Microsoft Windows Azure

White Paper
Ravi Varma M
 Microsoft Windows Azure

Confidentiality Statement
Copyright 2011. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, a division of Tata Sons Limited. All rights
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 Microsoft Windows Azure

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 4
WINDOWS AZURE HISTORY ................................................................................................................. 5
AZURE APPLICATION SCENARIOS & BENEFITS ............................................................................ 6
WINDOWS AZURE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT........................................................................ 7
WINDOWS AZURE COMPUTE ............................................................................................................... 8
WINDOWS AZURE STORAGE .............................................................................................................. 10
FAULT-TOLERANCE AND CDN BUILT IN ................................................................................................... 10
REST AND MANAGED APIS ...................................................................................................................... 10
PRICING AND METERING .......................................................................................................................... 10
MANAGEMENT PORTAL ...................................................................................................................... 11
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 12

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Introduction
Windows Azure Platform is a Microsoft cloud platform offering that enables customers
to deploy applications and data into the cloud. Windows Azure Platform is thus classified
as platform as a service and forms part of Microsoft's cloud computing strategy, along
with their software as a service offering, Microsoft Online Services. The platform
consists of various on-demand services hosted in Microsoft data centers and
commoditized through three product brands. These are Windows Azure (an operating
system providing scalable compute and storage facilities), SQL Azure (a cloud-based,
scale-out version of SQL Server) and Windows Azure AppFabric (a collection of services
supporting applications both in the cloud and on premise).

The Windows Azure Platform is an application platform in the cloud that allows
Microsoft datacenters to host and run applications. It provides a cloud operating system
called Windows Azure that serves as a runtime for the applications and provides a set of
services that allows development, management and hosting of applications off-premises.
All Azure Services and applications built using them run on top of Windows Azure.

Windows Azure has three core components: Compute, Storage and Fabric. As the names
suggest, Compute provides a computation environment with Web Role and Worker Role
while Storage focuses on providing scalable storage (Blobs, Tables, Queue, and Drives)
for large-scale needs.

Fabric (Windows Azure Fabric) makes up the physical underpinnings of the Windows
Azure platform as the network of interconnected nodes consisting of servers, high-speed
connections, and switches. Conceptually, the repetitive pattern of nodes and connections
suggests a woven or fabric-like nature. Compute and Storage components are part of the
Fabric.

Fabric resources and applications and services running on those resources are managed
by the Windows Azure Fabric Controller service. It acts as the kernel of the Windows
Azure distributed cloud operating system, providing scheduling, resource allocation,
device management, and fault tolerance for the nodes in the Fabric. It also provides high-
level application models for intelligently managing the complete application lifecycle,
including deployment, health monitoring, upgrades, and de-activation.

The Windows Azure Platform provides an API built on REST, HTTP and XML that
allows a developer to interact with the services provided by Windows Azure. Microsoft
also provides a client-side managed class library which encapsulates the functions of
interacting with the services. It also integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio so that it can
be used as the IDE to develop and publish Azure-hosted applications.

Windows Azure became commercially available on 1 Feb 2010.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Windows Azure History

October 2008 (PDC LA)
• Announced the Windows Azure Platform
• First CTP of Windows Azure

March 2009
• Announced SQL Azure Relational Database

November 2009
• Updated Windows Azure CTP
• Enabled full trust, PHP, Java, CDN CTP and more
• Announced VM Role, Project Sidney, Pricing and SLAs
• Project “Dallas” CTP

February 2010
• Windows Azure Platform commercially available

June 2010
• Windows Azure Update
o .NET Framework 4
o OS Versioning, CDN
• SQL Azure Update (Service Update 3)
o 50GB databases
o Spatial data support
o DAC support

October 2010 (PDC)

• Platform Enhancements
o Windows Azure Virtual Machine Role
o Role enhancements
o Admin mode, Startup tasks,
o Full-IIS support
o Extra Small Instances
• Windows Azure Connect
o Access to on-premise resource for cross-premise apps
o Support for Domain-joining VMs
o Direct role-instance connectivity for easier development
o Use your existing remote administration tools
• Improved Dev / IT Pro Experience
o New Windows Azure Platform Management Portal
o Multiple users & roles for management
o Remote Desktop
o Enhanced Dev Tools
o PHP Development
o Marketplace

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Azure Application Scenarios & Benefits

Microsoft Windows Azure is a service that allows developers to run applications and
store data on servers owned and operated by Microsoft. These cloud applications can be
targeted at businesses, consumers or both. Some examples are:

• Enterprises that use Windows Azure to run their own line-of-business, batch
processing or large-volume computations.
• An independent software vendor (ISV) that creates a SaaS application targeted
towards business users.
• Perform large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume
computations
• An ISV that creates a SaaS application targeted towards consumers.

