Azure Storage Explorer 4 Beta Now Available

I'm pleased to announce the public beta of Azure Storage Explorer version 4 is now available. Beta 1 can be downloaded from CodePlex.

Azure Storage Explorer allows you to view and edit all 3 types of cloud storage: blobs, queues, and tables. If you're not already familiar with it, Azure Storage Explorer was one of the first (if not the first) GUI tools for viewing and working with Windows Azure storage. This utility was written in the very early days of Windows Azure, and even after 3 major versions all of that pre-dated the commercial release of Windows Azure in early 2010. Altogether there have been over 13,000 downloads.

It's been a year since version 3 was published, and in that time the Windows Azure platform has moved forward at a rapid pace. Many users have been hungry for an update that supports newer features such as blob root containers and better handles nuances such as blob prefix paths and property editing.

Highlights of version 4

• Better Code. Versions 1-3 of Azure Storage Explorer didn't have the .NET Storage Client library to use and were based on an SDK sample that had a voluminous number of classes, leading to code that was vast and complex. In version 4 we are using the .NET StorageClient library and the code is compact and well-organized. The source code is open and is part of the CodePlex project.
• Newer storage feature support. Support has been added for newer features such as blob root containers, blob path prefixes, and page blobs.
• Copy and rename containers, queues, and tables.
• Direct data entry and editing of blobs, messages, and entities.
• Improved UI. The new WPF-based UI is cleaner, and supports opening multiple storage acounts at the same in tab views. The Mode-View-ViewModel pattern is used.

Containers & Blobs

• Create, View, Copy, Rename, Delete Containers
• Create, View, Copy, Rename, Delete, Upload, Download Blobs



Blobs can be viewed as images, video, or text. Blob properties can be viewed/editied.



Queues & Messages

• Create, View, Copy, Rename, Delete Queues
• Create, View, Pop, Clear, Upload, Download Messages



Message content and properties can be viewed.



Tables & Entities

• Create, View, Copy, Rename, Delete Tables
• Create, Edit, Copy, Rename, Delete, Upload, Download Entities



Entities can be viewed and edited.



Remember, it's a beta

With any beta software, you should exercise caution. Keep in mind that both people and programs can make mistakes, and it's always a good idea to keep safe backups of your data.

Azure Storage Explorer is a community donation of Neudesic. As with previous versions, Azure Storage Explorer remains free. Full source code is on CodePlex and we invite the community to help us keep it up to date and make improvements.

Upcoming Webcast: Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 1

Tomorrow (10/21) at 10 AM Pacific time I'll be giving the first in a series of webcasts on Microsoft Cloud Computing Assessments. Register here. These webcasts go hand in hand with my cloud computing assessment article series.

Microsoft Cloud Computing Assessments: The Right Way to Evaluate and Adopt Cloud Computing

Event Code: 151050
10/21/2010
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Welcome Time: 09:55 AM
Time Zone: Pacific
Event Language: Not Specified
Connection information for this Webcast will be sent in your event confirmation.
Registration: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=151050

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Featured Product/Topic: Windows Azure platform

Recommended Audiences: Technology Executives, IT Managers, IT Professionals, Business Executives, CIO, CTO, IT Directors, Business Decision Maker, Technical Decision Makers, Developers

Cloud computing offers so much promise, but it is new and confusing to many. You may be wondering whether cloud computing is right for your business, what the financial return might be, and how to go about getting started with it without making a mistake. In this webcast you'll be introduced to an assessment process for Microsoft cloud computing that puts the value proposition of the cloud into sharp focus for your business. You'll see how an assessment sheds light on risk vs. reward, identifies promising opportunities, analyzes applications financially and technically, and helps you figure out your cloud computing strategy. With the clarity and plan that comes out of an assessment you will be able to evaluate and adopt cloud computing responsibly, maximizing the benefits while managing risk.

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Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 2: Envisioning Benefits & Risks

In Part 1 of this series we discussed the ideal rhythm for exploring cloud computing responsibly and the critical role a cloud computing assessment plays. An assessment allows you to get specific about what the cloud can mean to your company. Here in Part 2 we will consider assessment activities for envisioning, in which you take a look at where the cloud could take you.

