windows azure marketplace whitepaper

8/4/2019 Windows Azure Marketplace Whitepaper

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Windows Azure Marketplace

Published

June 2011

Applies to

Windows Azure Marketplace

Summary

The Windows Azure Marketplace is a global online market for customers and partners to share,

buy, and sell finished Software-as-a-Service applications,building block components and

premium datasets. Designed with the needs of ISVs, data publishers, and end customers in

mind, the Windows Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative cloud based

solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use. For providers of

solutions, the Windows Azure Marketplace provides partners a global online sales channel to

rapidly accelerate the return on their Windows Azure platform investment.


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Copyright

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft

Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft mustrespond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the

part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented

after the date of publication.

This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES,

EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting

the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced

into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written

permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual

property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any

written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any

license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Windows Azure, Access, Active Directory, Excel, IntelliSense, Microsoft Dynamics,

SharePoint, SQL Azure, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows Live, and Windows Server

are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.


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Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Data.................................................................................................................................................................................. 4

Applications .................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Key Features of the Windows Azure Marketplace ............................................................................................... 5

A Global Marketplace for Information and Applications ............................................................................. 5

Extending the Reach and Scale of Your Data and Applications ................................................................ 7

Benefits of unified billing ......................................................................................................................................... 8

Diverse Content Types .............................................................................................................................................. 8

Unified Billing Infrastructure ................................................................................................................................... 8

Robust Security and Availability ............................................................................................................................ 9

Analytics Features ....................................................................................................................................................... 9

Integration with Information Worker Applications ........................................................................................ 9

A Rich Set of Tools ...................................................................................................................................................... 9

Typical Scenarios........................................................................................................................................................... 10

Developers .................................................................................................................................................................. 10

Independent Software Vendors .......................................................................................................................... 11

Buying and Selling Information .......................................................................................................................... 12

Architectural Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 12

Architecture ............................................................................................................................................................... 13

Data Publication Architecture ............................................................................................................................. 13

Information and Service Quality Bar ................................................................................................................. 14

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Explore the Windows Azure Marketplace Today! ........................................................................................ 15


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IntroductionThe Windows Azure Marketplace is a global online market for customers and partners to

discover, buy, and sell premium, trusted public domain and commercial data and Windows Azure

applications. The Windows Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative cloud

based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use.

The Marketplace enables customers to gain new insights into business performance and

processes with by bringing together disparate sets of data and premium applications in new andinnovative ways.

Enabling global reach, the Marketplace provides partners an online sales channel to rapidly

accelerate the return on their Windows Azure platform investments by landing new customers,

entering new markets and creating new revenue opportunities.

This paper describes the most important features of the Windows Azure Marketplace and how

they address common business needs. It also outlines common business scenarios that the

Windows Azure Marketplace addresses and describes the system's architecture.

Data

The internet is a source of vast quantities of data, both public domain and commercial content.

Many organizations publish datasets in a wide variety of disparate formats, to which customers

can subscribe. However, it can be difficult for customers to locate and subscribe to these datasets.

Furthermore, it can be challenging to use these datasets in ways that add value.

Consider a business that has identified a need for a specific type of data, whether it is customers

and their buying habits, products from suppliers, geographical information, population statistics,

scientific research, political statistics, or entertainment information. An internet search will locateseveral competing data suppliers. But how does the customer make a fair and direct comparison

of the dataset features to select the one most suitable?

And this is just the beginning. After the company has located and chosen a suitable dataset, how

do they integrate it into their business? The fact is, data is often available in a wide variety of

formats. For example, many publishers use XML, but define their own schema, and may use

SOAP, REST, or JSON to exchange information. As a result, the business must devote

development time to integrate the dataset into its desktop applications, web sites, cloud

applications, and other data-consuming software. This issue is multiplied across every single

dataset that the company acquires from different sources.

After the dataset has been integrated into the company, users get their hands on it for the first

time. Poor quality data only becomes obvious at this pointand if it is, in fact, not useful, the

purchase and development costs have been for naught. And although many dataset suppliers

promise a certain level of availability through their Service Level Agreements (SLAs), some

suppliers are over-ambitious and may not meet their obligations.