• Agility: Take advantage of development tools, automated service management and

global datacenter presence to respond faster to customer needs, focus on your
competitive differentiators, and reach new markets.
• Efficiency: Windows Azure improves productivity and increases operational
efficiency by lowering up-front capital costs. Customers and partners can realize a
reduction in Total Cost of Operations of some workloads by up to 30 – 40% over a 3
year period. The consumption based pricing, packages and discounts for partners
lower the barrier to entry for cloud services adoption and ensure a predictable IT
spend.
• Focus: Focus on delivering services and value to your customers – and not on
managing technology infrastructure. Windows Azure enables you to spend less time
on operational hurdles and more time focusing on your competitive differentiators.
• Simplicity: Utilize your existing skills in familiar languages such as .NET, Java and
PHP to create and manage web applications and services.
• Trustworthy: Enterprise class service backed by reliable service level agreements
and a rich online services experience.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Windows Azure Application Development

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development,
service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform.
Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale,
and manages Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.

First we need download and Install the Windows Azure SDK Kit. This SDK helps
developers to Develop, Deploy and manage Services in Windows Azure.

Windows Azure SDK includes two Development utilities this helps us to develop or
simulates Windows Azure application (Cloud Services) in our local machine.

1) The Development Fabric- This tool helps us to run and test Windows Azure
application locally before deploying into Cloud.

2) The Development Storage-This simulates the Blob, Queue and Table Storage services
available in the cloud.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Windows Azure Compute

Windows Azure offers an internet-scale hosting environment built on geographically
distributed data centers. This hosting environment provides a runtime execution
environment for managed code. A Windows Azure compute service is built from one or
more roles. A role defines a component that may run in the execution environment;
within Windows Azure, a service may run one or more instances of a role. A service may
be comprised of one or more types of roles and may include multiple roles of each type.

Role Types

Windows Azure supports three types of roles: A Web role-customized for web
application programming and supported by IIS 7. These Web roles run IIS7. A Worker
role is used for generalized development, and may perform background processing for a
web role. A Virtual Machine (VM) role that runs an image—a virtual hard disk (VHD)—
of a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine. This VHD is created using on-premises
Windows Server machine, then uploaded to Windows Azure. Once it’s stored in the
cloud, the VHD can be loaded on demand into a VM role and executed. Customers can
configure and maintain the OS and use Windows Services, scheduled tasks etc. in the
VM role.

VM Role

The VM role functionality is being introduced to make the process of migrating existing
Windows Server applications to Windows Azure easier and faster. This is especially true
for the migration of Windows Server applications that have long, non-scriptable or fragile
installation steps. While the VM role offers additional control and flexibility, the
Windows Azure Web and Worker roles offer additional benefits over the VM role.
Developers focus primarily on their application and not the underlying operating system.
In particular, Visual Studio is optimized for creating, testing, and deploying Web and
worker roles – all in a matter of minutes. Also, because developers work at a higher level
of abstraction with Web and worker roles, Windows Azure can automatically update the
underlying operating system.

VM Role or Elevated Privileges

The VM role and elevated privileges functionality removes roadblocks that today prevent
developers from having full control over their application environment. For small
changes like configuring IIS or installing an MSI we recommend using the elevated
privilege admin access feature. This approach is best suited for small changes and enables
the developer to retain automated service management at the Guest OS and the
application level. When the customizations are large in number or require changes that
cannot be automated, we recommend using the VM role instead. When developers use
the VM role, they retain most benefits of automated service management (load balancing
and failover) with the exception of Guest OS patching.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure
Compute Instance Sizes

Developers have the ability to choose the size of VMs to run their application based on
the applications resource requirements. Windows Azure compute instances come in five
unique sizes to enable complex applications and workloads. Microsoft introducing the
Extra Small Windows Azure instance to make the process of development, testing and
trial easier for enterprise developers. The Extra Small instance will also make Windows
Azure more affordable for developers interested in running smaller applications on the
platform.

