Editor's Note: This post comes from Karthika Raman , Senior Technical Writer, Microsoft Data Platform team. With the release of Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets in November 2012, several PowerShell cmdlets were added for Windows Azure SQL Database...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Nathan Totten , Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure. Today, we are launching a new landing page on Channel 9 for developers to find videos, event recordings, and shows about Windows Azure. This page brings...

This winter, the Windows Azure AD team will launch a new sign-in experience across Office 365, Windows Azure and other Microsoft services used by organizations around the world. Our redesign goals were to create a simple experience that’s optimized...

It has been just a few weeks since Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. announced the availability of VM Depot - the community-driven catalog of open source virtual machine images. Since then, the community has been participating in this new and open approach...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Mark Brown , Windows Azure Community Manager. Welcome to the newest edition of our weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure. Here is...

We are very pleased to announce that we are lowering the price of Windows Azure SQL Reporting by up to 82%! The price change is effective today and is applicable to everyone currently using the service as well as new customers. To ensure the service...

Curious about the differences in approaching performance and scalability in SQL Server vs. Windows Azure SQL Database (formerly SQL Azure)? Check out this new paper that brings together insights from the Microsoft SQL Engineering and Customer Advisory...

Voting and elections. When you first think of election “technology,” you probably picture curtained booths with mechanical levers, or paper ballots and pencils. If that’s what first comes to mind, keep thinking because in this last...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Avilay Parekh , Windows Azure Senior Program Manager. Say you have a Windows Azure Cloud Service built with the June 2012 SDK, using .NET 4.0, and OS family 1 or 2. You want to update this to use .NET 4.5 and consequently...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Nick Harris , Imagine Cup Windows Azure Challenge Captain. Windows Azure is a suite of powerful cloud services that can help your app projects in a variety of ways. If your Imagine Cup team is thinking about exploring...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Mark Brown , Windows Azure Community Manager. Welcome to the newest edition of our weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure. Here is...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Robert Hutchison, Program Manager, SQL Server. Hello everyone, today I wanted to let you know about some improvements we have made to the SQL SysPrep support in SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2. These improvements will allow...

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Guy Bowerman and Karthika Raman from the Microsoft Data Platform team. SQL Server 2012 SP1 Cumulative Update 2 includes enhancements to SQL Server native backup that simplifies backup and restore...

During the BUILD 2012 conference we announced a new capability of Windows Azure: the Windows Azure Store . The Windows Azure Store makes it incredibly easy for you to discover, purchase, and provision premium add-on services, provided by our partners...

Today we released a number of great enhancements to Windows Azure. Yesterday I blogged about the general availability (GA) release of Windows Azure Media Services. Windows Azure Media Services provides everything you need to quickly build great, extremely...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Mark Brown , Windows Azure Community Manager. Welcome to the newest edition of our weekly roundup of the latest community-driven news, content and conversations about cloud computing and Windows Azure. Here is...

Editor's Note: This post was co-written by Madhan Arumugam and Guy Bowerman from the SQL Server Cloud Infrastructure Team. Introduction Windows Azure gives you a choice in where to host your SQL data, with both SQL Server running in a VM (henceforth...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Nathan Totten , Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure. Today, we are launching a new landing page on Channel 9 for developers to find videos, event recordings, and shows about Windows Azure. This page brings...

We are very pleased to announce that we are lowering the price of Windows Azure SQL Reporting by up to 82%! The price change is effective today and is applicable to everyone currently using the service as well as new customers. To ensure the service...

Curious about the differences in approaching performance and scalability in SQL Server vs. Windows Azure SQL Database (formerly SQL Azure)? Check out this new paper that brings together insights from the Microsoft SQL Engineering and Customer Advisory...

Editor's Note: This post comes from Nick Harris , Imagine Cup Windows Azure Challenge Captain. Windows Azure is a suite of powerful cloud services that can help your app projects in a variety of ways. If your Imagine Cup team is thinking about exploring...

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Guy Bowerman and Karthika Raman from the Microsoft Data Platform team. SQL Server 2012 SP1 Cumulative Update 2 includes enhancements to SQL Server native backup that simplifies backup and restore...

During the BUILD 2012 conference we announced a new capability of Windows Azure: the Windows Azure Store . The Windows Azure Store makes it incredibly easy for you to discover, purchase, and provision premium add-on services, provided by our partners...

Editor's note: This post comes from Rick Anderson who is a programmer / writer for the Windows Azure and ASP.NET MVC teams. Restarts for Web Roles An often neglected consideration in Windows Azure is how to handle restarts. It’s important...

