to SQL Azure Database, and who build secure applications on SQL Azure.
  
• Developing and Deploying with SQL Azure
  SQL Azure Database is a cloud based relational database service from Microsoft. SQL Azure provides relational database functionality as a utility service. Cloud-based database solutions such as SQL Azure can provide many benefits, including rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability, and reduced management overhead. This document provides guidelines on how to deploy an existing on-premise SQL Server database into SQL Azure. It also discusses best practices related to data migration.
  
• Scaling out with SQL Azure
  SQL Azure Database is a cloud database service from Microsoft. SQL Azure provides Web-facing database functionality as a utility service. Cloud-based database solutions such as SQL Azure can provide many benefits, including rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability, and reduced management overhead. This paper provides an overview on some scale-out strategies, challenges with scaling out on-premise, and the benefits of scaling out with SQL Azure.
  
• Custom IIS Web/Microsoft SQL Server Application Migration Scenario
  Many organizations maintain applications that fit an IIS Web/Microsoft SQL Server architectural pattern. These applications frequently perform important functions and are particularly prevalent as internal or departmental applications. Due to their architecture, these applications tend to require few changes when migrated to Windows Azure, and for numerous other reasons, they often make excellent candidates for early migration. Since these applications tend to avoid high levels of complexity, they may be selected for Migration to Windows Azure as part of an overall application migration and may prove to be an excellent first step into the cloud for many organizations. Learn about migrating custom IIS Web/Microsoft SQL Server applications in this whitepaper.
  
• Custom E-Commerce (Elasticity Focus) Application Migration Scenario
  E-commerce applications that deal with uneven computing usage demands are frequently faced with difficult choices when it comes to growth. Maintaining sufficient capacity to expand offerings while continuing to support strong customer experiences can be prohibitively expensive—especially when demand is erratic and unpredictable. The Windows Azure Platform and Windows Azure Services can be used to help these organizations add computing resources on an as-needed basis to respond to uneven demand, and when it makes sense, these organizations can even implement programmatic system monitoring and parameters to help them achieve dynamic elasticity, which it is only possible when organizations become unconstrained by the costs and complexity of building out their on-premises computing infrastructure. While programmatic elasticity may be non-trivial to achieve, for certain organizations it can become a competitive advantage and a differentiating capability enabling faster growth, greater profitability, and improved customer satisfaction. Learn about migrating custom e-commerce (elasticity focus) applications in this whitepaper.
  
• Custom Web (Rapid Scaling Focus) Application Migration Scenario
  Organizations hosting custom web applications that serve extremely large numbers of users frequently need to scale very rapidly. These organizations may have little to no warning when website traffic spikes, and many organizations that have launched this type of custom application were unprepared for subsequent sudden popularity and explosive growth. For some organizations, their resources became overburdened, and their sites crashed; instead of riding a wave of positive publicity, their upward trajectory was halted, and they needed to repair their reputations and assuage angry customers and site visitors. The Windows Azure Platform and Windows Azure Services can help organizations facing these challenges achieve web application architecture that is both highly scalable and cost effective. Learn about migrating custom web (rapid scaling focus) applications in this whitepaper.

Original page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/whitepapers/