Compute Instance I/O Cost per

CPU Memory
Instance Size Storage Performance hour
Extra Small 1.0 GHz 768 MB 20 GB Low $0.05
Small 1.6 GHz 1.75 GB 225 GB Moderate $0.12
2 x 1.6
Medium 3.5 GB 490 GB High $0.24
GHz
4 x 1.6
Large 7 GB 1,000 GB High $0.48
GHz
8 x 1.6
Extra large 14 GB 2,040 GB High $0.96
GHz

Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server. Although many
resources are dedicated to a particular instance, some resources associated to I/O
performance, such as network bandwidth and disk subsystem, are shared among the
compute instances on the same physical host. During periods when a shared resource is
not fully utilized, you are able to utilize a higher share of that resource.

VM role Pricing and Licensing

The pricing model for the Windows Azure VM role is the same as the existing pricing
model for Web and Worker roles. Customers will be charged at an hourly rate depending
on the compute instance size. The Windows Azure fee for running the VM role – whether
consumption or commitment based - includes the Windows Server licensing costs.

The license for the Windows Server 2008 R2 is covered through the Windows Azure VM
Role licensing. Customers may use bits obtained through Volume Licensing (physical or
electronic) to create the image. At launch, customers can deploy Windows Server 2008
R2 for production use in the VM role. In addition, During the Windows Azure VM role
beta, developers can use the 64-bit version of Windows Server R2 in the VM Role for
production services. Microsoft will gather feedback on how customers and partners
utilize the Windows VM Role and use that feedback to develop broader licensing
scenarios for the cloud. This provision for MSDN in the Windows Azure VM Role is
being offered until May 2011 irrespective of the duration of the Beta phase. Use of any
third party software in the VM Role will be governed by use rights for that software.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Windows Azure Storage

Windows Azure gives you four core storage services that are secure, scalable and easy to
access.

• Binary Large Object (BLOB) Service, the simplest way to store text or binary data
with Windows Azure.
• Table Service is better for large amounts of data that needs additional structure, which
works exceptionally well with applications that need to work with data is a very
detailed manner via queries.
• Queue Service, for reliable, persistent messaging between Web and Worker role
instances
• Windows Azure Drive that allows Windows Azure applications to mount a Page
Blob, which is single volume NTFS VHD. This allows applications to
upload/download VHDs via blob.

Fault-tolerance and CDN built in

All your content stored on Windows Azure is replicated three times. No matter which
storage service you use, your data will be replicated on different fault domains thereby
making it much more fault tolerant.

What’s more, the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) offers 1-click
integration with our Storage services. The CDN dramatically boosts performance by
automatically storing content near where it is most frequently accessed.

REST and managed APIs

You can use Window Azure storage services not just for your applications running on
Windows Azure, but also with applications running on-premises or on a different cloud
platform. Download the SDK to get both the REST API and a managed API for working
with the storage services. Learn more about the REST API over at MSDN

Pricing and Metering

Windows Azure Storage utilization is calculated based on your average usage during a
billing period of blob, table, queue, and Windows Azure Drive storage. For example, if
you consistently utilized 10GB of storage for the first half of the month and none for the
second half of the month, you would be billed for your average usage of 5GB of storage.

To calculate this average, our system reports hourly the maximum storage capacity you
utilized in that clock hour and then divides by the hours in an average month (730 hours)
to report the gigabytes utilized for that hour in “GB/month”. For example, if you utilized
730 GB for only one hour and then deleted your storage account and utilized no

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 Microsoft Windows Azure
additional storage for that billing month, you would be billed 1 GB for the billing period
and your daily usage report for that day would show 1 GB.

For Windows Azure Drive storage, you will be billed only for the storage space used by
the page blob and the read/write transactions to the page blob. You will not be charged
for read transactions that utilize the local drive cache. Windows Azure Drive usage is
billed at the same rates as standard Windows Azure Storage and is included in these
totals on your bill. There will not be a separate line item for Azure Drive on your bill.

Storage is also metered in terms of storage transactions used to add, update, read and
delete storage data. These are billed at a rate of $0.01 for 10,000 (10k) transaction
requests.

Management Portal
Windows Azure is updating the Management Portal to a much improved user experience
based on Silverlight. The previous Management Portal will continue to be available for a
period of time. However, in early 2011 the previous version of the Management Portal
will be shut down.

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 Microsoft Windows Azure

Conclusion

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development,
service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure
platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to
host, scale and manages web applications on the internet through Microsoft datacenters.

Windows Azure is a flexible platform that supports multiple languages and integrates
with your existing on-premises environment. To build applications and services on
Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio expertise. In
addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards, protocols and languages including
SOAP, REST, XML, Java, PHP and Ruby. Windows Azure is now commercially
available in 41 countries.

References

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179442.aspx
[3] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/getstarted/

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