Windows Azure Is GA
The cloud services rollout at Microsoft continues this month as Service Level Agreements and actual billing goes into effect for paying customers of Windows Azure and SQL Azure.
The Windows Azure team announced today on its blog:
"As a number of time zones apply to our customers and partners worldwide, Microsoft will begin charging for Windows Azure and SQL Azure starting at 12:00 AM February 2, 2010 GMT to ensure that customers and partners are not charged for their free usage in the month of January."
The billing metrics for Windows Azure and SQL Azure start at midnight but some services remain free for paid subscribers until April, according to the blog:
"The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus and Access Control will continue to be free until April 2010 for those that sign up for a commercial subscription."
The Windows Azure and SQL Azure services are available in 21 countries, with an expanded rollout planned for later this year.
Microsoft is also warning developers who do not plan to upgrade to paid accounts to export their data in the coming weeks. Starting today, Windows Azure CTP users who have not upgraded to commercial accounts will have their accounts disabled and read only access to Windows Azure Storage, according to Microsoft. Accounts that have not been upgraded by April 1, 2010 will be deleted.
SQL Azure CTP users can continue to use their existing databases but accounts that are not upgraded to paid subscriptions will be deleted on March 1, 2010, according to Microsoft.
Azure support beyond .NET is also ramping up. Last week, Zend Technologies released an upgrade to its Zend Framework that integrates the PHP SDK for Windows Azure, developed by Belgium company RealDolmen and funded by Microsoft. RealDolmen submitted the technology to Zend last July for approval.
The new Zend_Service_WindowsAzure component allows developers to call Windows Azure Storage (BLOBs, queues and tables) from their PHP applications. An IIS FastCGI Web role is supported in Windows Azure, enabling access to the Microsoft cloud from PHP and other third-party programming languages. The latest Zend Framework v1.10 also adds support for the Deutsche Telekom Developer Garden platform.
Express your views on the commercialization of Microsoft's cloud. Is the technology ready to go live? Are you? Comment below or drop me a line at krichards@1105media.com.
Posted by Kathleen Richards on 02/01/2010 at 12:02 PM