If you are one of the many users of our Windows Azure Powershell cmdlets or our Windows Azure command line tool , then you know that the CLI makes it really easy to manage and deploy Websites, Mobile Services, VMs, Service Bus and much more in Windows...

David Pallmann , one of our Windows Azure MVPs , has just published a great new book, "The Windows Azure Handbook, Volume 1: Strategy & Planning" . According to David's post , this book has a two-fold mission: to make a case that cloud computing...

Join a free webinar Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 8:00 am PT with Gizmox VP of Research and Development, Itzik Spitzen, to learn how new migration and modernization tools are empowering businesses to transform their existing client/server applications ...

A new white paper, "The Global Conference is Real: The Success of the PDC10 Player and Application" , is now available for download. This white paper outlines how Microsoft transformed its Professional Developer Conference (PDC) into an unprecedented...

[This article was contributed by the SQL Azure team.] As part of the Real World SQL Azure series, we talked to Andreas Falter, Head of Developments, and Karsten Horn, Director of International Sales, both in the Materials Management Division...

Given the right circumstances, website management in the cloud drastically reduces costs and time, and allows your company to devote resources to its core competencies. But is website management in the cloud a good fit for your organization? Join a...

SharePoint is one of Microsoft's fastest-growing collaboration technologies for the enterprise and Windows Azure is Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform. But how do these two technologies work together? And what solutions can you build and sell by using...

[This article was contributed by the SQL Azure team.] Sitecore has been chosen as our first ISV of the month. Sitecore provides a content management solution for Enterprise websites and has strong momentum within the ISV community and with customers alike...

The Atlantic hosted a digital town hall today on how to create the jobs and the economy of the future. Assisted by the Microsoft Town Hall cloud-computing tool and with sponsorship from Microsoft, the conversation featured interviews and panel discussions...

If you weren't able to attend the Strata Conference last week in Santa Clara, CA, you can still catch SQL Azure and Middleware General Manager Zane Adam's keynote, "Data Everywhere: There Ought to be a Marketplace For It" on demand. In this keynote...

[This article was contributed by the SQL Azure team.] Temenos , the global provider of banking software, today announced the availability of TEMENOS T24 (T24) on the Windows Azure Platform . This announcement makes T24 the first core banking...

Chris C. Kemp is CTO of NASA, a position he has held since March of 2010. Before that appointment, he was NASA's CIO and was in charge of the Ames Research Center, the Security Operations Center, and various other facilities. Chris started with NASA as...

I'm Robert Duffner, director of Product Management for Windows Azure and I'm kicking off a new series of blog posts where I will be interviewing thought leaders in cloud computing. I'll be reaching out broadly across the globe to industry, public sector...

Today we are making updates to Windows Azure Web Sites (Preview) including new features and enhancements of existing capabilities. Changes include the introduction of a Paid-Shared site mode with custom domain name support, updated usage quotas and, FastCGI...

It’s sometimes easier to think about cloud computing in all or nothing terms – move everything into the cloud or leave everything as-is, on-premises. But, as most know, the emerging reality is more of a hybrid approach, combining both cloud...

You may remember this blog post about WebMatrix, Windows Azure Web Sites and PHP back in June. Well, we’re excited that WebMatrix 2 just shipped! This post covers a quick highlight of the top features, especially the integration with Windows Azure...

Today’s launch of Windows Server 2012 delivers the cornerstone of the Cloud OS, as explained in a blog post today by Satya Nadella, President, Server & Tools Business at Microsoft. “With Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure at its core...

We are excited to announce the availability of BizTalk Server 2010 R2 CTP Release in Windows Azure Virtual Machines gallery! Setting up a new BizTalk Server environment typically involves procuring hardware, getting the dependencies in place, setting...

Today we’re very excited to announce the Preview Release of Windows Azure Mobile Services! Mobile Services allow you to connect your Windows 8 apps to a cloud backend hosted in Windows Azure and easily store structured data, authenticate users,...

Editor's Note: Today's post comes from Jamin Spitzer , Senior Director, Platform Strategy at Microsoft. Directions on Microsoft recently published a new report entitled “ What Windows Azure Means to Software ISVs ”. It represents an excellent...

The London Olympics were a massive orchestration of 302 gold medal events squeezed into just 19 days. Multiple heats or rounds, often happening simultaneously, across 32 sports, challenged content providers to deliver flexibility to viewers in just about...

As we’ve talked about in the past , combining infrastructure and platform services provides flexibility to architect, develop, and deploy your applications and IT solutions in a way that works best for your business. Needless to say, we are excited...

Twilio just announced the winners of its Developer Contest, where developers built awesome Twilio apps running on Windows Azure . The contest, which was launched in concert with the “Meet Windows Azure” event June 7, awarded the winner up...