Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.
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When Windows Azure was first released in 2008 the only programming languages you could use were .NET languages such as Visual Basic and C# and the applications you built had to run in Partial Trust (Similar to ASP.NET Medium Trust).

In the interim we have made a number of changes including allowing applications to run in full trust, native code is now supported (no longer had to be managed code such as C#) and we support FastCGI applications. Which means:

  • Windows Azure supports the Internet Information Server (IIS) 7.0 FastCGI module, so that you can host web roles that require an interpreter, or that are written in native code.
  • You can host web roles and worker roles written in managed code under Windows Azure full trust. A role running under full trust can call .NET libraries requiring full trust, read the local server registry, and call native code libraries.
  • You can develop a service in native code and test and publish this service to Windows Azure. A role running native code can interact with the Windows Azure runtime by calling functions in the Microsoft Service Hosting Runtime Library.

As a result it is now possible to build applications for Windows Azure using languages such as Java, PhP and Ruby.  A couple of UK examples have popped up in the last few days.

PhP on Windows Azure

Last Saturday at the Open Space Coding Day on Azure,  Martin Beeby and another developer sat down to get PhP running on Azure. It turned out to be surprisingly straightforward to do.

Ruby on Rails on Windows Azure and SQL Azure

Last week Nick Hill in Microsoft UK Consulting Services posted on getting Ruby on Rails running on Azure after a customer engagement.

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