Microsoft Officially Names Cloud-base Operating System "Windows Azure"

Microsoft’s cloud-based operating system, originally referred to as ‘Windows Cloud’ has finally gotten is official name – Azure. The Azure Services Platform is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, to provide an operating system and developer services that can be used individually or together.

Cloud computing, also referred to as ‘On Demand Computing’, is a system in which tasks and functions are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services, accessed over a network. The network is referred to as ‘the cloud’. Cloud computing allows users to access supercomputer level power – using a browser, thin client or other access points like an iPhone, BlackBerry, or other mobile computing device. Users can virtually ‘reach’ into the cloud for resources when they require them – hence the ‘On Demand’ reference.

The amount of processing power is made available to users through distributed cluster computing, often in conjunction with server virtualization software like Xen, and other parallel processing systems. So what exactly is ‘Cloud Computing’ used for?

Cloud Computing is generally used to sort or process through extremely large amounts of data. For example, Google essentially ‘clouds’ due to its need to produce accurate results from literally millions of incoming search inquiries at any given time of the day. Google’s approach has been to manufacture hundreds of thousands of its own servers / datacenters from commodity components, connecting relatively inexpensive processors in parallel to create a very powerful and scalable system. Things that general consumers use quite frequently such as, Google Apps, Google Maps, and Google Mail are all ‘cloud’ based applications – they are accessed via the client and handled by a cloud system in the background. Get the idea?

For those of you that do not keep up on this type of stuff, ‘Cloud Computing’ is just another way of saying ‘Grid Computing’ – Grid Computing has been around for a very long time, so there is really nothing new here. ‘Cloud Computing’ or ‘Azure’ is just a new way of marketing the whole idea and making it more readily available to everyone – this is the really good part about it.

According to Microsoft’s description of the ‘Azure’ service:

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live, Microsoft Dynamics, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

Feel free to browse around Microsoft’s Azure pages to get yourself familiarized more with what it is all about – located here.

  • computerninja7823
    so i want to set up a home network with like 5 computers accessing one central computer, would this program be what i want? or am i looking at this wrong?!
    Reply
  • Tindytim
    You're looking at this wrong.

    You would use a computer with this OS, and you might start to play a game, and rather than your computer doing the processing, a network of servers would do the processing, then send the result back to your computer.

    I really don't like the idea of cloud computing. It ,along with DD, seems to erodes the ability to actually own anything. While there are some benefits, I'm not interested in paying a service everytime I want to play a game. I'd much rather have a machine that does the processing without need for a network.

    It would be great for businesses, and quite a few other uses. But the average person has no real need for Cloud Computing.
    Reply
  • JonnyDough
    You're correct. The average person does not have a need for cloud computing. Businesses however, do. The idea that consumers will want to do this is absurd. Call me liberal, but if the rich are pushing this I think it's just one more way to tap into our homes and steal our privacy. I'll do my computing at home thank you. I don't need Uncle Sam watching my every move. It's bad enough I'm connected to the internet and they're watching everything I do with their fancy algorithms. You realize you can't even pick up the phone these days without a search algorithm scanning your words? It's true. They have keyword sniffers for your voice and the government is using it to spy on you every time your on the phone. They've been doing it for years, only computers have more recently gotten stronger and allowed them to do it wide scale. I believe that the government backed the internet to monitor us even more closely, and the problem for them is that they want even more control. Cloud computing gives them just that. Binary level data anytime and anyplace. No thank you.
    Reply
  • nebun
    you can get away from what uncle sam is doing by using anonymous browsing, or a proxy. problem fixed. why are so many paranoid people out there? btw, anything over a network connection will be much, much slower that if it was to be computed by a local computer in your house. this is scam for Microsoft to put more money in their own pockets. we don't need another crap piece of software form MicroCrap. i own both OS system (apple and windows) and Apple is a much better developed OS. i don't care who was the first and who was the second to invent the OS, from experience Apple is much more stable and functional, yet Apple is smart enough to realize that there is no need to anything like this until network systems will be much, much faster than they are now. again this cloud computing is dumb in my own opinion.
    Reply
  • V3ctor
    And if my internet connection goes down... no computer for anyone... Don't like that idea, I had a big fire near my house, and it burned the phone lines, I use ADSL so I was out of internet for 2weeks, until they could make the repairs, that means that for two weeks I couldn't do anything related to internet...
    And why would I want a top notch cpu if all the work was beeing done by servers, and the result just popped in my screen?

    Or am I just exaggerating?
    Reply
  • WheelsOfConfusion
    I don't have the impression that this is meant for a mainstream, average computer user audience.
    But "Windows Azure?" That's horrible to try and say aloud. At least "Microsoft Bob" was easy to say. That and the lame blog post about adopting the name "Windows 7" makes me wonder who the Hell is in charge this sort of thing.
    Reply
  • TwoDigital
    For a business it can be a huge money saver *IF* you currently are looking at needing to purchase new hardware and can use a grid/cloud instead. You won't see quite so much bang if you already took the expense of buying all your hardware and stuck it into a datacenter... in that scenario you'd only see a return if the hourly cost for your cloud was actually less than you pay for datacenter space, air conditioning, and power for your existing hardware. You're still going to have to pay licensing fees and support fees for your services.

    Grid/cloud also adds latency to your systems unless you move web servers, business logic, databases, etc. all into the same cloud. It's just a 'different' way to operate that potentially could save you money.
    Reply
  • computerninja7823
    "You're looking at this wrong.

    You would use a computer with this OS, and you might start to play a game, and rather than your computer doing the processing, a network of servers would do the processing, then send the result back to your computer.

    I really don't like the idea of cloud computing. It ,along with DD, seems to erodes the ability to actually own anything. While there are some benefits, I'm not interested in paying a service everytime I want to play a game. I'd much rather have a machine that does the processing without need for a network.

    It would be great for businesses, and quite a few other uses. But the average person has no real need for Cloud Computing."

    @tindytim

    ok thanks!
    Reply
  • JonnyDough
    WheelsOfConfusionI don't have the impression that this is meant for a mainstream, average computer user audience. But "Windows Azure?" That's horrible to try and say aloud. At least "Microsoft Bob" was easy to say. That and the lame blog post about adopting the name "Windows 7" makes me wonder who the Hell is in charge this sort of thing.
    Balmer. Nuff said.
    Reply
  • Okay, my question is where is the processing power coming from? Is it coming from other uses unused PC power or from a company that hosts PC's. because I can totally see how advantageous it would be for slack PC power to be used even though I see huge security issues!
    Reply