Microsoft is
making it easier for developers to start building applications for the cloud by
providing a new offer that enables developers to tap into the power of
Microsoft’s Windows Azure
cloud platform.
As part of its
strategy, Microsoft is offering developers a free trial of the Windows
Azure platform, which is valid till June 30, 2011. This promotion, available as
of Feb. 22, includes 750 hours of Windows Azure Extra Small Compute instance
use, 25 hours of Small Compute instance, 500MB of storage, 10,000 storage transactions
per month, 100,000 access control transactions and two service bus connections.
Microsoft also is providing users with a 1GB Web Edition of the SQL Azure
Database (free for the first 90-days), as well as free data transfers — 500MB in
and 500MB out per month, said Prashant Ketkar, director of product marketing
for Windows Azure.
Windows Azure
compute instances come in five sizes to enable complex applications and
workloads: extra small, small, medium, large and extra large, and they range in
size from 20GB of storage for the extra small instance to 2,040GB for the extra
large instance. Microsoft introduced the extra small Windows Azure instance to
make the process of development, testing and trial easier for enterprise
developers. The extra small instance will also make Windows Azure more
affordable for developers interested in running smaller applications on the platform,
the company said.
For more, read the eWeek article: Microsoft Simplifies Development on Windows Azure Cloud.
