Windows Azure Platform

Component	Purpose	For More Information
Local Development Environment	The Windows Azure SDK provides tools and resources that you can use to package, test and deploy your application. Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure.	To learn about the Windows Azure SDK Tools: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg433055.aspx To learn about the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405484.aspx
Windows Azure Compute	Provides web roles, worker roles, and VM roles. A Windows Azure application must define one or more role types. Web role – A web role runs in a virtual machine and is customized for web application programming. It supports IIS 7 and ASP.NET. Worker role – A worker role runs in a virtual machine and is useful for generalized development. Use it to perform background processing for a web role. VM role – A VM role enables you to define the configuration and updates of the operating system for the virtual machine. While a web role and a worker role run in a virtual machine, the VM role is the virtual machine, which gives you full control of operations.	To learn about using role types: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432976.aspx To learn about managing applications: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg433038.aspx
Windows Azure Storage	The Windows Azure storage services provide storage for binary and text data, messages, and structured data in Windows Azure.	To learn about storing and accessing data: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg433040.aspx To learn about the data storage offerings: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/data-storage-offerings-on-the-windows-azure-platform.aspx
Microsoft SQL Azure	Microsoft SQL Azure offers a relational database service. Using SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions. Benefits include manageability, high availability, scalability, a familiar development model, and a relational data model.	To learn about Microsoft SQL Azure Database: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336230.aspx To learn about the data storage offerings: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/data-storage-offerings-on-the-windows-azure-platform.aspx
Windows Azure Connect	With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure.	To learn about Windows Azure Connect: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432997.aspx To learn how to set up Windows Azure Connect: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg508836.aspx
Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus	The Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus provides a hosted, secure, and widely available infrastructure for widespread communication, large-scale event distribution, naming, and service publishing. AppFabric Service Bus provides connectivity options for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and other service endpoints, which includes REST endpoints.	To learn about Windows Azure AppFabric: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee922714.aspx To learn about the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee732537.aspx To learn how to create a Windows AppFabric Service Bus application: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee706736.aspx
Windows Azure AppFabric Caching	Windows Azure AppFabric Caching enables you to easily provision a cache in the cloud to be used from any applications or services that could benefit from caching. This includes a very common scenario of session state and output caching in ASP.NET. Caching increases performance by temporarily storing information from other backend sources.	To learn about Windows Azure AppFabric Caching: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg983488.aspx To get started with Windows Azure AppFabric Caching: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg278356.aspx
Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control	Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Service (ACS) is a cloud-based service that provides an easy way of authenticating and authorizing users to gain access to your web applications and services while allowing the features of authentication and authorization to be factored out of your code.	To learn about Windows AppFabric Access Control: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg429788.aspx To get started with Windows AppFabric Access Control: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg429775.aspx
Windows Azure Content Delivery Network	The Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches Windows Azure blobs and the static content output of compute instances at strategically placed locations to provide maximum bandwidth for delivering content to users.	To learn about the Windows Azure CDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919703.aspx To get started with Windows Azure CDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919705.aspx
Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket	The Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket is an information marketplace that simplifies publishing and consuming data of all types. The DataMarket enables developers and information workers to easily discover, purchase, and manage premium data subscriptions.	To learn about Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff717668.aspx To get started with Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff717658.aspx
Windows Azure Management Portal	The Windows Azure Platform Management Portal provides access to service deployment and management tasks as well as at-a-glance status information that lets you know the overall health of your deployments and accounts. The Management Portal organizes the components of your Windows Azure deployments with constantly refreshed information that’s easy to discover and understand.	To learn about the Windows Azure Management Portal: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg441576.aspx To learn about managing hosted services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg433038.aspx