Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team Blog

A Calculator for the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Billing Preview

netsqlservicesteam — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:35:00 GMT

Last week we released a Billing Preview that provided a usage summary to help customers prepare for when billing begins in April. Usage statistics in this billing preview are consistent with our new Connection-based billing for the AppFabric Services Bus that we announced in January. A key feature of this model allows customers to purchase Connections individually on a pay-as-you-go basis, or in Connection Packs if they anticipate needing larger quantities.

To provide greater insight into the Billing Preview and the options available to customers, a member of our team created an Excel-based calculator that converts usage numbers into costs. The calculator also allows customers to see how much their usage would have cost with each of the different reserved pack options.

While we hope customers find this tool quite useful, please do note that it is being provided only as a courtesy and is not guaranteed against possible bugs. The calculator also does not guarantee the amount of future bills.

You will find the calculator in an attachment to this post.

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Now Available: The Windows Azure platform AppFabric LABS Environment

netsqlservicesteam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:35:00 GMT

Today the AppFabric team has released the AppFabric LABS environment. This is a new environment which the team will use to showcase some early bits and get feedback from the community. Usage for this environment will not be billed.

AppFabric Labs provide a way for customers to test out and play with experimental AppFabric technologies. These are upcoming capabilities that excite us, and we want to get your feedback on them as soon as possible. As a result, there is no support or SLA associated with the LABS environment, but in return you will be able to preview the future of AppFabric while helping us shape it. Though similar to a Community Technology Preview, LABS technologies may occasionally be even farther away from commercial availability.

In this release of the LABS environment, we’re shipping two features:

1. Silverlight support: we’ve added the ability for Silverlight clients to make cross-domain calls to the Service Bus and Access Control Services.

2. Multicast with Message Buffers: we’ve added the ability for Message Buffers to attach to a multicast group. A message sent to the multicast group is delivered to every Message Buffer that is attached to it.

To get started:

1. Go to https://portal.appfabriclabs.com/,

2. Sign up using your Live ID,

3. Create your LABS project, and

4. Download LABS samples from here to learn more about these new features.

We hope you enjoy working with these Labs features as much as we have enjoyed making them available to you.

Thanks,

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Announcing upcoming commercial availability of Windows Azure platform AppFabric

netsqlservicesteam — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:30:00 GMT

We are happy to share that starting April 9, 2010, Windows Azure platform AppFabric will be commercially available on a paid and fully SLA-supported basis.

In order to help you get familiarized with AppFabric billing, we released the AppFabric Billing Preview yesterday March 9. With this billing preview, you will be able to download a usage summary from the AppFabric Developer Portal, with information similar to that of the “daily usage summary” currently available to you for Windows Azure and SQL Azure.

If you are already using AppFabric, we will begin charging as of April 9, 2010 at 12:00 AM GMT. You can find our pricing for AppFabric here. You can also go to the pricing section of our FAQs for additional information as well as our pricing blog post. If you do not desire to be charged for AppFabric, please remove any applications that are currently utilizing these services prior to this date.

Thank you for your continued interest and business.

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Announcing availability of Billing Preview for Windows Azure platform AppFabric

netsqlservicesteam — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:15:00 GMT

Here’s a ‘Thank You’ to all our customers and partners, for creating a Windows Azure platform AppFabric commercial account. The trust you have placed in the Windows Azure platform is tremendously appreciated. As you may remember from our previous announcement, AppFabric will become fully SLA-supported in April, and your account will begin to accrue charges.

In order to help prepare you for the onset of billing, today we are releasing the AppFabric Billing Preview. To use this billing preview, at any time you may visit the AppFabric Developer Portal and download a daily AppFabric usage summary, which will have information similar to that currently available for Windows Azure and SQL Azure. The report will summarize your usage of AppFabric starting today. The Billing Preview will be available until you start seeing actual billing charges in April. We hope you find the billing preview useful in understanding how you will be charged when actual billing starts.

