Microsoft adds its own entry to the list of vendors offering cloud computing platforms, including Amazon.com’s EC2 and Google’s App Engine. The broad initiative enables developers to use Visual Studio skills to create applications for Microsoft's cloud, which it calls Windows Azure. The strategy also taps Microsoft’s increasing data center capacity.LOS ANGELES—Microsoft has unveiled
its broad cloud strategy, formerly known internally as "Project Red
Dog," and now known as Windows Azure.
At the Microsoft Professional Developers
Conference (PDC), Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, announced
Windows Azure, the cloud-based service foundation underlying its Azure Services
Platform, and highlighted this platform’s role in delivering a software plus
services approach to computing.
Indeed, the Azure
Services Platform is an industry-leading move by Microsoft to help developers
build the next generation of applications that will span from the cloud to the
enterprise datacenter and deliver compelling new experiences across the PC, Web
and phone, Ozzie said. Microsoft also said developers can use the familiar
Microsoft Visual Studio tools to build applications for the Windows Azure
platform. Indeed, Visual Studio will have four new cloud templates to support
development of Windows Azure applications, Microsoft said.
And Amitab Srivastava, vice president of the Windows Azure
team, said developers need not deploy their applications to the cloud for
testing.
Read the rest of this article on eWEEK.com.
