Microsoft is now offering multi-factor authentication for Windows Azure to allow enterprises to secure employee, partner and customer access to cloud applications.

According to the Azure blog, the capability will allow customers to enable the authentication capability for Windows Azure Active Directory (AD) that will identify and help secure access to Office 365, Windows Azure, Windows Intune, Dynamics CRM Online and  other apps that are integrated with Windows Azure AD. According to the Azure blog, developers can also use the Active Authentication SDK to build multi-factor authentication into their custom applications and directories.

Here’s how it works. People sign in with their user names and passwords. They then open an app on their mobile device through an automated phone call or text message — the idea being that it will better identify the true user, prevent unauthorized access to data and applications in the cloud. That in turn will reduce the risk of a breach and enabling regulatory compliance.

Active Authentication is built on the Phone Factor service which Microsoft acquired last fall. There are different options for set up. A customer can add it their Windows Azure AD tenant and turn it on for users. They can also add the service to custom applications by adding a few lines of code. The service also offers automated enrollment.

Customers can choose to pay on a per user, per month basis or by the number of

• users enabled for multi-factor authentication each month.

Adding AD to Windows Azure has opened Microsoft customers up to a much deeper way for IT to manage the use of its cloud infrastructure. It centralizes permissions. With Active Authentication, an IT manager can have a bit more peace that the people logging in are actually the people who should be accessing the network.

Microsoft is by no means the first to offer multi-factor authentication for its IaaS. Amazon Web Services has multi-factor authentication. Google also offers two-factor authentication.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft is satiating customers’ appetites for affordable pricing with news today of per-minute billing, no charge for stopping virtual machines (VM) and discounted developer and test rates.

In a blog post this morning, Microsoft announced:

• No charge for stopped VMs
• Pay by the minute billing
• MSDN use rights now supported on Windows Azure
• Discounted MSDN dev/test rates
• MSDN monetary credits
• Added portal support for tracking MSDN monetary credit usage

Paying by the minute allows a customer to run a VM, cloud service, website or mobile service for only the minutes used in an hour. Previously a customer would be charged for the full hour even if the customer used only a few minutes. Google offers per-minute billing on Google Compute Engine. Amazon Web Services charge by the hour. ProfitBricks was the first infrastructure as a service provider to offer per-minute billing.

Microsoft is in essence dropping prices again by not charging for halting virtual machines. It makes sense when considering the barriers it had placed for adoption. Scott Guthrie explains on his blog that Azure used to keep a reserved instance running unless the customer explicitly deleted the deployment. That can inhibit adoption, especially with Microsoft pushing its cloud and on-premise story, which it says differentiates it from other providers.

Now, developers can use Azure to test and run apps in production on the cloud. Now Microsoft preserves the deployment state and configuration when customers turn off the VM free of charge, thus reducing the friction for the end-user. This makes it useful for development and test teams that want to save some money by cycling down environments during low times such as nights and weekends. Granted, you can essentially do this already on Amazon Web Services, but Microsoft is trying to make the process a bit easier by doing more of the leg work.

For MSDN subscribers, Microsoft is now reducing the cost to “spin up any number of Windows Server, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and BizTalk Server VMs for testing scenarios using Windows Azure and pay only 6 cents per hour when running them (or, if you run them for less than an hour, the pro-rated per-minute equivalent).

I have heard the argument that only Google and Microsoft can compete in the IaaS market with such steep price drops. Even AWS, it has been argued, will have difficulty in this race to the bottom. You have to wonder with these constant drops in pricing by IaaS providers.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Node.js is the everyman’s platform for developing apps. It’s JavaScript on the sever. It’s relatively easy to learn and it’s immensely popular. Now Amazon Web Services (AWS) has released the Node.js SDK for general availability.

According to a blog post, AWS has added a number of features since the preview release in December. These new additions that developers can use include bound parameters, streams, IAM roles for EC2 instances, version locking, and proxies. According to AWS, the SDK helps take the complexity out of coding by providing JavaScript objects for AWS services including Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, DynamoDB, and Amazon SWF.

Node.js is known for its event-driven, non-blocking I/O model to allow applications to scale while keeping from having to deal with threads, polling, timeouts, and event loops. This makes it immensely popular. Game developers in particular have found it effective as Amazon CTO Wener Vogels explained in a post he wrote in March when AWS offered Node.js on Elastic Beanstalk. According to Vogels, Elastic Beanstalk “automates the provisioning, monitoring, and configuration of many underlying AWS resources such as Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and EC2.” He said that developers he talks to use Node.js for its ability to keep multiple concurrent connections with low latency.  Uber, Voxer and enterprise startups such as Datahero all use Node.js.

AWS is one of several cloud providers that offers support for Node.js. Joyent is the corporate steward for the platform. Windows Azure is also a big supporter. Rackspace supports it. In March, Microsoft offered an open-source contribution that uses the Windows Azure Service Bus to provide scale out support for real-time Node.js applications.

