14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is getting ready for the availability of new Azure services for Windows Server, and has already pushed these out to the public as Community Technology Preview (CTP) test builds on Tuesday.
The new services are meant for the company’s service providers and hosting partners, yet chances are that they would also be tailored for other audiences in the not-too-distant future, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley notes in a recent article.
These are the CTP flavors of four of the services that the Redmond-based software giant made official last month as part of a major update for Windows Azure.
These include hosted virtual machines, high-density Web Sites (the complement of Windows Azure Web Sites, codenamed "Antares"), Service Management Portal, and Service Management application programming interface (codenamed Katal).
“Microsoft is bringing Windows Azure Web Sites, Virtual Machines, the Service Management Portal and API to Windows Server, enabling Hosting Service Providers to easily deliver high density website hosting and Infrastructure as a Service scenarios in a Windows Server-based environment,” Microsoft notes.
“Developing these services in Windows Azure enables a consistent customer experience across cloud platforms.”
According to said article on ZDNet, the hosted virtual machine capabilities in Windows Azure will enable customers to run Windows Server, Linux, SQL Server and SharePoint on this platform, along with applications for them.
According to Ian Carlson, director of Product Marketing, Microsoft is working hard on providing consistency across three key areas, namely customer datacenters, service providers' datacenters and their own datacenters.
The CTP release of the hosted virtual machine was designed to run on Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 Service Pack 1, Mary Jo Foley notes. The high-density Web Sites should work on Windows Server 2008 R2 and later.
“Before downloading, plan to have at least four virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system in addition to the System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 VHD. Install .NET Framework 3.5, .NET Framework 4 and all updates on these virtual machines,” Microsoft notes.
You can learn more on the CTP released on the company’s website. Download links are available there as well.