Envisioning: Finding the Cloud’s Synergies with your Business

Cloud computing has so many value propositions that it’s almost problematic! When you hear general cloud messaging you’re exposed to many potential benefits that include cost reduction, faster time to market, and simplified IT among others. Different organizations care about different parts of the value proposition. In an assessment, we want to find out which benefits have strong synergy with your company—and focus on them.

A good exercise to evaluate where the value proposition resonates is to gather business and technical decision makers, provide some education on benefits, and have a discussion to see where there is interest. Your people may be enthusiastic about some of these benefits but neutral or even negative about others. Here are some of the benefits to consider:

	Elasticity
	In the cloud you can change your footprint anytime, quickly and easily. Think of the cloud as a big rubber band.
	No Commitment
	In the cloud you have easy entry and easy exit. You can stay in the cloud as long as you wish, but you can walk away any time, with no financial or legal commitments beyond your current month’s bill.
	Reduced Cost
	In the cloud you are likely to see reduced costs, in some cases extremely reduced costs. These reduced costs derive from the use of shared resources, the economy of scale in the cloud, and your ability to only use and pay for resources as long as you need them.
	Consumption-based Pricing
	In the cloud you only pay for what you use, and you only use what you need.
	Extra Capacity
	In the cloud you can expand capacity whenever you need to, even if a surge in demand is sudden and unexpected. You have the comfort of knowing extra capacity is there for you, but you only pay for it when you actually need it.
	Faster Time to Market
	In the cloud you can deploy new and updated applications very quickly. On Windows Azure for example you can deploy an application in 20 minutes or less.
	Self-Service IT
	In the cloud some IT tasks become so simple anyone can do them. Company IT cultures differ on this, but for some companies the ability to let more individuals and departments directly control their own deployments and level of scale is attractive.
	SLA
	In the cloud you have a Service Level Agreement that boils down to 3 9’s (99.9%), or up to 8 hours of unavailability in a year. For some companies and applications that’s an improvement over their current SLA; for others it may be a downgrade.
	Simplify IT
	In the cloud certain IT tasks become very simple, just a click or two in a web portal. This includes provisioning, software deployment, and upgrades.
	Management
	In the cloud you have automated management working on your behalf. In the case of Windows Azure, patches are applied to your servers automatically; server health is monitored; and your availability and data integrity are protected through managed redundancy.
	Convert CapEx to OpEx
	In the cloud you do away with a lot of capital expenditures such as buying server hardware. This is replaced with operating expenditures, your pay-as-you-go monthly bill. For many companies this means a healthier balance sheet, but not all companies and managers see this as positive. Some people have easier access to capital budget than operating budget.
	New Capabilities
	In the cloud you have new capabilities. For example, Windows Azure provides new capabilities for business-to-business communication and federated security. These new capabilities can allow you to innovate and realize a competitive edge. The cloud also enables some new business models such as Software-as-a-Service that you may have interest in.

It can be useful to have separate envisioning meetings with business and technical people; you’ll likely find different audiences have different interests and concerns. For example, a CIO could be gung-ho about the cloud while the IT department below them is apprehensive about the cloud.

Risks & Concerns

A benefits discussion must be complemented with a risk discussion. Anything new like cloud computing will naturally lead to concerns, real or imaged. Each concern needs to be mitigated to the stakeholders’ satisfaction. Examples of concerns frequently raised are security, performance, availability, disaster recovery, vendor lock-in, in-house capability, and runaway billing concerns.

Security

Security comes up in nearly all cloud discussions. Sometimes there will be a specific risk in mind but often the concern is just a general expression of “I’m concerned about security in the cloud”. The best way to feel good about security in the cloud is first to understand how good security in the cloud is: cloud providers invest a massive amount in security. Next, start getting specific about areas of concern: only then can remedies be designed.

For specific security concerns, the consulting firm performing your assessment should have a knowledge base of commonly-raised concerns—such as data falling into the wrong hands—and standard mitigations for them. In addition, there should be a defined approach for threat modeling risks and planning defenses.

Security in the cloud is best viewed as a partnership between you and the cloud provider. There are certain things the cloud environment will do to protect you, and there are complementary things you can do yourself. An example of something you can do is encrypting all of the data you transmit and store. An assessment should capture your concerns and record the plan for dealing with them.

