Digest of news of the Windows Azure platform, October 1, 2013

As part of this news digest, the Windows Azure cloud platform contains basic announcements for developers, IT professionals, and for all professionals interested in cloud technologies and the Windows Azure platform.

In this issue:

• What brought the next Windows Azure update?
  
  • New virtual machines and improved management;
  • Create multiple instances of Active Directory;
  • IP Access Restrictions for Web Sites;
  • Billing Return Spending Limits. Virtual machines.
  • New version of the library Storage Client Library;
• The multifactor authentication service is available for industrial use in your applications;
• Partnership with Oracle: Oracle Database, WebLogic, Oracle Linux, Java Platform and OpenJDK officially in Windows Azure;
• Ubuntu users can use Juju service with full Windows Azure support.
• Windows Azure was the first cloud-based platform to receive security certification from the US federal government FedRAMP.

Details below.

Multifactor authentication service is available for industrial use in your applications.

The Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) multi- factor authentication service, after a brief public testing, has been released into commercial use and is available for industrial use in your applications. As additional factors of authentication, phone calls, SMS, mobile applications, one-time secret codes are supported.
')
WAMFA service makes it easy to manage secure access to user accounts for Windows Azure, Office 365, Intune, Dynamics CRM, and any other applications that use Windows Azure Active Directory for control and authentication. The proposed project support for ASP.NET, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby.

WAMFA service can be used not only for cloud solutions, but also for internal company applications. For these scenarios, you can download the new Multi-Factor Authentication Server for Windows Server Active Directory and deploy it in a corporate environment.

Additionally:

• Video: Edge Show 76 - Windows Azure MFA
• Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Quick Start Guide
• Pricing Details

Partnership with Oracle: Oracle Database, WebLogic, Oracle Linux and Java Platform officially in Windows Azure

As part of the agreement between Oracle and Microsoft, signed in June 2013, official images of Oracle products — WebLogic Server 11g / 12c, Oracle Database 12c, Oracle Linux 6.4.0.0 and Java 6/7 — became available to users of Windows Azure. At the same time, Java, WebLogic and Oracle Database are available on both Windows Server 2012 virtual machines and Oracle Linux.

These products are licensed according to their own license, which implies that users must use their own licenses for Oracle products. Product support is provided by Oracle.

A detailed description of the pricing and licensing of Oracle products can be found on the official Windows Azure portal. You can also find answers to frequently asked questions.

Additionally, Azul Systems has released an OpenJDK build for Windows Azure with full tool integration and support.

Additionally:

• Java Developers, Meet Windows Azure
• Official announcement
• Deploy Pre-configured Oracle VMs on Windows Azure
• Azul Systems Releases Zulu, an OpenJDK Build for Windows Azure Systems, in partnership with MS Open Tech

Windows Azure Update

September 26, Scott Guthrie in his blog announced the next batch of innovations in the Windows Azure platform. Among them there are separate announcements about the commercialization of the multifactor authentication service and the availability of Orcale software in the virtual machine gallery. In addition to these large announcements, smaller innovations were presented.

New virtual machine size: 2 cores + 14 GB RAM

Introduced the new size of the virtual machine available for placement in Windows Azure . Previously, besides all the others , configurations of virtual machines with two cores and 3.5 GB of memory or with eight cores and 14 GB of memory were available . The new version of the virtual machine is intermediate and is represented by two cores and 14 gigabytes of memory . This proposal will allow you to more effectively place solutions that require a large amount of memory, but do not require a lot of computing power.

Improved virtual machine management

With this update, it becomes possible to perform management operations on stopped virtual machines. Now you can resize a virtual machine, connect or disconnect disks, configure endpoints, balance and availability settings even when the virtual machine is stopped.

Creating multiple instances of Active Directory

Creation of multiple Windows Azure Active Directory service directories has become available, with which you can synchronize with an enterprise directory, authenticate cloud services, and integrate with third-party services.

In addition to this, the following functions have been added:

• the ability to change the name of the directory after its creation;
• directory administrators can add users from other directories. A user can be a member of up to 20 directories at a time;
• improved and simplified management of different directories under different accounts;
• for developers added the ability to delete applications added to the Windows Azure AD directory. An application can only be deleted when it is set to “Off” in the “External Access” setting.

IP Restrictions for Web Sites

For Windows Azure Web Sites websites , the ability to use IIS’s IP and Domain Restrictions features is enabled. These additional settings can be used in conjunction with the previously introduced Dynamic IP address restriction (DIPR) function .

Now developers can restrict or grant access to sites by specifying a set or range of specific IP addresses. A detailed description of this IIS server function can be found here .

Billing Return Spending Limits

Due to numerous requests for subscriptions that have established free use limits, the ability to return limits after their removal has been added. Previously, if the limits were lifted manually, it was impossible to restore them back. Now MSDN subscribers can:

• remove limits only for the current billing cycle (ideally, if you assume the need for capacity);
• lift limits indefinitely if you wish to consume more power each month;
• return the limits back for the next billing cycle (settlement period), if you previously removed the limits.

Billing Virtual machines

Another good news was the change in Windows Azure behavior when subscription limits are exhausted. Now, when resources are exhausted in the current billing period, virtual machines will not be deleted. Instead, all virtual machines will be placed in a stop mode without consuming resources. This will allow subscribers to quickly restart them after the subscription resumes in the next billing period.

New version of the Storage Client Library

Library Storage Client Library is designed to work with cloud storage services. Windows Azure Storage has received an update. The new version of the Storage Client Library 2.1 introduced the following innovations:

• improved data performance;
• support for asynchronous operations and Async Task <T>;
• IQueryably <T> support for Table Storage;
• support mechanism Buffer Pooling;
• integration with the mechanism. NET Tracing;
• improvements in blob streaming;

The library received other improvements, more about which are written in the blog .

Ubuntu users can use Juju service with full Windows Azure support.

Juju service. which offers the possibility of creating various configuration options for the Ubuntu distribution based on more than a hundred components, now fully supports Windows Azure as a platform for hosting ready-made configurations.

Additionally:

• Ubuntu blog: Ubuntu on Windows Azure gets the Juju magic
• Windows Azure Blog: Windows Azure is now fully supported by Juju

Windows Azure and FedRAMP JAB P-ATO

Windows Azure was the first cloud platform with infrastructure and platform services, which received the Provisional Authorities to Operate (P-ATO) security certification from the US Federal Service Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB).

This certification means that the Windows Azure cloud platform meets the high requirements and security standards of the US government and can be used to build cloud solutions for government agencies.

Additionally:

• Official press release .