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Auditing and billing can also present an issue because each data publisher is likely to bill on a

different basis that may not suit the subscriber's use. For example, a monthly subscription may be

expensive if a dataset is used exclusively by a small department. The company may subscribe

because the data is essential, but it pays the same price as another customer who generates ten

times the number of queries. Furthermore, a publisher may not provide statistics on data use. If a

company wants to know how much the dataset is used, it may have to develop its own code to

keep track.

And finally, using that dataset in conjunction with other data sources can be problematic. Can it

be mashed up and associated with other data? Can its semantics be easily augmented flexibly

associate and correlate data? All of these problems are multiplied when an organization

subscribes to many different datasets from different suppliers.

Applications

As more applications move to take advantage of the cloud, the quantity of web solutions and

cloud based services, both free and commercial is growing at an unprecedented rate; however, it

is increasingly becoming difficult for customers to find right solutions for their business needs.

Think about a BI specialist that is in the need of an application to help him analyze the sales and

marketing numbers from the last quarter, or a marketing professional looking for an application

that will help them to launch and manage the many Facebook promotions that they will be

running over the upcoming months. An internet search might return some compelling options,

but how does the user understand whether she can trust the application, how does she compare

it with other options or find out which one is the most suitable?

Billing can also present an issue because the application developer is likely to bill on a different

basis that may not suit the subscribers use. For example, a monthly subscription to an

application may bill on a basis that is not suitable for a small department or an individual.

Management of all subscribed applications is also very problematic: multiple accounts are

required, multiple bills need to be managed and paid, billing information has to be provided and

entered in a variety of forms at the different applications and subscriptions have to be renewed

individually by visiting each of the application administration websites.

Key Features of the Windows Azure MarketplaceThe following sections describe the most important features of the Windows Azure Marketplace

and show how they may address your business needs.

A Global Marketplace for Information and Applications

The Windows Azure Marketplace is a global online market for customers and partners to share,

buy, and sell finished SaaS applications, building block components and premium datasets. The

Windows Azure Marketplace provides partners a global online sales channel to rapidly


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accelerate the return on their Windows Azure platform investments. The Windows Azure

Marketplace helps partners land new customers, new markets and new revenue opportunities. In

other words, it is a single location that data and application publishers can use to publish their

valuable assets and that customers can use to subscribe to and use data and applications of all

types.

The Windows Azure Marketplace is the place to go to find the solutions you need for

your business.

Whether youre an ISV looking to list your finished Windows Azure application and get

exposure to millions of potential new customers, or youre a developer in your garage

who has built a great Windows Azure based component that you want to sell, the

Windows Azure Marketplace lets you extend your sales force and reach new audiences

that can help drive your business.

In addition to finished applications and components, the Windows Azure Marketplace

offers industry leading data, allowing users to easily discover, explore, subscribe to and

consume data from both trusted public domains and premium commercial providers.

For data publishers, listing your data on the Windows Azure Marketplace improves its

discoverability, lets you extend your sales force and reach new audiences that can help

drive your business, and achieves global reach with high availability.

One of the real benefits that the Windows Azure Marketplace provides is consistency, from the

way datasets and applications are described to the method in which subscriptions are managed.

The Marketplace handles usage tracking and billing such that providers can easily reach new

consumers and allows subscribers to view all their usage in a single location. As a result, billing is

more flexible. And when it comes to integrating data into business applications, developers can

use the same techniques and similar code with subsequent subscriptions due to of the consistent

presentation of data and robust Windows Azure development platform.


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Figure 1: The Windows Azure Marketplace Catalog

Extending the Reach and Scale of Your Data and Applications

One challenge for publishers with rich, high-quality information and applications has been how

to publicize those assets to the global market. Bear in mind that even localized assets may have a

global appeal; for example, a database of United States customer addresses may be of interest to

any company selling into the United States from other countries. When you become a partner,

you automatically obtain the global reach that the Windows Azure Marketplace enjoys.