General availability of Node.js on AWS shows how much momentum it is getting with app developers. That acceptance is sure to increase as more people learn the skill and art of programming.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Dell has acquired Enstratius, a provider of cloud management software considered one of the most innovative startups in the market by Gartner Research.

The acquisition gives Dell another way to provide end-to-end-cloud solutions. Offering enterprise solutions is part of Dell’s larger plans to transition from its dependence on personal computer sales and move deeper into the myriad opportunities that are coming as companies recalibrate their data centers to more automated, elastic infrastructures.

Enstratius, based out of Minneapolis and founded in 2008, provides single and multi-cloud management capabilities. The company manages applications across private, public, and hybrid clouds. Enstratius has a deep knowledge of the emerging DevOps space. DevOps is the integration of developer and operations capabilities. Enstratius in particular offers automated application provisioning and scaling, application configuration management, usage governance, and cloud utilization monitoring.

Enstratius is available as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or as on-premises software. The company supports more than 20 public and private cloud platforms, including OpenStack, VMware, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure, with the added flexibility to easily add new clouds.

It’s that last aspect that makes Enstratius unique. The company’s technology helps customers orchestrate and manage their deployments. The Enstratius team knows the subtleties and the best-practices that come with managing a cloud infrastructure.

Dell has been making some interesting moves with its cloud approach. Late last year, Dell launched Project Fast PaaS, part of the new Dell Cloud Labs, which also includes Project Sputnik, the Linux laptop for developers and Crowbar, the open-source cloud deployment framework. Crowbar was originally created to support its “OpenStack- and Hadoop-powered offerings.”

While Fast PaaS represents the innovation happening at Dell, as with any big enterprise company, it is dependent on making big deals with high margins that serve the basic demands of large enterprises. That’s where Enstratius could help in providing differentiated services.

But perhaps most of all is the group of innovators that Dell is attracting. Michael Cote, a former analyst with RedMonk, is one of the key forces behind Dell’s cloud efforts. Barton George helps lead Project Sputnik, the company’s effort to build a dedicated laptop for developers. With the Enstratius acquisition, Dell is getting a group of people with deep influence in the community. Founder George Reese is an O’Reilly author and a cloud pioneer. He is supported by James Urquhart, Bernard Golden and John Willis, all recognized as influencers in the cloud community.

“Dell has figured out that their hardware business is not taking them anywhere,” said Krishnan Subramanian, founder of Rishidot Research, “With acquisitions like Quest Software, Gale Technologies and now Enstratius, they are in a great position to reposition themselves.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft has released WebMatrix 3, the latest version of its free web development tool. The new version now comes with deeper Windows Azure integration and support for GitHub.

WebMatrix users can now sign in through Windows Azure and create up to 10 sites for free. The capability means users can manage their sites locally or in Windows Azure.

In WebMatrix 3, developers can do remote editing of their sites. It has a new visual site gallery that allows the user to open existing sites on their local machines, or to remotely edit sites that are hosted in Windows Azure.

According to the Windows Azure blog, one of the most requested features users wanted improved upon from WebMatrix 2 was support for version control software:

Following the TFS and Visual Studio announcements to support Git version control, WebMatrix 3 supports both Git and TFS. The source control experience is extensible, and we’ve worked with a few partners to include rich support for CodePlex and GitHub:

The Windows Azure blog also notes that the Git tooling will work with a user’s urgent repositories, configuration, and existing tools. It includes support for commits, branching, multiple remotes and publishing web sites to Windows Azure.

WebMatrix, first introduced in 2010, offers support for ASP.NET, PHP and Node.js. Its deeper fit with Windows Azure follows a pattern. Microsoft is pulling in more of its tools into Windows Azure. For example, last month Microsoft announced general availability for Active Directory in Windows Azure.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft has opened its Active Directory (AD) to general availability on Windows Azure, giving developers access to the single-sign-on service for access to the suite of Microsoft services, third-party apps and SaaS providers.

Active Directory is the long-time single point of access to Microsoft Windows technologies. The Windows Azure AD compatibility means customers can provide similar controls online that had traditionally been integrated into servers managed by customers and their IT departments. Like Active Directory, the Windows Azure version eliminates the need for usernames and passwords, which can be a major security hole. IT can use the Windows Azure AD to manage permissions and revoke access when employees leave the company or change jobs.

Microsoft has also added capability for IT pros to manage identity privileges through Azure or their Microsoft accounts.

The move highlights the shift from the on-premise server room to the cloud and the identity changes that come with it. But it’s not just about access to systems of records such as ERP for managing corporate finance. The cloud is more about the systems of engagement, meaning all the mobile apps and the access points through REST-based APIs.

The move to the cloud has given rise to a new generation of identity services that seek to serve as the gateway to these systems of engagement. Okta is one of the early entrants. Salesforce.com is also developing an identity system.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Build is Microsoft’s developer conference for its Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Server and Azure platforms, and the company just announced that Build 2013 will take place June 26-28 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Registration will open Tuesday, April 2, at 9am PT, and early-bird pricing for the first 500 registrants starts at $1,595.

As Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and chief evangelist, notes in today’s announcement, “it’s been a while since our last developer event in the Bay Area.” The last Build, which happened last October, right after the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 launch, took place in Redmond, where the company erected a massive tent on its sprawling campus to host a few thousand developers. Build 2011 was held in Anaheim California.

Guggenheimer, of course, didn’t reveal anything about the company’s plans for Build besides saying that Microsoft will “have updates and talk about what’s next for Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, Visual Studio and more. Build is the path to creating and implementing your great ideas, and then differentiating them in the market.”

Blue

Earlier today, however, Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of corporate communications, publicly acknowledged that “product leaders across Microsoft are working together on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as ‘Blue.’” This, as far as I can see, marks the first time the company has publicly acknowledged this project, and chances are we will hear quite a bit more about it come June 26.

As is tradition at Microsoft now, Shaw also took a less-than-subtle swipe at Google in an earlier post today. “While some folks were out doing ‘spring cleaning,’ we used the opportunity to look back a bit at what has happened in the past season, and to look ahead at what we have coming,” he wrote in the post, which recapped some of Microsoft’s product releases over the last year.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

BitNami, a Y Combinator company, has announced that it will focus more on being an app store for server software. The goal is to provide customers with a Google Play or Apple App Store experience that can be accessed on their own infrastructure.

The BitNami platform provides the server infrastructure that companies would otherwise have to build out themselves to connect apps. It can cost a lot to build out such an infrastructure, and often, companies will create a homegrown system that resembles art more than science. The platform is also accessible through services such as BitNami’s own hosting service, Amazon Web Services App Marketplace and Windows Azure VM Depot. It is additionally available on VMware-based clouds, including the VMware service evaluation cloud.  BitNami could also support an OpenStack , Cloudstack or Eucalyptus environment.

“Before we offered a range of services and products, like packaging for ISVs or professional services. Now it is solely the app store,” said co-founder and CEO Daniel Lopez. “We have changed our site to reflect that and it should feel like an app store.”

BitNami has always been a bit ahead of the curve. While companies have always been able to deploy BitNami, app stores are far more relevant these days with the focus more on moving to the cloud. That puts BitNami in a position to take advantage of the major shift underway as iPhones, Android phones and other smart devices become the norm and as mobile apps become the way people do their work. With this capability, BitNami is in a position to bridge the still strong desktop market with the web and mobile universe.

BitNami is a classic example of a new kind of platform that allows the line of business to dictate what apps to use. That means business people can deploy an app from the BitNami cloud and use it as needed. If they prefer, they can install it on their own server.

BitNami is gaining momentum. It averages 1 million downloads per month. That’s up from 100,000 this time last year.

The number of applications going online points to the need for app marketplaces. BitNami stands to
gain, as there will be a real need to make these apps available on any kind of server infrastructure. That’s evident in the apps that are available, including WordPress, Alfresco Software and Sugar CRM.

BitNami will face its own set of challenges as the complexity to deploy app stores becomes commoditized. But that’s a ways off. In the meantime, it will face competitors such as AppDirect and other companies offering app store platforms.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Windows Azure has added new support for a number of services including PhoneGap, Dropbox and Hadoop.

According to a blog post by Scott Guthrie, a corporate vice president in the Microsoft Tools and Servers group, developers can connect both HTML5 web-client apps, Apache Cordova/PhoneGap and Windows Phone 7.5 clients to use Windows Azure Mobile Services as a backend. The new mobile services web client library, he writes, supports Internet Explorer 8 and “current versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, plus PhoneGap 2.3.0+.”

Windows Azure also now supports site and app deployment from Dropbox to any website.

Windows Azure is also supporting Mercurial repositories when setting up continuous deployment of websites from CodePlex or Bitbucket repositories. They have also made updates to the user interface.

HDInsight, a new service for Windows Azure, provides the capability to deploy, manage and use Hadoop clusters running on Windows Azure.

The Windows Azure user interface is a differentiator for Microsoft. It is consistent with the company’s user interface. That’s compared to Amazon Web Services, which is still most widely used to program from the command line.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Electronic Arts’ SimCity was easily the most anticipated game of the season, but its launch was an unmitigated disaster because the DRM solution Electronic Arts and Maxis dreamt up means users have to always be online if they want to play. Sadly, EA’s servers weren’t up to the task and most players were either unable to connect or got kicked out of the game after a while. Today, Lucy Bradshaw, EA’s general manager for its Maxis label, issued an apology. EA is also offering players who were affected by these issues a free game from its catalog.

Bradshaw says that not having enough server capacity was ‘dumb.’ EA has now increased its server capacity by 120 percent. In an age where spinning up a few Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure instances takes minutes, it’s surprising that EA wasn’t able to scale its platform quicker, but at least, Bradshaw also says, the number of “disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.”

“The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets,” she writes. ” The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.”

Starting March 18, all SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email that will tell them how to get their free game. It’s not clear if this only applies to players who bought the game before the apology was issued, or if new players – who are still facing issues today – will also be able to redeem this offer.