Chapter 2. Understanding Windows Azure Platform Architecture
The Windows Azure Platform is Microsoft's Windows Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that runs on servers and related network infrastructure located in Microsoft data centers and is connected to the public Internet. The platform consists of a highly scalable (elastic) cloud operating system, data storage fabric and related services delivered by physical or logical (virtualized) Windows Server 2008 instances. The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) provides a development version of the cloud-based services, as well as the tools and APIs needed to develop, deploy, and manage scalable services in Windows Azure, including Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 templates for a standardized set of Azure applications. Figure 2-1 illustrates the platform's primary cloud and developer components.
According to Microsoft, the primary uses for Azure are to
Add web service capabilities to existing packaged applications
Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources
Perform services, such as large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or high-volume computations, and so on, off premises
Create, test, debug, and distribute web services quickly and inexpensively
Reduce costs and risks of building and extending on-premises resources
Reduce the effort and costs of IT management
Figure 2.1. Components ...
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