Microsoft opens doors to cloud computing market with release of Windows Azure

Microsoft has entered the cloud computing market with Windows Azure and SQL Azure. They officially opened the door on February 1st, 2010.

Here is a brief explanation of the offering:

The Windows Azure platform offers a flexible, familiar environment for developers to create cloud applications and services. With Windows Azure, you can shorten your time to market and adapt as demand for your service grows.

Windows Azure offers a platform that is easily implemented alongside your current environment.

Windows Azure: operating system as an online service

Microsoft SQL Azure: fully relational cloud database solution

Windows Azure platform AppFabric: makes it simpler to connect cloud services and on-premises applications

According to their website, price plans for Windows Azure are as follows:

• Compute = $0.12 / hour
• Storage = $0.15 / GB stored / month
• Storage transactions = $0.01 / 10K
• Data transfers = $0.10 in / $0.15 out / GB – ($0.30 in / $0.45 out / GB in Asia)*

* No charge for inbound data transfers during off-peak times through June 30, 2010

Price plans for SQL Azure are, at the time of this post:

• Web Edition:  Up to 1 GB relational database = $9.99 / month
• Business Edition:  Up to 10 GB relational database = $99.99 / month
• Data transfers = $0.10 in / $0.15 out / GB – ($0.30 in / $0.45 out / GB in Asia)*

* No charge for inbound data transfers during off-peak times through June 30, 2010

For the most current pricing visit Windows Azure pricing page.

It will be interesting to see how well this investment works out for Microsoft. There is no doubt they have dumped a lot of money into this project.

You can learn more at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure

There are plenty of other cloud server products out there as well.