You can find our pricing information here. For additional detail, you can also go to the pricing section of our FAQs as well as our previous pricing blog post. If you have feedback on the billing preview or need further information, please visit our Discussion Forum.

We deeply value your continued investment and are always striving to move further towards our goal of enabling you, our customers and partners, to build and grow your businesses on the Windows Azure platform.

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Submit Your Solution for the Windows Azure Platform Partner of the Year Award

netsqlservicesteam — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:04:00 GMT

Are you a Microsoft partner who has built and delivered an innovative solution on the Windows Azure Platform? This year we're showcasing more partner solutions than ever before at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2010 to be held in Washington, D.C. July 11 - 15, 2010. Don't miss this opportunity to get your innovative solution recognized with a Microsoft WPC 2010 Award!

Winning a Microsoft WPC Partner Award gives you valuable business advantage through public recognition from your peers, press, analysts, and your customers. This year, the WPC 2010 Awards Program is being expanded to showcase more partner solutions than ever, including the newly added Microsoft Country Partner of the Year award. Past winners have demonstrated significant customer impact, solution innovation, speed to market, deployment, and utilization of advanced features in Microsoft technologies and have optimized Microsoft technologies to meet customer business needs and exceed expectations.

Receive onsite acknowledgement at WPC 2010 and take advantage of a comprehensive marketing and press kit designed to help you attract prospects and gain new customers. Click here for more information and find out how to submit your entry to become the Windows Azure Platform Partner of the Year Award winner. Good luck!

-- The Windows Azure platform AppFabric team

Windows Azure & SQL Azure announce General Availability

netsqlservicesteam — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:40:00 GMT

Today, Feb 1^st 2010, Windows Azure and SQL Azure have announced general availability and have started charging customers. Windows Azure platform AppFabric continues to be free until April 2010. Details available at http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2010/02/01/windows-azure-platform-now-generally-available-in-21-countries.aspx

Windows Azure platform AppFabric Team

Announcing Windows Azure platform commercial offer availability and updated AppFabric pricing

netsqlservicesteam — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:23:00 GMT

As part of today's announcement about the commercial availability of Windows Azure platform offers, we are also introducing updated pricing for the Windows Azure platform AppFabric, which helps developers connect cloud and on-premises applications. Based on discussion and feedback from hundreds of customers during the CTP process, we have made the pricing simpler and more predictable. Service Bus will now be priced at $3.99 per Connection-month, and Access Control will be $1.99 per 100,000 Transactions.

Last November at the 2009 Professional Developers' Conference, Microsoft announced a new product offering named AppFabric. AppFabric delivers services that enable developers to build and manage composite applications more easily for both server and cloud environments. The server components, known as Windows Server AppFabric, provide caching capabilities and workflow and service management capabilities for applications that run on-premises. The cloud components, known as Windows Azure platform AppFabric (formerly called ".NET Services"), include cloud-based services that help developers connect applications and services between Windows Azure, Windows Server and a number of other platforms. Windows Azure platform AppFabric is available as a production ready service today and includes two services: Service Bus, which makes it easier to connect applications and services in the cloud or on-premises, and Access Control, which provides federated authorization as a service.

SERVICE BUS PRICING

For Service Bus, the pricing meter has changed from "Message Operations" to "Connections". In many cases, each application instance that connects to the Service Bus will require just one Connection, which means that predicting your usage is often as simple as counting the number of application instances or devices that you need to connect. Whether your application requires two-way messaging, event distribution, protocol tunneling, or another architecture, the Connection-based model is designed to suit your business needs. Connections are charged at a rate of $3.99 per Connection per month (plus applicable data transfer charges), and will be billed on a pay-as-you-go, consumptive basis. Alternatively, for customers who are able to forecast their needs in advance, we offer the option to purchase "Packs" of Connections: a pack of 5 Connections for $9.95, a pack of 25 for $49.75, a pack of 100 for $199.00, or a pack of 500 for $995.00 per month (plus data transfer). Connection Packs represent an effective rate of $1.99 per Connection-month. Pack sizes larger than 500 may be available on request. In our FAQ, we provide more details on how Connections are defined, measured, and billed.

