Scalability, reliability and the ability to get access to new/updated features in a short time frame are just a few reasons why I’ve been a huge proponent of Cloud services when it comes to software development. One has to look no further than Windows Azure as there is certainly no shortage of new capabilities being introduced.

The Spring Release ushered in a whole host of new services and building on that there have been quite a few improvements to the Portal and most recently Mobile Services and the Marketplace. The following is a list of those enhancements:

Windows Azure Management Portal

  • Service Bus Management and Monitoring
  • Support for Managing Co-administrators
  • Import/Export support for SQL Databases
  • Virtual Machine Experience Enhancements
  • Improved Cloud Service Status Notifications
  • Media Services Monitoring Support
  • Storage Container Creation and Access Control Support

Windows Azure Mobile Services

  • Current iOS libraries added to the Mobile Services GitHub repo
  • Email services through partnership with SendGrid
  • SMS & voice services through partnership with Twilio
  • Facebook, Twitter, and Google user authentication
  • Access to Windows Azure Blob, Table, Queues, and ServiceBus from your Mobile Service
  • Deployment to the US-West data center

Windows Azure Marketplace

  • Improved Experience
  • New data sources
  • New apps

All of these improvements are now live in production and available to start using immediately. Visit the Windows Azure blog or Scott Guthrie’s blog for more information.