Architecture selection

Windows Azure / SQL Azure
Benefits Pay as you go, so no capital license cost No need to purchase hardware or deal with rack space, cooling systems or other hardware operations Rapidly deploy applications No "unused" capacity (for example, idle servers)	Risks Learning curve for WWW staff Potential waiver of attorney-client privilege
Hyper-V
Benefits Rapidly deploy applications Completely control environment, including physical access to the servers and data Integrates easily with WWW AD security Licensing is based on physical processors, so license costs are lower than "bare metal"	Risks Delays in roll out caused by vendor delays in delivering hardware Licensing and hardware capital costs Limited scalability Must use SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008; will not work well with any legacy licenses

In this case, we have two potentially conflicting requirements. The first is to keep capital costs and operational costs to a minimum while quickly bringing...