We expect that most customers will find this new meter to be simpler and more predictable. While the former Message Operations meter was well suited for uses such as discrete transactional messaging, it has been more complicated in other cases. For example, what happens if you want to stream a large file, tunnel a protocol persistently, or deploy a lot of devices that all "listen" idly all day? Knowing what gets counted as a message, and predicting usage from day to day, was difficult.

It turns out that our customers have all of those uses in mind, which is a good thing. Customers have asked for simpler pricing, and we are now able to deliver this for a wider range of uses, including streamed data, protocol tunneling, and transactional messaging. This new pricing structure will help make it easier for you to understand and control when and how many Connections are being used. In addition, it provides increased predictability, because under normal circumstances, your total Connection cost will stay the same whether you generate more or less "message" volume from one month to the next.

ACCESS CONTROL PRICING

For Access Control, the pricing meter has changed from "Message Operations" to "Transactions". In practice, these meters are the same; only the name has been changed to reflect the Access Control function more accurately. As previously announced, token requests and service management operations will both be counted as Transactions, and charged at a rate of $1.99 per 100,000 Transactions.

AVAILABILITY

The Service Bus and Access Control are available today, however to give customers more time to adjust to the new pricing structure, charges will start to accrue in April, 2010. Usage until that time will be free of charge, so we encourage you to upgrade your account and sign up for an offer today. Starting today, customers can already take advantage of the same support and benefits provided across the Windows Azure platform. SLAs will take effect when charges begin to accrue in April, 2010. In order to help customers monitor and predict their usage before charges begin to accrue, Connection and Transaction usage reports will be made available soon on their developer portal at http://appfabric.azure.com/.

For more information, please visit our FAQ and pricing pages.

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric December 2009 Release is Live

netsqlservicesteam — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:39:00 GMT

The Windows Azure platform AppFabric December release is live as of December 18^th 2009. This release includes improvements in stability, scale, and performance. Please refer to the release notes for a complete list of the breaking changes in this release. You are encouraged to visit the AppFabric portal to retrieve the latest copy of the SDK.

The .NET Services November 2009 CTP QFE Breaking Changes Announcement and Scheduled Maintenance

netsqlservicesteam — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Please see this blog post for detail.

The .NET Services Team

Microsoft .NET Services November CTP Release

netsqlservicesteam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:30:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, we outlined what you could expect from the next update to the Microsoft .NET Services CTP. Throughout the CTP process, tens of thousands of developers signed up for the services and provided us with feedback. You will see much of that feedback incorporated into the latest version of Service Bus and Access Control Service. Today, we are excited to announce our November CTP, which represents the complete feature set that will be available at Microsoft’s PDC conference from both the Service Bus and Access Control Service when the Windows Azure platform becomes commercially available early next year.

For those who are new to the conversation, Service Bus and Access Control Service make it easier to connect applications and services in the cloud and on-premises. The Service Bus helps applications and services communicate across network and organizational boundaries, and the Access Control Service helps create secure authorization for your apps, services and users. Built on Windows Azure, the Service Bus and Access Control Service provide secure connectivity as a cloud service to complement the compute, storage, and database services available on the Windows Azure platform. In the same way that Microsoft® .NET Framework provides higher-level libraries to make developers more productive, Service Bus and Access Control Service help developers focus on their application logic rather than deploying and managing their own cloud-based infrastructure.

Below is an overview of the launch features we will deliver at PDC. As we outlined last week, PDC marks the beginning of our transition from a CTP to a business. The Windows Azure platform CTP will remain open through December 31^st, allowing you to experiment with the full feature platform and to give us any feedback. We won’t start charging customers for using the Windows Azure platform until February 1, 2010.

