What Is Windows Azure?

Windows® Azure is a runtime environment in the cloud that delivers on-demand compute, storage, and automated systems management. Windows Azure provides developers with the ability to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.

Get Started Quickly Using Your Existing Skills. Windows Azure reduces barriers to entry to creating reliable and scalable web applications because it is an open platform that supports both Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies allowing developers to build applications and services on Windows Azure using their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 or non-Microsoft programming languages and tools, such as PHP.

Standards Based Platform. Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Using the Windows Azure tools, developers can build, debug, and deploy to Windows Azure directly from their existing development environment.

Control and Scalability. Developers have control of their environment and can specify their own performance standards while paying only for the resources needed for their applications. New Fabric Controller technology in Windows Azure provides developers with the ability to upgrade applications without interruption. Windows Azure includes tracing, logging, and monitoring functionality, giving insight into resource usage and performance.

VSTS 2010, Enhanced User Experience

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 delivers a modern, enhanced user experience that makes understanding the current context more natural.

    * Clear UI Organization
    * Reduced clutter and complexity
    * Improved editor
    * Better support for floating documents and windows
    * Enhanced document targeting
    * Focused animations for action feedback

Parallel Programming

Parallel programming is simplified, so both native- and managed-code developers can productively build innovative applications.

    * IDE support for parallel programming
    * Native C++ libraries that use lambda functions and align well with STL
    * Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework offers support for imperative data and task parallelism, declarative data parallelism, and more
    * Resource management of the multicore hardware and task scheduling enabled by Concurrency Runtime
    * Parallel debugging windows and profiling views

Democratizing Application Lifecycle Management
Democratizing Application Lifecycle Management

Visual Studio Team System 2010 delivers new capabilities for everyone on a project, including architects, developers, project managers and testers.

    * Discover existing code assets with the new Architecture Explorer
    * Design and share multiple diagram types, including use case, activity and sequence diagrams
    * Tooling for better documentation of test scenarios and more thorough collection of test data
    * Run tests impacted by a code change with the new Test Impact View
    * Gated check-in, branch visualization and build workflow allow for enhanced version control

Inspiring Developer Delight

Visual Studio has made application development more productive, efficient and flexible for both developers and companies. Visual Studio 2010 continues this legacy.

    * Contextual support helps developers better understand existing code – and write new code more efficiently
    * First class C++ development experience that helps developers navigate and understand complex C++ source bases
    * Build new Windows® 7 applications or upgrade existing applications
    * Enable Office tools to make your solutions more flexible and productive for specific needs

Web Development
Web Development

With Visual Studio 2010, we're continuing our investment in great Web development tools.

    * A high-performance and standards-compliant JavaScript IntelliSense® engine
    * "One Click Deployment" that quickly publishes files and configuration settings from development machines to the final deployed site
    * Full support for Silverlight™ for cutting-edge, rich Internet applications

Cloud Development

With Windows Azure™ Tools for Visual Studio, it's easy for developers to build, debug and deploy services and applications for Microsoft's new cloud platform.

    * C# and VB Project Templates for building Cloud Services
    * Tools to change the Service Role configuration
    * Integrated local development via Development Fabric and Development Storage services
    * Debugging Cloud Service Roles running in the Development Fabric
    * Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages
    * Browsing to the Azure Services Developer Portal

More Databases
More Databases

With the Visual Studio partner ecosystem, developers will now be able to work with IBM DB2 and Oracle databases in addition to Microsoft SQL Server™ databases.

IBM has committed to develop, sell and support a Database Schema Provider (DSP) to let developers working with DB2 on the Windows, Linux or Unix platforms do offline design, development, testing and change management using Visual Studio Team System 2010 Development Edition.

Quest Software have made a similar commitment develop, sell and support a DSP which will enable Oracle Developers to work with their databases just as easily.