Furthermore, because the Windows Azure Marketplace is built on Microsoft Azure

and runs inindustry-leading data centers, it integrates seamlessly with your Windows Azure application or

component and wont require additional heavy investments in hardware when publishing data.

The service provides almost unlimited scalability and can guarantee high availability. And when

you need to increase the size of your dataset, the Windows Azure Marketplace will scale

smoothly with your requirements.

Naturally, in addition to the data available on the Marketplace, the ability for developers to

create, publish and distribute Applications that help end users get the full benefits of the

information they are looking for, makes the Windows Azure Marketplace the premier destination

for finding data driven solutions on the Windows Azure platform. Data, even if valuable and

relevant, still needs to be made available to users in a presentable format that can be integrated

into existing user experiences. The ability to bundle application with premium data from any of

the many authoritative sources published at the Marketplace provides application developers

with a great advantage and an innovative opportunity to provide customers with the information


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they crave in a solution that works for them, and to add value to existing applications with

additional data that was not previously available.

Benefits of unified billing

The Windows Azure Marketplace functions as an information marketplace and brokerage

business. That is, it provides all the facilities a publisher needs to monetize the value of premium

data and applications. You no longer need to provide e-commerce functionality such as

shopping baskets, check-out tools, and invoicing. In addition, subscribers trust the data andapplications found in the Windows Azure Marketplace, because they know they will get high-

quality products and excellent service, allowing you to simply benefit from the security and

availability that is built in.

Diverse Content Types

The Windows Azure Marketplace is a marketplace for information and Windows Azure

applications of all types. For example, you could use it to power businesslike publicizing your

product, product catalogs, market research, or other web services. However, the Windows Azure

Marketplace is not exclusively a resource for business data and applications, and in fact already

includes datasets well beyond the traditional concerns of business organizations.

The information and applications available in the Windows Azure Marketplace continues to grow

and diversify, including both commercial and free options, such as public domain data from

federal and state governments and free trials to many pieces of commercial content.

Unified Billing Infrastructure

The Windows Azure Marketplace has a complete and versatile billing infrastructure. In addition, it

can be scaled in ways that make sense with how consumers use your data and applications.

For subscribers, the unified billing infrastructure means that tracking data usage and predicting

cost is simple even when using many subscriptions with multiple content partners. Microsoft

handles it all.

At the same time, publishers dont need custom billing and invoicing systems. Instead, they get a

versatile and powerful system that supports multiple tenants out of the box. For data, Microsoft

handles fulfillment, and the Windows Azure Marketplace tracks all customer access and provides

detailed reports. For applications, Microsoft handles subscription provisioning and cancellation

and provides the publisher with a detailed report.

With the Windows Azure Marketplace, you can also create several different subscription models

for a single offer. For example, you could create a free subscription with partial access and a

premium subscription with full access to the application or data. In the case of data, you can also

control how queries are performedand even control whats returned. Furthermore, we

encourage content providers to tag the data and supply semantic hints to application developers


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and information workers. By doing so, disparate data can logically be combined and joined by

clients to extend the power of the datasets.

In addition for all offers, you set the pricing, terms of use, marketplace descriptions, samples, and

more.

Robust Security and Availability

Publishers put a lot of time and money into their data and applications, which means that

security is of paramount importance. The Windows Azure Marketplace has security built in,

ensuring that subscribers get simple access, but denying unauthorized access and preventing

denial-of-service and other attacks.

The Windows Azure Marketplace runs in industry-leading data centers with specialist firewalls,

physical security, backup systems, and redundancy. All these features are maintained by

Microsoft so publishers do not need to build a physical infrastructure if using the Windows Azure

platform for delivering content. If content is supplied from outside of Windows Azure, an SLA

must be obtained to ensure availability of the content.

Analytics Features

The Windows Azure Marketplace offers rich analytics features for data, helping data publishers to

extend the power of their data. In fact, using the Windows Azure Marketplace you can very

simply build visualizations and applications using data from the Marketplace or you can choose

to publish your data driven application on the Marketplace for others to purchase, allowing you

to use your expertise to deliver rich experiences to your customers.