Please continue to let us know what you think about the product, what you are building with the Windows Azure platform, and how we can continue to deliver product improvements that simplify your projects and please our joint customers!

Access Control Service Feature-Complete Capabilities

The Access Control Service provides an easy way to control access to REST web services and Service Bus communications while integrating with standards-based identity providers, including enterprise directories and web identity systems such as Windows Live ID. Authorization decisions can be pulled out of the application and put into a set of declarative rules hosted in Windows Azure that can transform incoming security claims into developer-defined claims that web services can consume directly.

· Cloud-based federated authorization management service

o Claims Transformation Engine: Transform input claims to output claims using configurable rules

o Security Token Service: Package and transit output claims using REST tokens

· Setup Issuer trust with a simple Web interface or programmatically through APIs

· Supports Active Directory and other identity infrastructures, with minimal coding

· Support for multiple credentials, including Windows Live IDs, and X.509 certificates

· Two token-exchange endpoints addressable using standard HTTPS POST requests:

o REST with symmetric key: Makes it easy for developers on any platform to package claims for the Access Control Service

o REST with SAML Extension will work with tokens issued by ADFS V2

· Support for standard protocols including REST

· Applications that run inside and outside the organizational boundary can rely on the service

Service Bus Feature-Complete Capabilities

The Service Bus makes it easy to connect applications together over the Internet. Services that register on the Service Bus can easily be discovered and accessed, across any network topology. The Service Bus provides the familiar Enterprise Service Bus application pattern, while helping to solve some of the hard issues that arise when implementing this pattern across network, security, and organizational boundaries, at Internet-scale.

· Services discovered through a stable, internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location

o Enable tree hierarchical based service naming system

o Service Naming Registry enables opt-in service public discoverability

· One-way messaging between sender and listener supports unicast and multicast datagram distribution

o Provide a FIFO data structure within the namespace and exist independent of any presence of active listeners

· Full-duplex, connection-oriented session between sender and listener support bi-directional communication

· Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer session with network-boundary traversal create direct end-to-end connectivity through NAT

o Service Bus endpoint is secured by Access Control Service

· Multiple publishers and multiple subscribers can simultaneously use the services’ top management and event distribution system

· Support for REST and HTTP Access from non-.NET platforms

· Global hierarchical namespaces that are DNS- and transport-independent

· Anonymous access to services is supported only if you permit it.

If you have any questions or need further information, please visit our Technical Discussion Forum.

You can –

- download the latest SDK at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/developers/dotnetservices/,

- visit the Developers Center at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/netservices.aspx, and

- follow us on Twitter @dotnetservices.

The Service Bus and Access Control Service Team

The .NET Services November 2009 CTP Breaking Changes Announcement and Scheduled Maintenance

netsqlservicesteam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:38:00 GMT

Please see this blog post for detail.

The .NET Services Team

Windows Azure Platform Launch Update

netsqlservicesteam — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:14:00 GMT

In October 2008 at our Professional Developer Conference we opened the Community Technology Preview (CTP) for the Windows Azure platform (Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services). The CTP has been invaluable in terms of shaping many aspects of the Windows Azure platform.
PDC 2009 is an exciting event for all of us who are working on the Windows Azure platform as it’s our opportunity to show you the work that we’ve done over the past year, including some brand new features. The conference also marks the beginning of our transition from a CTP to a business. For your planning purposes, this post maps out the key stages of that transition that you should be aware of.

At PDC 2009, on November 17th, 2009, a number of new features in Windows Azure will be made available for the first time. The CTP will remain open through December 31st, allowing you to experiment with the full feature platform and to give us any final feedback.
Beginning January, 2010, new customers will have to sign up for an offer to access services on the Windows Azure platform. Usage during the month of January will be at no charge, so you can see your exact usage while still enjoying free service.
On February 1, 2010, we will begin charging customers for using the Windows Azure platform.

