What is Windows Azure?Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. You can build applications using any language, tool or framework. And you can integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT environment.Always up. Always on.Windows Azure delivers a 99.95% monthly SLA and enables you to build and run highly available applications without focusing on the infrastructure. It provides automatic OS and service patching, built in network load balancing and resiliency to hardware failure. It supports a deployment model that enables you to upgrade your application without downtime.OpenWindows Azure enables you to use any language, framework, or tool to build applications. Features and services are exposed using open REST protocols. The Windows Azure client libraries are available for multiple programming languages, and are released under an open source license and hosted on GitHub.BroadWindows Azure enables you to easily scale your applications to any size. It is a fully automated self-service platform that allows you to provision resources within minutes. Elastically grow or shrink your resource usage based on your needs. You only pay for the resources your application uses. Windows Azure is available in multiple datacenters around the world, enabling you to deploy your applications close to your customers.FlexibleWindows Azure delivers a flexible cloud platform that can satisfy any application need. It enables you to reliably host and scale out your application code within compute roles. You can store data using relational SQL databases, NoSQL table stores, and unstructured blob stores, and optionally use Hadoop and business intelligence services to data-mine it. You can take advantage of Windows Azures robust messaging capabilities to enable scalable distributed applications, as well as deliver hybrid solutions that run across a cloud and on-premises enterprise environment. Windows Azures distributed caching and CDN services allow you to reduce latency and deliver great application performance anywhere in the world.

Global reachWith datacenters around the globe, a massive investment indatacenter innovation and a worldwide Content Delivery Network, you can build applications that provide the best experience for your users wherever they are.Datacenter without boundariesWe make it easy for you to integrate your on-premises IT environment with the public cloud. Migrate your virtual machines to Windows Azure without the need to convert them to a different format. Use the robust messaging and networking capabilities in Windows Azure to deliver hybrid solutions, and then manage your hybrid applications from a single console with System Center.Flexible Application ModelWindows Azure provides a rich set of application services, including SDKs, caching, messaging and identity. You can write applications in .NET, PHP, Java, node.js, Python, Ruby, or using open REST protocols. This is all part of our promise to let you build using any language, tool or framework.The power of cloud brings both opportunities and challenges to the enterprise. Leveraging the capabilities of Windows Server, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Azure, customers can create an infrastructure with the resilience, reliability and options for expansion that todays business requires. The transformed datacenter offers an elastic infrastructure that is easy for IT to deploy, manage and extend into the cloud. With the Microsoft product set, customers can take advantage of technical advances and new cloud options across areas such as storage, networking, and identity and access management. Customers are able to rethink fundamental problems in the light of new technology. To help customers meet the emerging needs of the business, Microsoft enables IT to deploy applications more rapidly, manage those applications more effectively, and offer more self-service optionsall while meeting standards for security and compliance.

Datacenter without BoundariesBusiness today requires access to cloud options on demand, including the ability to seamlessly move workloads between the datacenter and the cloud.

Increase resilience with enterprise-grade offerings.

Gain flexibility with a unified pool of infrastructure resources.

Scale up; scale down while keeping costs low.

Flexible Application DeliveryTo remain competitive, IT needs to continue to leverage cloud innovation without increasing cost and complexity.

Rethink storage to reduce cost and increase flexibility.

Simplify multi-tenancy and connectivity across the cloud.

Enable secure access to information and resources across clouds.

Cloud Innovation everywhere

IT must be able to respond rapidly to changing business requirements, delivering applications and services to meet emerging needs.

Manage and monitor with enough detail to fix problems before they occur.

Automate manual or routine processes to reduce errors and increase speed.

Offer self-service options to create more flexibility for the business.