Talk:Azure Services Platform

Windows Azure != Azure Services Platform

MSDN says:[1]

“ Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides you on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications and services in Microsoft data centers. ”

It does not matter whether Microsoft is going to release Windows Azure as a separate Windows version that you can buy and install on your own server farm. Even if they just use it internally for their Azure Services Platform it is still an operating system that should have its own article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 20:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Try reading and interpeting the entire sentence as a single unit of information, instead of cherry-picking. Windows Azure is described as a component of the Azure Services Platform. Nothing more. Calling something an "operating system" doesn't automatically qualify you to have an article on Wikipedia. The problem is this: We can't actually describe Windows Azure without describing other parts of the Azure Services Platform, because it is a single service offering -- you can't get Azure separately, nor is it intended to be interpreted as anything other than a portion of that single service offering.

Now, this doesn't preclude Windows Azure from ever having an article... at issue here, really, is the amount of content we have. Unless someone is going to write a bunch of content on Windows Azure, then it's best suited for the description of Windows Azure, a component of Azure Services Platform, to be described in the article about the complete offering.

I agree. As long as we don't have enough content, one article is enough. Ghettoblaster (talk) 01:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately, this is a matter of following the princple of Wikipedia:Summary style editing, which is the basis of how we build articles on a topic which has the capacity to grow. It's not wise to jump the gun on this -- it'll make the topic harder to understand than it already is by splitting what little information we have between multiple articles. Think about what a user would expect when they want to get information on this "azure thing"... do they go to the article on Windows Azure? the article on Azure Services Platform? Someone made a one-sentence article on the Windows Azure Fabric Controller -- do they go there? What about SQL Services, Live Services, and so on? How many articles must a user read before they understand a topic? The answer should always be "one, until there is too much information". Don't punish users for daring to want to learn about something. Make it easy. Make it one good article. Warren -talk- 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that we need to be careful not to confuse/mix-up both entities. Ghettoblaster (talk) 01:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

If you want more info about Windows Azure (and the fabric layer), listed to the Manuvir Das and Steve Marx interviews on Channel 9. --Soumyasch 14:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

So... there will be another independent article for Azure Services Platform ? Could somebody include information of the costs relatives to design and deploy services in this platform ? Just like in the Google App Engine article... or this will be included in another article of technical and costs comparison of platforms ? 200.11.208.55 (talk) 14:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Screenshots

This software article is incomplete without a screenshot. Someone please find one!

I think I've found the clouds. Ghettoblaster (talk) 00:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Azure does not use Hyper-V. It uses the Azure Hypervisor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.66.94.67 (talk) 05:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Why does article list an outage of a beta product? Seems that would violate the NPV policy unless the google app engine page also listed google outages... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.55.226 (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Since no one said anything I went ahead and deleted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.55.226 (talk) 23:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Marketing text lifted directly from Microsoft

This article contains several paragraphs of Microsoft marketing material, lifted directly from Microsoft's web site. For example

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.''

is lifted directly from here: [http://www.microsoft.com/azure/whatisazure.mspx

If there are no objections, I will remove this offending material in 24 hours. --Savlonn (talk) 10:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft marketing material removed. --Savlonn (talk) 10:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Competitors

You should add to the External Links section that, e.g. for PHP programming, besides .NET Phalanger you can also use Google App Engine (via Java Quercus). Ber4444 (talk) 21:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Add reference to Amazon EC2 as a competitor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.112.0.162 (talk) 15:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

"Windows Azure Platform"

This is the new name for it, it's not called the "Azure Services Platform" anymore even though it still uses Live, SQL etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.34.177 (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Azure in Ireland

This section reads like an advertisement for construction companies in Ireland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevinarpe (talk • contribs) 03:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Leap Day outage

Mention needs adding to the major outage on 29 Feb 2012: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/03/01/windows-azure-service-disruption-update.aspx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.229.139 (talk) 09:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)