Performance & Availability

Since the cloud is a different environment from your enterprise, you can’t assume the dynamics are the same. You may find performance to be stellar, about the same, or disappointing depending on what you’re used to. An assessment should consider the performance requirements of applications and plan to validate them in a proof-of-concept.

Availability is more straightforward to predict because there is a published SLA, but the Internet path between the cloud computing data center and your users is outside the cloud provider’s control. If your users are in an area with poor or unreliable Internet service, availability expectations should be revised accordingly.

Vendor Lock-in

Some organizations have a fear of vendor lock-in: if you move something to the cloud, are you stuck there? There’s an interesting discussion to be had here. On the one hand, it’s perfectly possible to write applications that can run on-premise or in the cloud, preserving your ability to move back and forth. On the other hand, if you take advantage of new, only-in-the-cloud features such as Windows Azure AppFabric, you’ll lose some portability (but it may be worth doing so for the benefits). An assessment is an occasion to weigh these tensions and pick a lane.

Disaster Recovery

Cloud providers have many mechanisms to protect your data, such as redundancy, but much of this is automatic and neither visible nor controllable by you. You may require a level above this where you can for example make time-stamped snapshots of your data and be able to restore them on demand. An assessment should map out your DR requirements, including RTO & RPO, and determine how you and the cloud platform will collaborate to meet them.

In-house Capability & Process

If you are going to adopt cloud computing your developers and IT department will need the appropriate skills. An assessment should include an analysis of where people skills are today and where they need to be for cloud computing adoption. It’s not only skills that need updating but process as well: the cloud will surely impact your development and deployment processes. Your cloud computing plans should budget for this training and process refinement.

Billing Concerns

Some find the “just like electricity” metering aspect of the cloud unnerving: what if your billing runs out of control? An assessment should identify procedures for measuring billing and monitoring applications proactively, identifying disturbing trends early so they can be investigated before large charges accrue. In the case of Windows Azure, for example, billing can be inspected daily and it’s not necessary to wait till the end of the month to learn how charges are trending.

Trust

By and large, trust is at the root of most cloud computing concerns. Trust is something that needs to be earned, and in cloud computing it can and should be earned in degrees. If you’ve had a good experience with a proof-of-concept in the cloud, that will bolster your confidence to put something in production in the cloud. Your assessment should produce a roadmap that promotes measured, increasing use of the cloud with validation that expectations were met at every step.

Alignment

Since the purpose of a cloud computing assessment is to find the fit for your organization, it’s very important to understand what is already going on in the company. Any cloud computing plans should align with this backdrop.

Business Alignment

Your company’s business plan likely has significant events on the calendar, for example launch of a new product line or service. Annual planning and budgeting are another example. The flow of business initiatives may suggest that certain cloud opportunities make sense sooner or later on the timeline.

IT Alignment

Your IT department is also likely to have events on the calendar that should be taken into consideration. Is a server refresh cycle scheduled? Consider that using the cloud might allow you to avoid or reduce buying that hardware. Are there plans to overhaul the data center? A cloud strategy might allow you to drastically alter the size and cost of your data center, using the cloud for overflow at peak times.

Envisioning Provides Business Context

Much of a cloud computing assessment will involve identifying and analyzing specific opportunities (applications), but this initial envisioning activity is important. It gives you the business context for your technical decisions. In envisioning you capture both the areas of traction and disconnect between cloud computing and your organization. This information will help you in forming your cloud computing strategy and it will color the suitability scoring of potential cloud opportunities. Timing of cloud initiatives should take business and IT initiatives into account.

In subsequent installments we’ll look at more activities that are performed in a cloud computing assessment. If you’d like to see how we do it at Neudesic, visit http://cloud-assessment.com/.

Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 1: The Right Way to Adopt Cloud Computing

There is a right way and a wrong way to get involved with cloud computing. This article series is about doing it the right way and focuses on the use of cloud computing assessments to properly evaluate, plan for, and adopt cloud computing. Here in Part 1 we’ll be looking at the technology hype cycle, the best rhythm for adopting the cloud, and the critical role an assessment plays. In subsequent parts of the series we’ll look more deeply at various aspects of an assessment such as computing ROI, dealing with security, technical considerations, and the impact on IT. Since I work with the Windows Azure platform that’s where I’ll be focusing.

