Damir Dobric Posts » Windows Azure Offers

Windows Azure Offers

Damir Dobric Posts

Tags

View more

Next talks:

 

    

Follow me on Twitter: #ddobric



 

 

Archives

Syndication

Offers for Windows Azure include offers for MSDN and Partners too. So I decided to provide few links to Azure-offerings, which I personally find very complicate. If anybody of Microsoft decision makers is reading this, here is one very simple example how Google does this.

”One of the first questions from most developers will be: What’s the cost? Sign up is free and so is running your app as long as stay under quotas 500MB of storage, 200 million megacycles/day of CPU, and 10GB of total bandwidth. Google estimates this means there will be no cost for up to approximately 5 million pageviews a month. Once this initial preview period is over Google will introduce a billing model for additional resources at competitive market prices.”
(http://blog.programmableweb.com/2008/04/08/google-app-engine-your-apps-in-the-cloud/)

Now, after you are done with this very simple Google offer read following Microsoft offer(s)…

Windows Azure Platform Benefits for MSDN Subscribers

The Windows Azure Platform is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The platform provides a range of functionality to build applications from consumer web to enterprise scenarios. MSDN subscribers can take advantage of this platform at no extra charge to build and deploy their applications.

Introductory 8-month Offer Available Today for 1264$ (only)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ee461076.aspx

Windows Azure Platform Offers for Microsoft Partners

This is a special offer for members of the Microsoft Partner Network that requires no minimum fee.  You pay only for what you use of compute hours, storage, data transfers, SQL Azure databases, Access Control transactions and Service Bus connections.

https://partner.microsoft.com/40118760

 

For all:


http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/

 

Windows Azure Platform Offer Comparison Table

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/popup.aspx?lang=en&locale=en-US&offer=COMPARE

 

It might be that I didn’t invest enough time to understand all of these offers, but I feel confused. As developer I expected for developers free of charge with some limitations. Is that really the right way to help Microsoft partners and other developers to leverage the cloud platform?

Posted May 02 2010, 12:08 AM by Damir Dobric

Comments

ToddySM wrote re: Windows Azure Offers
on 05-06-2010 8:52

Hi Damir,

I work on Windows Azure Platform and have to agree that the offers can be confusing. But we are working to simplify those, and make them more understandable and clear.

On your question which one developers can use - the MSDN and Introductory Special ones are targeted to people who would like to try out the platform.

In addition we provide fully functional simulation environment that can be used for development and testing. It runs on your local machine, and it is free of charge.

I hope this help a little to clear the confusion.

Toddy

Damir Dobric wrote re: Windows Azure Offers
on 05-08-2010 14:38

Hi Toddy,

the fact that you are thinking to simplify it, gives me i peace of hope :)

The MSDN Intro offer sounds almost good. We, partners have a problem with that offer, because it is time limited.

Few weeks ago all my test project have been canceled, just because I didn't have a time or didn't want to subscribe any of actual offers.

The same will happen when MSDN Intro offer ends up in few months.

Andreas Erben wrote re: Windows Azure Offers
on 05-08-2010 19:02

Only that it is in fact not exactly the same.

I have read enough postings about how their local environment behaves differently - it might work for many or most people, but it seems it does not work for all. Typically "why is this working in my local simulation environment and not when I deploy it..."

Also if you want to simulate a more complex application... it is not just an isolated Azure 'hosted' application but includes connectivity to on-premises services, it includes mixed-onsite-offsite-storage models (where data needs to be pulled/pushed/sychnronized with local storages), it includes testing the User Experience regarding responsiveness/lags... and much more.

I strongly recommend to have a really free 'online' Azure development environment with a different SLA and potentially measures to restrict abuse for live-purposes.

ToddySM wrote re: Windows Azure Offers
on 05-12-2010 7:04

@Damir and Andreas: You are not the only ones who gave us this feedback :) As you can see from www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com those two are the highest ranked requests. However I will leave it to our business team to decide when and in what form will this come.

@Andreas: The main differences between the local environment and the cloud is that you run as administrator on your local machine, which gives you much more freedom to install and run applications. However running as administrator in the cloud is not the right thing to do from security point of you. This is one more thing that we received as feedback and looking to improve in the future.

Damir Dobric wrote re: Windows Azure Offers
on 12-25-2010 23:05

Ne offers for partners: msdn.microsoft.com/.../ee461076.aspx

developers.de is a .Net Community Blog powered by daenet GmbH.