Integration with Information Worker Applications

The Windows Azure Marketplace integrates with desktop applications smoothly and is an easyway to improve productivity. For example, a data offer could add information to the Microsoft

Office Word Research task pane. In Microsoft Office Excel, data from the Windows Azure

Marketplace could enrich pivot tables and provide extra insights into business data. Reports in

Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft SharePoint Server, or Microsoft SQL Server can mash up

data from the local database with data subscribed to in the Windows Azure Marketplace. You can

also integrate your data with PowerPivot for Excel for rich, self-service business intelligence and

Bing Maps to use spatial datasets for quick, visual instant answers.

A Rich Set of Tools

Every time you assess a set of data, you need a detailed view of its data to determine whether it

suits your application. In the Windows Azure Marketplace, you can build queries easily using the

Service Explorer. A web-based user interface, the Service Explorer lets you preview results in your

browserincluding what data is included and how it is structuredbefore your developers write

a single line of code.


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The Service Explorer is incredibly useful for developers who build cross-platform applications

because it creates URLs that they can copy and paste into their application code to call the data

service. Developers can use existing OData client libraries and in some cases get additional pre-

built proxy classes to import into their Microsoft Visual Studio projects. Developers also get full

Microsoft IntelliSense support and a simple API to work with. The secure REST based OData APIs

provide an abstraction over where the data resideswhether its a remote web service, a blob

store, a rich SQL database, or content in the Azure platform.

The Service Explorer also works well for information workers. For instance, they can download a

PowerPivot file that enables rich data analysis within Excel.

Typical ScenariosThe Windows Azure Marketplace improves the discovery and acquisition of data and applications

in a vast variety of business and non-commercial scenarios. A few examples are discussed below.

Developers

The Windows Azure Marketplace helps developers make the most of the rich data it its catalog at

every stage of development. In the beginning, you can take out a trial subscription to a data offer

to identify the most appropriate content for enabling the application and ensuring that it meets

your needs. Then, you can visually explore the content in the browser-based Service Explorer

tool, submitting queries and previewing results.

When you are sure you have the right dataset, the Windows Azure Marketplace assists you as you

build your application. The Service Explorer can returns results in OData (or the raw data format

provided by the publisher where applicable) for use as sample data and generates URLs to the

queries you run. In some cases you may want to copy and paste these URLs into your code orother applications to call the service. Most importantly, you can use any of the existing OData

client libraries to access a Marketplace data service from a number of various platforms.


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Figure 2: The Service Explorer

The Windows Azure Marketplace Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) help developers

work with datasets in the same way on many different platforms. Because the APIs are consistent,

you can quickly develop code to support desktop, Web, mobile, and other clients. And because

they are the Windows Azure Marketplace is built on the REST architecture and static services

feature full support for the Open Data Format specification, high quality data is simple to

discover.

Independent Software Vendors

The Windows Azure Marketplace provides ISVs with a global online sales channel to rapidlyaccelerate the return on their Windows Azure platform investments, to land new customers, new

markets and new revenue opportunities. The Marketplace is a one-stop location supported by

Microsoft to help you succeed. The Windows Azure Marketplace helps connect companies

seeking innovative cloud based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are

ready to use.

The Marketplace provides ISVs with a common security, billing, provisioning, and auditing

infrastructure that integrates easily with your existing application.


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Figure 5: An ISV's Weather Content Displayed Geographically

Buying and Selling Information

Content vendors and application providers need to ensure the payment process is seamless and

doesnt impede business. For instance, customers tend to dislike payment systems from unknown

third-parties, expired or incorrect certificates, unclear invoices, and complex payment schemes

that do not reflect usage.

Because the Windows Azure Marketplace provides a unified and scalable billing infrastructure,

vendors do not need to solve these challenges for themselves. Instead, subscribers can easily

compare your data or application with competitors' products so they can determine suitability

and quality. Then, they can find their usage statistics instantly and predict costs in advance.

Ultimately, they have more confidence in the payment system.

Architectural OverviewThe following sections illustrate the design of the Windows Azure Marketplace service.


