Summary
This chapter provided a brief overview of the new features of Windows Azure. These features were released by Microsoft in June 2012 and can be regarded as a major release. The Windows Azure management portal is completely rewritten and fully HTML5-compatible, so it can run on any device now. Besides the underlying technology, many features were added to the portal as well.
The release of Windows Azure virtual machines brings infrastructure as a service to Windows Azure, allowing it to compete directly with other IaaS providers, such as Amazon and Rackspace. This new feature enables us to quickly migrate existing, native applications that are part of the cloud or hybrid scenario of our enterprise applications.
Windows Azure media services contains a set of features allowing us not only to expose our media files easily on the Internet (or build another YouTube), but also to convert media assets or even protect them.
The Windows Azure virtual network contains new capabilities with respect...