The Technology Hype Cycle

When major technology waves are unleashed, there’s a lot of buzz and also a lot of uncertainty. The well-known Gartner Hype Cycle explains why this is so. A new technology triggers many expectations, some of them unrealistic or not immediately attainable. As the market’s understanding gets sorted out, these inflated expectations transition into disillusionment which is also exaggerated. As time passes and technology and best practices mature enlightenment occurs and there’s a general understanding of what’s really possible and advisable. It’s at that point we have widespread, productive use of the technology.


Technology Hype Cycle

The hype cycle can be scary, and you might be thinking right now that the best thing to do is sit back and wait for cloud computing to mature. On the other hand, early adopters who leverage new technology sooner than others can gain a competitive edge. The hype cycle doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from a technology in its early years, but it’s essential to take some careful precautions to avoid getting burned.
In the case of cloud computing it’s particularly confusing for businesses to know what to do and when to do it. What’s real today, and what’s hype? Where are developments headed? Should you be doing something now or is it best to wait? There’s a real tension between the wish to join the party and realize the benefits and savings vs. the fear you might be jumping the gun or making a costly mistake.

Rhythm for Cloud Computing Adoption

Fortunately, there’s a way to move from uncertainty to certainty about cloud computing, and that’s to follow the rhythm shown below, which has 4 stages: awareness, assessment, experimentation, and adoption. The missing link between thinking about the cloud (the awareness phase) and using the cloud happily (the adoption phase) are the inner activities of an assessment and an experiment.



Let’s look at each phase.

Phase 1: Awareness

In the awareness phase, you’re starting to learn about cloud computing and are forming an initial impression of it. You’re likely getting information from many sources which might include the media, discussions with peers and colleagues, webcasts, conferences, vendor presentations, and the like. You’re getting pummeled with information, partial information, and misinformation. There’s a large buzz, but everything you’re hearing is either generalized or is someone else’s experience.

You wonder, what would cloud computing mean for us specifically? When you ask that question, you are ready for the next phase, an assessment.

Phase 2: Assessment

A cloud computing assessment has one purpose, and that is to bring the cloud into focus for your organization. In the cloud computing assessments we practice at Neudesic we seek to answer these questions in an assessment:

• Can I believe the claims of cloud computing?
• What is Microsoft doing in the cloud?
• What are the benefits?
• Is the cloud a good fit for my business?
• Where are the opportunities and what ROI will they bring?
• How do I avoid risk?
• What does it cost?
• What belongs in the cloud and what doesn’t?
• When is the right time to engage?

An assessment is very much like having a suit tailored to fit you perfectly. We move from the general to the specific. You’ll exit the assessment with a clear understanding of how the cloud can benefit your company; a strategy that fits your business plans; a roadmap of opportunities; and a full view of risk/reward considerations. The roadmap your assessment produces will typically recommend a proof-of-concept and a prioritized timetable for cloud adoption. Some opportunities may make sense immediately but others may be more appropriate further out. Business and IT events on your calendar as well as upcoming cloud computing platform features will help determine the best timing for moving applications into the cloud.

Armed with the clarity and plan that comes out of an assessment, you are ready for the next phase, an experiment.

Phase 3: Experiment

Although an assessment plays an important role in planning for the cloud, there’s no substitute for some actual experience. A proof-of-concept experiment is recommended before you start adopting the cloud for production purposes. The experiment serves several purposes. First, it gives you an opportunity to test the claims of the cloud personally. In addition, the experience will either confirm the results of your assessment or cause you to revise your conclusions and cloud adoption plan.

Once you’ve concluded both an assessment and an experiment, you can proceed to cloud adoption with confidence.

Phase 4: Adoption

The final phase is actual adoption of the cloud. Your earlier assessment should have produced a roadmap for adoption, where some opportunities make sense in a “do them now” first wave and others in a potential second wave. After each migration to the cloud or new project in the cloud, you should reflect on the most recent experience and refine your cloud plans if warranted.

It’s important to set up monitoring and management of your production applications in the cloud, adjusting deployment size in response to changes in demand. Failure to do this could undermine the ROI you expect to get from the cloud.

