Extended Free Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special Launched

The Cloud is inevitable, and Microsoft makes it quite easy for customers and developers to see the advantages of this new paradigm in computing.

The Redmond company expanded a free offering designed to offer a taste of Windows Azure free of charge.

The Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special has already gone live and it will last over the course of the next few months, until June 30th, 2011.

Those interested can already sign-up and receive free access to a range of Windows Azure resources.

“The upgraded Introductory Special offer now includes 750 free hours of the Windows Azure extra-small instance, 25 hours of the Windows Azure small instance and more, until June 30, 2011.

“This extended free trial will allow developers to try out the Windows Azure platform without the need for up-front investment costs,” a member of the Windows Azure team revealed.

I have included the full details of the new and “upgraded” Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special at the bottom of this article.

Customers can also head over to the Windows Azure Trial webpage and access the info as well as take advantage of the special deal.

I want to emphasize from the get go that Microsoft is offering free Windows Azure usage within certain limits.

If testers surpass the limits, they will be charged for any extra usage at the standard rates for the software giant Cloud platform.

“The Windows Azure platform was made with developers in mind. It allows developers to use their existing .NET, Java and PHP skills to develop, test and deploy compelling and innovative applications without worrying about the backend infrastructure and other operational constraints,” the Windows Azure team member added.

“Recognizing all the doors that the cloud opens for the developer community, we continue to look for ways to make it even easier to get started.

“For those developers who have yet to experience what it's like to build and deploy applications on the Windows Azure platform, we're unveiling a new Introductory Special offer as part of the Cloud Power campaign.”

Customers can get:

Compute: 750 hours of an Extra Small Compute Instance and 25 hours of a Small Compute Instance

Storage: 500MB and 10k Storage transactions

Data Transfers: 500MB in / 500MB out

Relational Database: 1G Web Edition SQL Azure database (for 90 days only)

AppFabric Access Control transactions: 100k

AppFabric Service Bus connections: 2