Download Windows Azure Cloud OS SDK

Microsoft has made available for download a new release of its software development kit for the Windows Azure Cloud operating system. The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (January 2009 Customer Technology Preview) is set up as a collection of application programming interfaces, but also documentation and samples. The SDK permits developers to put together what Microsoft referred to as Internet-scale applications, which integrate with the Windows Azure platform. The January 2009 CTP is the first refresh to the Windows Azure SDK since the new platform and associated tools were announced in October 2008.

“Well, first we fixed a pesky little problem with VS hanging when you hit F5. For some customers, this ended up locking up the environment, and you had to kill VS to get it all sorted, this is a huge fix. We also fixed the limitation of using special characters in entities, which affected some update or delete operations. There have also been a bunch of performance fixes, so the overall user experience feels a lot nicer compared to the PDC release. There's quite a bit more in this release, however I only mentioned the issues that affected me most,” David Lemphers, a senior program manager of the Windows Azure team, explained.

Concomitantly with the Windows Azure Software Development Kit (January 2009 CTP), Microsoft has also released a new version of the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, also a January 2009 CTP. According to the Redmond company, the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio are designed as extensions for Visual Studio. By extending VS, developers get the possibility to not only create services for Windows Azure, but also debug, run, and even package their products.

“The Azure™Services Platform (Azure) is an Internet-scale cloud services platform with an operating system and developer services set that can be used individually or together. Hosted in Microsoft data centers, Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can help you build new applications to run from the cloud or to enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. With open architecture, Azure gives developers the ability to build Web applications, and applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, and hybrid solutions that offer the best of online and on-premises functionality,” Microsoft's Mithun Dhar revealed.

Windows Azure Software Development Kit (January 2009 CTP) is available for download here.

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (January 2009 CTP) are available for download here.