Making the transition in these three steps accomplishes a few goals. First, it gives you a chance to explore our full feature set for free. Second, it allows our team time to get your feedback on the new features and address any issues that arise. Finally, it lets you preview exactly how billing will work before you need to start paying.
We’d like to thank everyone who has participated in our Community Technology Preview. Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services are better products because of you. We look forward to seeing you next month at PDC 2009!

Updated 10/30/2009: Clarified that January is free of charge.

Update on the Next Microsoft .NET Services CTP

netsqlservicesteam — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:31:00 GMT

It’s been a while since our last update on this blog, hopefully everyone enjoyed a warm, sunny summer break while we continued the march toward the commercial release of Microsoft .NET Services.

For those that are new to the conversation .NET Services make it easier to connect applications and services in the cloud and on premises. .NET Services includes access control to help create secure connections between your applications and services, as well as a service bus for communicating across network and organizational boundaries. In the same way that Microsoft® .NET Framework provides higher-level libraries to make developers more productive, .NET Services help developers focus on their application logic rather than deploying and managing their own cloud-based infrastructure

The next Community Technology Preview (CTP) of .NET Services and the supporting Software Development Kit (SDK) is due out in October, and will closely resemble what is planned for our commercial launch. So, what does this mean for capabilities that will comprise of .NET Services when we reach commercial availability? The Microsoft® .NET Service Bus remains largely the same compared to the current CTP, while the Microsoft® .NET Access Control Service will undergo changes in order to bring us closer to locking down the .NET Services launch features.

So, let’s dig into it!

What We’ve Heard and Observed Regarding Microsoft .NET Services

What’s become a core area of focus for the team, and also a point of discussing during the customer feedback process, is that REST web services are clearly increasing in popularity with both Web and enterprise developers. What is also apparent is a significant gap has emerged in the market place for REST-based identity and access control technologies.

Today, developers of REST web services lack an easy, accessible means to secure their services. At MIX09, we exposed some of our thinking about taking a first step toward radically simplifying the REST developer experience, and used this as an opportunity to gauge customer interest and feedback. Your response was overwhelming, positive and confirmed our priorities as we approach the commercial availability of .NET Services.

Developers face a lack of consistency and common patterns for managing identity and access control in a way that is compatible with REST. As developers move towards REST in the enterprise, they will have an increasing need for robust security. They will be required to address the more systematic security concerns of enterprise customers as well as the more complex identity management scenarios that enterprises present. They will need a way to address these requirements in a simple way that integrates well with REST.

In speaking with the community in the past several months, it became clear that we all need a better way to control access to REST web services. We believe that the .NET Access Control Service will address this need and compliment other Microsoft technologies for security and identity management. The combination of simplicity and support for key enterprise integration scenarios will ensure that .NET Services are useful to enterprise developers as well as the broader developer audience.

What to Expect from Microsoft .NET Services Access Control Services in the October CTP

The.NET Access Control Service provides an easy way to control access to web applications and services while integrating with standards-based identity providers, including enterprise directories and web identity systems such as Windows Live ID. Authorization decisions can be pulled out of the application and put into a set of declarative rules that can transform incoming securing claims into claims that applications understand.

October CTP – .NET Access Control Service Capabilities

· Simple Web Trust – Authorization for REST Web Services and the .NET Service Bus

o Two token-exchange endpoints: REST with symmetric key and REST with SAML Extension

§ REST with symmetric key: Makes it easy for developers on any platform to package claims for the .NET Access Control Service

§ REST with SAML Extension will work with tokens issued by ADFS V2

§ Both endpoints will be addressable using standard HTTPs POST requests

o Claims Transformation Engine: Transform input claims to output claims using configurable rules

o Security Token Service: Package and transit output claims using REST tokens

While we believe – and have heard clearly – that the changes to the .NET Access Control Service outlined above will bring tremendous benefit to our customers in the near-term, we also recognize these changes will significantly impact any code you are writing today.

