Windows Azure Assessments
Delivering Microsoft's cloud computing vision.
Cloud computing is arguably the next big paradigm shift in the IT industry. Customers can now rent IT infrastructure and services securely via the Internet rather than incurring the capital expenditure and running costs of provisioning their own systems.
Compute and storage capacity can quickly be added or removed to meet demand, with customers typically only paying for what they use.
Here are some example scenarios where cloud computing makes good business sense:
- Companies that have new or experimental business streams that don’t want to invest in infrastructure until profitability is proven.
- Start up companies that have low budgets and need to “Fail fast or scale fast”.
- Joint ventures between organisations that need to share infrastructure or extranet facilities.
- Software vendors moving from providing package implementations to online Software as a Service.
- Small companies that aspire to compete with global companies.
- Short turn-around projects that need to expedite internal IT or accounting bureaucracy.
- Projects that need a large amount of compute power for short periods of time. E.g. Yearend financial data processing or value-at-risk calculations.
AWS is a Microsoft Gold Partner that has been working with the Windows Azure Platform since summer 2008 when it was only available to selected partners under Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and still had the codename “Red Dog”. We worked closely with Microsoft to redevelop the RNLI MOB Guardian system and this was one of the key case studies for the Azure launch at the Microsoft professional Developers Conference in 2008.
We have subsequently been involved in a Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) and various deep dive events under NDA. We’ve been exposed to pre release software and had the opportunity to contribute to the product strategy and direction.
We have been actively involved in the Windows Azure technical community and have open sourced several code samples and demonstration projects.
Richard Prodger was a speaker at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in 2009 where a major Microsoft/AWS case study accompanied the commercial launch of the Windows Azure Platform.
In 2009, the Microsoft UK Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) team asked us to put together a consultancy package as part of their Systems Integrator (SI) enablement programme. This resulted in the Windows Azure Assessment Survey programme.
AWS is running a number of Windows Azure Assessment Surveys that consist of a workshop and a follow up consultancy report that explore how the Windows Azure Platform could assist with your own projects and business challenges.
For more information about Windows Azure, please download our whitepaper.
Please contact info@aws.net or call +44 (0)1473 834560.