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Architecture

The Windows Azure Marketplace works as an intermediary between the data found in data stores

or cloud powered applications and consumers.

Figure 6: Windows Azure Marketplace components are shown in blue.

.Figure 6 illustrates interoperability and composition of consumers, platform components and

artifact that comprise Windows Azure Marketplace. Windows Azure Marketplace can be accessedfrom many platforms and those Office applications and client-server systemssuch as SQL Server

and Microsoft Dynamics Serverscan use its data. Windows Azure Marketplace data sources

also support any operating system or hardware platform are supported, because data access uses

REST and OData standards and is secured with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Users can authenticate with their Windows Live ID. In this way, users can access the Windows

Azure Marketplace through their usual Microsoft Windows user account. Notice also that the

Marketplace tracks all access and generates invoices in logging and accounts databases.

Applications published in the Windows Azure Marketplace also leverage the same scalable

architecture.

Data Publication Architecture

Because the Windows Azure Marketplace runs in the cloud, Windows Azure and SQL Azure make

ideal data stores. However, it is important to note that cloud services and data centers from third


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parties can be used just as easily and are supported via proxy layers that conform to the

Windows Azure Marketplace SLA and interfaces.

The Windows Azure Marketplace includes Data Access Layers (DALs) that encapsulate all the

logic required to query the data store and remote web services. Please note that load balancers

are built into the Marketplace on the publication side as well as the data access side, which

provides smooth scaling to large data centers and heavy traffic.

Information and Service Quality BarMicrosoft ensures that the offers found in the Windows Azure Marketplace are of the highest

quality by working closely with potential publishers. We also complete a detailed vetting process

before an offer reaches the catalog.

For data offers the following requirements must be met:

Publishers must be able to make the data available for resale and have associated rightsfor distribution through the Windows Azure Marketplace.

Publishers: must be able to support data for 12 months to not break consumers of thedata; must be able to make multiple copies of the data available to handle load of

requests

Web Services must conform to the Windows Azure Marketplace specification forinterfacing with our system (REST based, ATOM payload, paging support, caching, SLA for

availability, uptime, security, etc.).

For applications publishers the following requirements must be met:

Application must be build using the Windows Azure platform

App must be commercially available (not sample code, not beta) App must supported by the publisher for 12 months to not break customers and must be

highly available

Must not automatically install any software on a Users computer or device withoutaffirmative consent from the User

ConclusionSummary

The Windows Azure Marketplace helps simplify all the steps associated with discovering,

purchasing, and selling premium, trusted public domain and commercial data and Windows

Azure applications. It helps publishers to reduce the challenges of marketing and selling their


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high quality data and applications, just as it helps consumers ensure they get quality data and

applications that are secure and easy to use.

Publishers get:

Easy publication of data and Windows Azure applications. Developer tooling on the Microsoft platform to ease Visual Studio and .NET development. Global reach, providing partners an online sales channel to rapidly accelerate the return

on their Windows Azure platform investments by landing new customers, entering newmarkets and creating new revenue opportunities. A scalable Microsoft cloud computing

platform that handles delivery, billing, and reporting.

Developers get:

Trial subscriptions that let you investigate content and develop applications withoutpaying data royalties.

Consistent REST-based APIs across all datasets that facilitate development on anyplatform.

The ability to access data easily using any OData client library on any platform. Common security, billing, auditing, and authentication model

Information workers get:

Trial subscriptions that let you investigate applications and data before you pay. Simple, predictable licensing models for acquiring data and applications. Integration with PowerPivot in Microsoft Excel to fully utilize purchased data in your

business analytics.

Explore the Windows Azure Marketplace Today!Start learning more about the Windows Azure Marketplace now at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/marketplace/

To examine the catalog and see the capabilities of the Windows Azure Marketplace, please visit

the Developer Portal at:https://marketplace.windowsazure.com

For the latest news, visit the Windows Azure Marketplace blog at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/marketplace/http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/marketplace/https://marketplace.windowsazure.com/https://marketplace.windowsazure.com/https://marketplace.windowsazure.com/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/https://marketplace.windowsazure.com/http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/marketplace/

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