In concrete terms, this means the WS-* integration features currently supported today will be temporarily unavailable while we focus on delivering a robust infrastructure for REST web services authorization. Once this infrastructure is in place, we will work on future version features of .NET Services, like web single sign-on and rich WS-* support. In future releases, we will reinstate full support for the WS-* protocols, web Single Sign On, and round out the .NET Access Control Service offering in a way that spans the REST/SOAP spectrum. We’ll talk more about these future features at a later date.

What to Expect from Microsoft .NET Services Bus in the October CTP

The .NET Service Bus makes it easy to connect applications together over the Internet. Services that register on the Bus can easily be discovered and accessed, across any network topology. The Service Bus provides the familiar Enterprise Service Bus application pattern, while helping to solve some of the hard issues that arise when implementing this pattern across network, security, and organizational boundaries, at Internet-scale.

As we work with you to gather feedback on implementations, and work on our future product planning cycles, it is clear developers see great promise for a cloud-based service bus and desire expanded functionality beyond what is available in today’s version .NET Service Bus. Here is what you can expect on this front, from our next CTP…

October CTP – .NET Service Bus Capabilities

· Services Naming System and Registry

o Enable tree hierarchical based service naming system

o Service Naming Registry enables opt-in service public discoverability

· Messaging

o Enable one way, request/response and peer-to-peer messaging through NAT and firewall

o NET Service Bus endpoint is secured by .NET Access Control Service

· Message Buffer

o Provide a FIFO data structure within .NET Services namespace and exist independent of any presence of active listeners.

In order to facilitate expanded functionality in coming releases and as we approach commercial availability, you will see several key changes relative to the Service Bus available for download today. Specifically, we are making core changes to Routers, Queues, WSHttpRelay Binding, and External Endpoint Registration, as outlined below.

· Routers – We are temporarily removing Routers beginning with the next CTP. For developers who architected applications relying on the Router functionality, we will provide a sample to demonstrate a method for implementing Router-like functionality – including multicast, anycast, and push-style message operations – using existing Service Bus features.

· Queues -- Queues will be replaced with a simpler offering called Message Buffers. In future releases we will add message buffer durability, delivery guarantees, and other enhanced message delivery semantics.

· WSHttpRelay Binding - The WSHttpRelay Binding will no longer be available beginning in the October CTP release. Customers who were using the WSHttpRelay Binding are advised to consider migrating to the WS2007Relay Binding, which provides support for the updated versions of the Security, ReliableSession, and TransactionFlow binding elements.

· External Endpoint Registration - Beginning with the October CTP release, it will no longer be possible to register external (non-Service Bus) endpoints in the Service Registry. We expect to re-instate this functionality in a future release.

Wow, that was a mouthful of an update! We, like many of you, are excited by the fast approaching commercial availability of .NET Services. Continue to let us know what you think about the product, what you are building with the Windows Azure platform, and how we can continue to deliver product improvements that simplify your projects and please our joint customers! If you have any questions or need further information, please visit the .NET Services Technical Discussion Forum.

The .NET Services Team

.NET Services Scheduled Maintenance (September 8th, 2009)

netsqlservicesteam — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:57:00 GMT

.NET Services Scheduled Maintenance (September 8^th, 2009)

When:

Start: 08:00hrs PDT, September 8^th, 2009
End: 14:00hrs PDT, September 8^th, 2009

What:

Routine maintenance on the storage layer of the Access Control Service.

Impact Alert:

Customers can expect intermittent timeouts on Access Control operations during this maintenance window. This will also impact ServiceBus and Portal.

Thank You,

The .NET Services Team

Pricing information for the Windows Azure platform

netsqlservicesteam — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:05:00 GMT

Pricing information for the Windows Azure platform was announced on Tuesday, July 14 at Worldwide Partner Conference. Click the link to learn about pricing, SLA, offers, and commercial availability for Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and .NET Services.