Cloud Computing & few bits about Microsoft Azure Platform,
Cloud Computing
[From wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing )]
Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.
Leading companies offering Cloud Computing services, including:
Amazon
Google
Google App Engine - http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html
Allows to host application written in Python & Java
Microsoft
Azure services platform. Windows Azure - http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazure.mspx
Allows to host application written in ASP.NET & PHP
Java applications can also utilize “.NET services” by separate SDK
We can create, test and debug the applications using Visual Studio
Windows Azure Service Platform
Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that provides various functionality for Cloud Computing. It serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides on-demand compute & storage services on the Internet in Microsoft data centers.
It provides various services including,
- .NET Services
- Azure Storage Services
- Live Services
- SQL Data Services.
Azure Storage Services
- Windows Azure Tables
- Windows Azure Blob
- Windows Azure Queue
Windows Azure "Tables"
- Used for "DBMS like" functionality. provides scalable, durable structured storage in the form of tables. The tables contain entities, and the entities contain properties. support ACID transactions. It can be accessed as "REST programming approach" via "ADO.NET Data Services".
Windows Azure "Blob"
- Used for "storing Binary data" (ex, Photos, Videos any any type of files).
Windows Azure "Queue"
- provides reliable storage and delivery of messages for an application.
Microsoft .NET Services
- set of developer-oriented services that provide key building blocks "for communication among applications".
[Much like the .NET Framework, for the Cloud computing].
- Access Control Service
- Service Bus
Access Control Service
- The Access Control Service is a cloud-based "Security Token Service (STS)". It provides way for standards-based identity checking.
Service Bus
- provides the familiar Enterprise Service Bus application pattern.
Live Services
- is a set of building blocks for handling "user data and application resources". Live Services includes Mesh technologies for synchronizing user data and extending Web applications across multiple devices.
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(more will be in later post)