Now or Later?

Having said all this, what should your timing be for cloud computing? My belief is you won’t be in a position to really answer that question until you’ve had an assessment done. Regardless of your ultimate conclusions about where to use the cloud and when, there are some good reasons to take a serious look at cloud computing right now and put an initial plan in place. Since assessments are often free, there’s a lot to be gained by having one sooner than later. It should be clear after an assessment what opportunities there are for your business to leverage the cloud and what the best timing is. Getting an assessment now doesn’t mean you have to start adopting the cloud now.

What considerations should affect your timing decisions? There are several. One is the importance of getting in front of the cloud. Since cloud computing is a self-serve technology, it may come into your organization all by itself as one department or one individual starts to use it. It’s better to proactively have taken a look at cloud computing and have a strategy and guidance in place for acceptable use--and you can only do that if you start looking at it sooner than later.

Another key consideration for timing is your company’s culture of risk vs. reward. Using Gartner’s definitions, we recognize that not all companies balance risk vs. reward equally. There’s the Aggressive Innovator who values reward over risk and has gotten good at managing risk in order to get the brass ring. There’s the Pragmatic Adopter who looks at risk and reward equally. And there’s the Risk-Averse company who is hesitant to consider risks of any kind. If you’re in the first two categories you’re more likely to take an early look at cloud computing.

Cloud computing may offer you significant savings and agility, and if that’s the case the sooner you start using it the sooner you’ll realize the financial and institutional benefits. In particular you might find it useful to consider business and IT activities on the horizon and align your cloud plans with them. Are you launching a new product line or renewing budgets? Are you nearing a server refresh cycle or re-planning your data center? Aligning your cloud computing plans with existing business and IT plans will maximize opportunities and minimize disruption.

In subsequent installments we’ll look at the various activities that are performed in a cloud computing assessment. If you’d to see how we do them at Neudesic, visit http://cloud-assessment.com.

Azure MVP

I'm very honored to have been selected as a Windows Azure MVP by Microsoft. I've been told I was the first selected, so I'm going to consider that a double honor.

To quote the MVP web site, "The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award is an annual award given to outstanding members of Microsoft's technical communities based on contributions made during the previous 12 months to offline and online Microsoft-related technical communities." I'll take that to mean I'm doing something useful to help adoption of this great technology platform.

Well, enough tooting my own horn. I'm happy to have received this valuable credential, and I know I need to keep up participation to have it renewed next year.

Windows Azure certainly has come a long way since I got my first advance look at it 2 years ago. It's growing up rapidly, and I love working with it. The best is yet to come. Go Cloud!

My Windows Azure Wish List – The Future Cloud I Hope to See by 2012

What will cloud computing be like in a couple of years? I got my first look at Windows Azure 2 years ago, and the rate of progress has been nothing short of amazing--and shows no sign of slowing down. What will the cloud be like in another year or two? Where should it go? Here’s where I’d like to see the cloud go over the next couple of years:

1. Auto-Sizing: Out-of-box Governance

Many people don’t seem to be aware that cloud computing brings with it a new management responsibility. A big selling point for the cloud is its elasticity and subsequent cost efficiency—but you only get that if you monitor activity and manage the size of your assets in the cloud. That is not by any means automatic today, so you must elect to do it yourself or through a third-party, either through automated means or human oversight.

We could debate whether this is the cloud provider’s responsibility or the customer’s, and in fact it needs to be a partnership between the two. Since this is something everyone needs to do, however, it seems fair to expect the cloud provider to more than meet us halfway. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to be able to easily set technical or financial thresholds and have the cloud monitor them for me—notifying me about changes and trends and taking action as per my marching orders.

We may get some of these capabilities as cloud integrations become available to operations monitoring software such as System Center—but that’s not a full realization of this idea. The modern start-up may run 100% in the cloud with no on-premise IT. Those companies need a completely in-cloud way to do governance.
Human beings shouldn’t have to babysit the cloud, at least not beyond an oversight/approval level of involvement. It should watch itself for us, and governance should be an out-of-box cloud service.

2. Auto Shut-off: App and Data Lifetime Management

I don’t know about you, but my house probably would have burned down long ago and my electric bills gone through the roof if it were not for the auto shut-off feature of many household appliances such as irons and coffee-makers. You only have to browse the forums to see the daily postings of people who are in shock because they left the faucet running or didn’t realize other so-called hidden costs of the cloud.

