Windows Azure Update: point-to-site connectivity and other improvements to virtual machines and networks, cloud services, and the release of the Ruby SDK

Colleagues, developers and IT professionals, I hasten to share details about the next update of the cloud platform Windows Azure . April 26, Scott Guthrie introduced in his blog the next batch of new products that relate to the work of virtual machines and networks, as well as other cloud services. In addition, the long-awaited updated Ruby SDK toolkit was introduced in the announcement, which will allow Ruby applications to easily integrate with Windows Azure cloud services. Below you will find a more detailed description of these, as well as other innovations not described in Scott Guthrie.

Point-to-Site connections to virtual networks

The main innovation of this platform update can be called the new functionality of virtual networks to provide interaction like Point-to-Site, that is, without the need for a VPN device on the client side!

What does this mean? This means that you can now connect to a virtual network in Windows Azure from a regular PC outside the corporate network. Such opportunities open up a huge number of new scenarios for the use of the cloud platform and virtual networks.
')


Point-to-Site Virtual Private Networking technology will be especially useful for cloud developers, as they will not have to understand the infrastructure settings or use the company's IT staff in order to configure VPN from corporate network to cloud. Instead, developers can use the built-in Windows VPN client for tunneling to the cloud. These features are provided by the support of the Secure Sockets Tunneling Protocol ( SSTP ), which easily overcomes firewalls and proxies, while ensuring complete data transmission security.

A couple of real scenarios and cases that the new features of Windows Azure virtual networks will be especially useful:

• Small companies (or departments within large companies) that do not have their own VPN-enabled device and / or device configuration skills can now use the Point-to-Site VPN function to securely connect to their own capabilities in the Windows Azure cloud;
• You or any company employee can easily and quickly safely connect to cloud capacity without having to involve IT staff, even if it works in a corporate environment protected by firewalls or proxies. This is very useful, especially when you work on the road, for example, in the network at the customer or in a public place, like a cafe.

Configuring a Point-to-Site connection is very simple; specify in the virtual network configuration step the desire to configure a connection.



Fill in all the necessary data, launch the gateway and download the VPN client package for local installation. After that, you can connect to your virtual network in Windows Azure from your work computer.



For more information on how to configure a Point-to-Site connection, see this article Configure a Point-to-Site VPN in the Management Portal .

Software VPN support for Site-To-Site connectivity

Along with the announcement of a new type of connection to a virtual network, Windows Azure, the functionality of the former type of Site-To-Site of connecting two networks through VPN devices has improved.

If earlier to make a Site-To-Site connection, VPN-enabled routers (and other requirements) were required from companies such as Cisco and Juniper, now the Site-To-Site connection can be configured simply via software VPNs.

The new feature uses the capabilities of the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) protocol and can be configured in Windows Server 2012 using PowerShell scripts .

Other innovations in virtual machines and networks

With the current update, several more new features have become available when working with virtual machines and networks in Windows Azure.

Dynamic DNS Support

The work was simplified and restrictions on setting up a DNS server in virtual networks were removed. Now you can update the settings of the DNS server in the virtual network without having to re-create the virtual network and the machines inside it. Each machine on the network will receive the updated settings after the DNS update. This improvement makes updating virtual networks much easier.

Remote PowerShell and Linux SSH features

Now, when creating a virtual machine, you can specify that it is necessary to enable the Remote PowerShell function, which allows you to manage the server without using RDP sessions.



To help administer servers based on Linux, at the stage of creating a virtual machine, the ability to load an SSH key has been added in order not to require an administrator to set a password.



The function of using a password for SSH sessions has been preserved and you can use it if you wish.

SQL Server Web in the Virtual Machine Template Gallery

With access to the global availability of Windows Azure infrastructure services, developers and IT professionals have the opportunity to use SQL Server in virtual machines without acquiring a server license just by paying for the time to use such VM.

At the time of the announcement, versions of SQL Server Standard and Enterprise were available in the gallery of virtual machine images. With the current update, the cheapest version of SQL Server Web has been added to the gallery.

Cloud Services: enabling RDP for roles already hosted

Windows Azure PaaS platform cloud services allow using RDP connection to each of the hosted roles. However, it was previously required at the stage of placing the code to specifically indicate the need to enable the RDP function. If it was not included in advance, then it could not be enabled for already running roles.

The current update has the long-awaited feature of enabling access to already running instances of Cloud Services roles via RDP.



By enabling this feature once for all roles, then you will be able to connect via RDP to each of the instances.

Ruby SDK Announcement

The Windows Azure team has long been providing open source toolkits for various programming languages ​​and platforms: .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, and Python.

With the current update, a new Ruby SDK has been added to the tool family to support projects in the Ruby programming language. This toolkit offers Ruby rubygem programmers, which simplifies working with cloud storage (blobs, tables, queues) and the service bus queues, topics / subscriptions). Ruby SDK for Windows Azure was created along with AppFog .

You can find the source code for the SDK on GitHub . Ruby gem Azure can be found here http://rubygems.org/gems/azure/ . Windows Azure SDK for Ruby documentation on rubydoc.info .

For developers, a Ruby development center is open on the official Windows Azure website, where you can find the necessary materials and guides to start developing Ruby in the cloud. Their full list can be found on the portal wazurr.ru .

Hosting sites from foreign Git or Mercurial repositories

Another small, but important innovation in Windows Azure concerns the integration of the Web Sites service with the Git and Mercurial version control systems. Previously , only Git's own public or private repositories (local, on BitBucket or GitHub) or Mercurial (on BitBucket or CodePlex) could be used for integration and continuous hosting.

With the current update , the ability to integrate the Web Sites service with foreign third-party Git or Mercurial repositories has been added .



Naturally, with such integration, the ability to automatically post after each commit is lost, since Windows Azure requires access to the repository. However, a developer can independently synchronize a remote third-party repository with his Web Sites site using the features of the Windows Azure management portal.

Do not miss

Do not miss the previous announcements of updates to the Windows Azure platform, which are published almost every week:

• Windows Azure update : wide availability of virtual machines and networks, SLA, memory increase, price reduction
• Active Directory and backups in the cloud , site tracing and other Windows Azure updates;
• Windows Azure Update : Hadoop, Dropbox, Mercurial, PhoneGap;
• Updates and news of the Windows Azure platform for the month (February-March 2013);
• Cloud support for Android applications;
• Overview of Windows Azure platform updates for the month : Media Services, Notification Hubs, VM Depot, Redis.

useful links

Below you will find links to resources that will help you in using the Microsoft cloud platform:

• Free 90-day trial of Windows Azure;
• Free access to Windows Azure resources for startups , partners , teachers, MSDN subscribers ;
• Windows Azure Development Center (azurehub.ru) - scripts, tutorials, examples, recommendations on the choice of services and development on Windows Azure;
• Latest Windows Azure News - Twitter.com/windowsazure_ru ;
• http://wazurr.ru - content aggregator for Windows Azure in Russian and English.

And if you are already developing on Windows Azure or want to find the developers of your service, visit appprofessionals.ru .

We will be happy to answer your questions at azurerus@microsoft.com .

And we are waiting for you in the Windows Azure Community on Facebook . Here you will find experts (don't forget to ask them questions), photos, and lots and lots of news.

Video recordings of Windows Azure Summit reports and video interviews that were conducted during a large cloud conference.