October 1, 2013 at 13:18

Windows Azure Platform News Digest October 1, 2013

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    As part of this digest of news on the Windows Azure cloud platform , the main announcements for developers, IT professionals and for all professionals interested in cloud technologies and the Windows Azure platform are collected.

    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 Storage Client Library;
    • A 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 support for Windows Azure
    • Windows Azure became the first cloud platform to receive US Federal Security certification FedRAMP.

    Details below.

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


    After a short public testing , Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) has been put into commercial use and is available for industrial use in your applications. As additional authentication factors, telephone calls, SMS, mobile applications, and one-time secret codes are supported.

    WAMFA service makes it easy to manage secure access to user accounts of Windows Azure, Office 365, Intune, Dynamics CRM services and any other applications that use Windows Azure Active Directory for control and authentication. Support for projects in ASP.NET, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby is offered.

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

    Additionally:

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


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

    Licensing of these products is based on the “own license” principle, which implies that users must use their own licenses for Oracle products. Product support is provided by Oracle.

    Detailed pricing descriptionand Oracle product licensing can be found on the official Windows Azure portal. There you can find answers to the most frequently asked questions.

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

    Additionally:

    Windows Azure Update


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

    New size of the virtual machine: 2 cores + 14 GB RAM

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

    Improved management of virtual machines

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

    Creating Multiple Instances of Active Directory

    Creating Multiple Service Directories Now AvailableWindows Azure Active Directory , with which you can synchronize with the enterprise directory, authenticate cloud services, 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, the ability to remove applications added to the Windows Azure AD directory has been added. An application can only be deleted when “External Access” is set to “Off” for it.

    Of IP restrictions for Web Sites

    For Web Sites Windows Azure Web Sites includes the ability to use the functions in IP and Domain Restrictions IIS server. These advanced settings can be used in conjunction with the Dynamic IP address restriction (DIPR) feature introduced earlier .

    Developers can now restrict or grant access to sites by specifying the set or range of specific IP addresses. A detailed description of this IIS server feature can be found here .

    Billing. Return Spending Limits

    According to numerous requests for subscriptions that have established free use limits, the ability to return limits after they have been removed has been added. Previously, if the limits were removed manually, it was impossible to restore them back. Now MSDN subscribers have the opportunity to:

    • remove limits only for the current billing cycle (ideal if you expect the need for capacity);
    • to remove limits for an indefinite period if you wish to consume more capacities every month;
    • return the limits back for the next billing cycle (billing period), if you previously removed the limits.

    Billing. Virtual Machines

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

    The new version of the Storage Client Library

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

    • Improved data performance
    • support for asynchronous operations and Async Task;
    • IQueryably support for table storage;
    • Buffer Pooling mechanism support;
    • Integration with .NET Tracing;
    • Improvements to blob streaming function;

    The library received other improvements, more about which is written on the blog .

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


    Juju Service . which offers the ability to create a variety of 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:

    Windows Azure and FedRAMP JAB P-ATO


    Windows Azure was the first cloud platform to feature infrastructure and platform services and received Provisional Authorities to Operate (P-ATO) certification from the United States 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:
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