The Windows Azure platform is a flexible cloud–computing platform that supports applications, data, and infrastructure in the cloud, together with a cloud marketplace.
The Windows Azure platform reduces the level of upfront investment required for expensive infrastructure and allows you to exploit Internet-accessible servers rather than buying and maintaining your own machines. With the Windows Azure Platform you pay only for what you use, scale up when you need capacity and pull it back when you don’t. Microsoft handle all the patches and maintenance - all in a secure environment with over 99.9% uptime.
The Windows Azure Platform today has four parts:
- Windows Azure: A Windows environment for running applications and storing data on computers in Microsoft data centres.
- SQL Azure: Relational data services in the cloud based on SQL Server.
- Windows Azure AppFabric: Cloud-based infrastructure services for applications running in the cloud or on premises.
- Windows Azure Marketplace: An online service for purchasing cloud-based data and applications.
The platform delivers a range of solutions, both in the cloud and as hybrid applications. Development tooling includes Visual Studio in addition to third party and open source development environments such as PHP, Ruby on Rails and Python.
Read more about the Windows Azure Platform
here.