Jan 31, 2011 08:23 GMT  ·  By

A new free tool from Microsoft is now available for customers looking to test the throughput of their Windows Azure accounts as part of the process of embracing the company’s Cloud platform. The software giant made available the Azure Throughput Analyzer, a solution developed by Microsoft Research eXtreme Computing Group cloud-research engagement team.

According to the team behind the Microsoft Research project, the Azure Throughput Analyzer is aimed at customers that want to leverage Windows Azure in order for their research.

“If you are a software company developer planning to convert your on-premise application to Windows Azure you should be aware of this tool,” revealed Microsoft’s Bill Zack.

“The Microsoft Research eXtreme Computing Group cloud-research engagement team supports researchers in the field who use Windows Azure to conduct their research.

“As part of this effort, they have built a desktop utility that measures the upload and download throughput achievable from an on-premise client machine to Azure cloud storage (blobs, tables and queue).”

The Microsoft Research eXtreme Computing Group cloud-research engagement team is offering customers the actual Azure Throughput Analyzer utility, but also additional help to get them started along.

According to the Redmond company, the tool is accompanied by an user guide which is set up to deliver insight on just what Azure Throughput Analyzer makes possible for researchers. The tool will deliver conclusions of its analysis covering a range of aspects.

“You simply install this tool on your on-premise machine, select a data center for the evaluation, and enter the account details of any storage service created within it.

“The utility will perform a series of data-upload and -download tests using sample data and collect measurements of throughput, which are displayed at the end of the test, along with other statistics,” the Redmond company added.