Azure Services Platform

The Azure Services Platform is an Internet-scale cloud services platform that is hosted in Microsoft data centers and provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together.

Getting Started

About the Azure Services Platform

An Overview of the Azure Services Platform
Understand the "big picture" behind the components of the Azure Services Platform and how they can be used both by applications running in the cloud and by applications running on local systems.

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Azure Services Platform Technologies

Windows Azure

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 & storage to host, scale, and manage web applications and services on the internet in Microsoft data centers.

Microsoft .NET Services

Microsoft .NET Services are a set of Microsoft-hosted, highly scalable, developer-oriented services that provide key building blocks required by many cloud-based and cloud-aware applications. Much like the .NET Framework provides higher-level class libraries that make developers more productive, Microsoft .NET Services enables a developer to focus on their application logic rather than building and deploying their own cloud-based infrastructure services.

Microsoft SQL Data Services

Microsoft SQL Data Services (SDS) are highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing utility services. Built on robust SQL Server technologies and Windows Server, SDS provides highly available, secure, standards based web services that are easy to program and provision.

Live Services

Live Services is a set of building blocks within the Azure Services platform for handling user data and application resources. Live Services provides developers with an easy on-ramp to build rich social applications and experiences that can connect with over 450 million Windows Live users. Live Services includes Mesh technologies for synchronizing user’s data and extending web applications across multiple devices.

Live Services consists of Identity, Directory, Communication and Presence, Geospatial, Search, and Mesh Services.

More: .NET Services | Windows Azure | Live Services | SQL Data Services