Windows Azure success could determine Microsoft's cloud future

  In February 2010, well before Steve Ballmer declared Microsoft to be a devices and services company, the commercial version of Windows Azure made its debut. The newly minted cloud platform was tucked tightly into Windows Server, which owned, and still does, a commanding share of the server operating systems market.Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of Azure turned out to be, surely integration with Windows Server would guarantee it some measure of success.But nearly four years later, in a time when Windows operating systems have lost some of their mojo, and where Microsoft faces multi-billion dollar, cloud-focused competitors such as Amazon and Google neither of which aspires to own a server operating system  the pressure of...

Oracle VM Previews Now Available on Windows Azure

Microsoft and Oracle have released previews of virtual machine (VM) images that enable Oracle workloads to run on Windows Azure.The two companies announced their partnership on Azure in late June, but the VM images apparently weren't available at that time. The preview images, which come prebuilt and which include the Oracle licensing, were either released on September 24 or yesterday, according to Microsoft's blog announcements. Using the previews isn't exactly free as there are Windows Azure compute and storage costs incurred, but there are no Oracle licensing charges to use the images during the preview period, according to Microsoft. It's not clear how long they will stay at the preview stage, however.To run the images, users need to...

Windows Azure Gains Federal Security Approval

  Microsoft has secured what could be a major coup for its Windows Azure cloud platform and possible governmental use in the United States.Susie Adams, chief technology officer for Microsoft Federal, announced on The Official Microsoft Blog that her company was notified that “Windows Azure was granted the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board (JAB) Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO).” That earns Azure the distinction of being “the first public cloud platform, with infrastructure services and platform services, to receive a JAB P-ATO,” she noted.The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a security assessment, authorisation and monitoring program that governs the implementation of federal cloud services. The...

Microsoft achieves FedRAMP JAB P-ATO for Windows Azure

  Windows Azure is the first public cloud platform, with infrastructure services and platform services, to receive a Provisional Authority to Operate from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board. Microsoft Corp. announced Monday that its public cloud platform, Windows Azure, has been granted Provisional Authorities to Operate (P-ATO) from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Joint Authorization Board (JAB). Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables customers to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.  Windows Azure is the first public cloud platform, with infrastructure services and platform services, to receive a JAB...

Microsoft continues cloud ERP push with Dynamics NAV update

Multitenancy and closer alignment with Office are among the new features on tap.Microsoft is preparing to roll out a new version of its Dynamics NAV ERP (enterprise resource planning) software that includes a key feature for cloud-based deployments as well as tighter integration with Office.NAV 2013 R2 is set for release in October and will feature support for multitenancy, an architectural principle common to cloud software wherein customers share a single application instance with their respective data kept separate.This helps vendors run their operations at greater scale with less overhead, such as by applying patches and upgrades to all customers at the same time.Dynamics has historically been sold through partners, who specialize in...

Halo 4 streamed to Windows Azure in Phone for cloud technology

  While Microsoft has touted its Azure-based cloud computing to help power Xbox One games, Sony plans to launch its Gaikai-powered cloud gaming service in 2014 that will stream Playstation 3 games to the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. It appears that Microsoft is working on game streaming as well though and showed off Halo 4 being streamed to a Windows Phone during a company meeting Thursday.The report comes from Twitter posts made by Winsupersite.com blogger and insider Paul Thurrott and With inWindows blogger Rafael Rivera who says he was at the meeting.Thurrott was first to tweet the news when he wrote, "Microsoft apparently showed Halo4 running on Windows Phone at its annual company meeting. Not clear if this is something "happening" or demo."Both...

Microsoft plans changes to Office 365 targeted at SharePoint Online users

  To prevent SharePoint Online customers from feeling boxed in, Microsoft wants to improve the way they upload and store documents in the cloud collaboration server.Over the coming weeks, Microsoft will roll out a set of changes to Office 365 targeted at SharePoint Online users, including increasing from 250MB to 2GB the size of files that people can upload to their individual SkyDrive Pro repositories and to SharePoint Online team site document libraries, the company said on Thursday in a blog post.The enhancements are in response to companies' increased use of Office 365, according to the blog post's author, Mark Kashman. "Users are uploading more documents to SkyDrive Pro, teams are building numerous team sites to work with internal...