14 DAY TRIAL // Concomitantly with updating the software development kit for its Cloud operating system, Microsoft has also refreshed the resources made available for developers working with Visual Studio. In this regard, the Redmond company has kicked up a notch the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio. At the start of this week, the software giant started offering for download the July Community Technology Preview of the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio.
“Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure,” the company explained, indicating that the VS development platform and tools could run on top of Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.
Developers producing applications for Windows Azure are already aware that the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio include the Windows Azure SDK. However, the software development kit is also available as a standalone download from the software giant.
Microsoft enumerated the additions to Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, including: “New project creation dialog. Support for developing and deploying services containing multiple web and worker roles. A service may contain zero or more web roles and zero or more worker roles with a minimum of one role of either type. Ability to associate any ASP.NET Web Application project in a Cloud Service solution as a Web Role. Support for building Cloud Services from TFS Build. Enhanced robustness and stability.”
Just four months separate Microsoft from the official launch of Windows Azure, planned for November 2009. Companies looking to leverage Azure for Cloud services or applications received the pricing details associated with the platform. For the time being testers are free to use Windows Azure with no charge. The same is valid for the development tools, with Microsoft emphasizing that the resources are in CTP-stage and as such should not be used into production.
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio July 2009 CTP is available for download here.