Windows Azure
July 27, 2010 Leave a Comment
What is Azure platform?
The Windows Azure platform is an internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure platform, which provides a range of functionality to build applications that span from consumer Web to enterprise scenarios, includes a cloud services operating system and a set of developer services. Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure and AppFabric are the key components of the Windows Azure platform.
What is Windows Azure?
Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.
What is Microsoft Sql Azure?
Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on Microsoft’s SQL Server® Data Platform vision of extending the Data Platform capabilities in cloud as web-based services. SQL Azure enables a rich set of services for relational database, reporting; and analytics and data synchronization with mobile users, remote offices and business partners
What is AppFabric Service bus and Access Control?
The Service Bus enables loosely-coupled connectivity between services and applications across firewall or network boundaries, using a variety of communication patterns. The Access Control Service provides federated, claims-based access control for REST web services. Developers can use these services to build distributed or composite applications and services.
Compute Instance
Windows Azure compute instances come in four unique sizes to enable complex applications and workloads.
|
Compute Instance Size
|
CPU
|
Memory
|
Instance Storage
|
I/O Performance
|
|
Small
|
1.6 GHz
|
1.75 GB
|
225 GB
|
Moderate
|
|
Medium
|
2 x 1.6 GHz
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3.5 GB
|
490 GB
|
High
|
|
Large
|
4 x 1.6 GHz
|
7 GB
|
1,000 GB
|
High
|
|
Extra large
|
8 x 1.6 GHz
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14 GB
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2,040 GB
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High
|
Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server
Pricing for Azure
Monthly usage exceeding the amount included in the Base Units purchased will be charged at the standard rates:
Windows Azure
· Compute
§ Small instance (default): $0.12 per hour
§ Medium instance: $0.24 per hour
§ Large instance: $0.48 per hour
§ Extra large instance: $0.96 per hour
· Storage
§ $0.15 per GB stored per month
§ $0.01 per 10,000 storage transactions
· Content Delivery Network (CDN) (Content Delivery Network (CDN) – Windows Azure CDN data transfer charges are based on the data center location from where the traffic was served, not based on the end user’s location)
§ $0.15 per GB for data transfers from European and North American locations*
§ $0.20 per GB for data transfers from other locations*
§ $0.01 per 10,000 transactions*
SQL Azure
· Web Edition
§ $9.99 per database up to 1GB per month
§ $49.95 per database up to 5GB per month**
· Business Edition
§ $99.99 per database up to 10GB per month**
§ $199.98 per database up to 20GB per month**
§ $299.97 per database up to 30GB per month**
§ $399.96 per database up to 40GB per month**
§ $499.95 per database up to 50GB per month**
AppFabric
· Access Control (provides the ability to create rules and claims for authentication and authorization)
§ $1.99 per 100,000 transactions
· Service Bus (Expose apps and services)
§ $3.99 per connection on a “pay-as-you-go” basis
§ Pack of 5 connections $9.95
§ Pack of 25 connections $49.75
§ Pack of 100 connections $199.00
§ Pack of 500 connections $995.00
Data Transfers
· North America and Europe regions
§ $0.10 per GB in
§ $0.15 per GB out
· Asia Pacific Region
§ $0.30 per GB in
§ $0.45 per GB out
· Inbound data transfers during off-peak times through October 31, 2010 are at no charge. Prices revert to our normal inbound data transfer rates after October 31, 2010.
Measuring Windows Azure Consumption
· Compute time, measured in service hours: Windows Azure compute hours are charged only for when your application is deployed. When developing and testing your application, developers will want to remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing. Partial compute hours are billed as full hours.
· Storage, measured in GB: Storage is metered in units of average daily amount of data stored (in GB) over a monthly period. For example, if a user uploaded 30GB of data and stored it on Windows Azure for a day, her monthly billed storage would be 1 GB. If the same user uploaded 30GB of data and stored it on Windows Azure for an entire billing period, her monthly billed storage would be 30GB. Storage is also metered in terms of storage transactions used to add, update, read and delete storage data. These are billed at a rate of $0.01 for 10,000 (10k) transaction requests
· Data transfers measured in GB (transmissions to and from the Windows Azure datacenter): Data transfers are charged based on the total amount of data going in and out of the Azure services via the internet in a given 30-day period. Data transfers within a sub region are free.
· Transactions, measured as application requests.
Calculate connection count for service bus
A “connection” is established whether the service binds to the AppFabric Service Bus, and also when a client(s) bind to the cloud endpoint. So if I have a development application and press F5 in Visual Studio, when my service and client bind to the cloud that counts as 2 “connections.”
Pay for the maximum number of Connections that were in simultaneous use on any given day during the billing period.
For example, a given client application may open and close a single Connection many times during a day; this is especially likely if an HTTP binding is used. To the target system, this might appear to be separate, discrete Connections, however to the customer this is a single intermittent Connection. Charging based on simultaneous Connection usage ensures that a customer would not be billed multiple times for a single intermittent Connection
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/faq/
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