14 DAY TRIAL // Version 1 of the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Labs software development kit is now available for download for free from Microsoft. With the commercial availability deadline of Windows Azure platform AppFabric approaching fast, and now less than a month away, the promise from Microsoft is that the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Labs environment is set up to allow the AppFabric team to introduce early bits to the community in order to get feedback. Unlike Azure platform AppFabric, usage of the Azure platform AppFabric Labs will not be billed.
“In this release of the LABS environment, we’re shipping two features: Silverlight support: we’ve added the ability for Silverlight clients to make cross-domain calls to the Service Bus and Access Control Services. Multicast with Message Buffers: we’ve added the ability for Message Buffers to attach to a multicast group. A message send to the multicast group is delivered to every Message Buffer that is attached to it,” Microsoft stated.
Early adopters that want to start test-driving the Labs, only need to visit Portal.Appfabriclabs.com and sign up with a Windows Live ID. Testers will subsequently be required to create a Labs project and namespace, as well as download Labs samples. The past week, Microsoft announced that the Windows Azure platform AppFabric commercial availability was scheduled to go live on April 9, 2010. At that time, the Redmond company will start billing customers for the usage of the connectivity service. Customers that want to see just how much AppFabric will cost them have available the Windows Azure platform AppFabric Billing Preview.
“The Windows Azure platform AppFabric Service Bus and Windows Azure platform AppFabric Access Control together make hybrid, connected applications—applications that communicate from behind firewalls, across the internet, from hosted cloud servers, between rich desktops and smart devices—easier to build, secure, and manage. Although you can build hybrid, connected applications today, doing so often means you have to build important infrastructure components before you can build the applications themselves. The AppFabric Service Bus and Access Control provide several important infrastructure elements so that you can more easily begin making your connected applications work now,” Microsoft added.
Windows Azure platform AppFabric Labs SDK is available for download here.
Windows Server AppFabric Beta 2 is available for download here.