There is much talk these days of “Cloud” computing – which means hosting software in data-centres which have multiple resources linked together through the World Wide Web. This may include your web sites, documents, emails, pictures, spread sheets, video, etc.

Microsoft’s Cloud offering is called the Windows Azure platform. Microsoft say, “Windows Azure and SQL Azure enable you to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters. They require no up-front expenses, no long term commitment, and enable you to pay only for the resources you use.”

In essence, Azure is a network of servers with associated Microsoft software and database products on which you can build and run any web application. This may be a standard web site which gets a large amount of traffic – something we all aim for. It may be a web site that responds to specific events such as an events management web site.

At Starsoft, we use Azure as a component in our Ezidoesit Mobile phone software. Azure holds data picked up from the Ezidoesit database as well as holding a service which responds back to the phone with information about schedules and appointments.

Using Azure frees you from having to consider infrastructure requirements – from both a time and cost perspective. Azure also has the ability to scale quickly when your next business venture takes off.

As at June 2011, Azure availability is as follows:

Windows Azure and SQL Azure are now commercially available in the following 41 countries/regions: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, United States.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/