It’s human nature to be forgetful, and in the cloud forgetfulness costs you money. Every application put in the cloud starts a run of monthly charges that will continue perpetually until you step in and remove it someday. Every datum put in the cloud is in the same boat: ongoing charges until you remove it. It’s extremely unwise to do either without thinking about the endgame: when will this application need to come out of the cloud? What is the lifetime for this data? You might think you won’t forget about such things, but think about what it will be like when you are using the cloud regularly and have many applications and data stores online.

What we need to solve this problem is lifetime management for assets in the cloud. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see lifetime policies you can specify up-front when putting applications and data into the cloud—with automated enforcement. You can imagine this including ‘keep it until I delete it’ and ‘keep until [time]’—similar to the options you get on your DVR at home. Auto delete could be dangerous, of course, so we will want more sophisticated options such as an ‘archive’ option, where we take something offline but don’t lose it altogether. Perhaps the best choice we could be given is a lease option, where the app or data’s expiration period gets renewed whenever they are used. This is how auto-shutoff works for many appliances: the shut-off timer gets reset whenever we use them, and only after a certain period of inactivity does deactivation take place.

As with the previous wish list item, this is something everyone needs and is therefore a valid ask of cloud providers. Let us set lifetime policies for our apps and data when we put them in the cloud, and enforce them for us.

3. Mothballing & Auto-Activation: Dehydrate & Rehydrate Apps and Data

As described in the previous wish list item, an ideal implementation of lifetime management for applications and data would include decommissioning and archiving. That is, apps and data that become inactive should be mothballed automatically where they cost us far less than when they are formally deployed.

Along with mothballing comes the need for reactivation. Here I think we can take an idea from workflow technologies such as WF and BizTalk Server, where long-running workflows are dehydrated so that they do not consume finite resources such as threads and memory. They get persisted, and the workflow engine knows what events to look for in order to rehydrate them back into running, active entities.

In the Future Cloud, I’d like apps and data to be dehydrated when inactive and rehydrated when needed again—with greatly reduced costs during the inactive period. We can thus imagine an app that people start to use less and less, and eventually stop using altogether. An example of this might be a health care plan enrollment portal, only used once or twice a year. As the app moves to an inactive state, an expiration policy would cause the cloud to remove all of the server instances. However, the “light would be on”: a future access to the application would bring it back online. We can similarly imagine account data that moves into archive mode when inactive: kept around, but not at the premium rate.

The best realization of this concept would be that mothballed apps and data cost us nothing until they are re-activated. That might be a little unrealistic since the cloud provider is keeping the light on for us, but a mothballed asset should certainly cost a small fraction of an activated one.

4. Automatic Encryption

Most customers go through a period of considering risks and concerns (real or imagined) before they start using the cloud. A common concern that surfaces is the use of shared resources in the cloud and the specter of your critical data somehow falling into the wrong hands. The best way to feel okay about that is to encrypt all data transmitted and stored by your application. That way, if data does fall into the wrong hands—remote as that may be—it won’t be intelligible to them. In the Future Cloud, I’d like all data I store—database and non-database—to be automatically encrypted.

This is another example of something I believe we will all be doing: encryption of data will become a standard practice for all data we put into the cloud. As previously mentioned, whenever there is something everyone wants to do in the cloud it’s fair to ask the cloud provider to provide a service rather than each of us having to separately implement the capability. Naturally, the customer should remain in control of keys and strong encryption methods should be used.

5. Get Closer to True Consumption-based Pricing

Cloud computing has great appeal because of the consumption-based pricing model and the analogies we can make to electricity and other utilities. However, the implementation of that idea today leaves room for improvement. While we do have consumption-based pricing it’s very coarse-grained.

For example, let’s consider Windows Azure hosting. For each VM you allocate, you are reserving that ‘machine’ and are paying $0.12/hour or more for wall clock time. The actual usage of each VM has nothing to do with your charges. Is this really consumption-based pricing? Yes, but at a coarse level of granularity: you add or remove servers to match your load. Can we imagine something more ideal? Yes, charging for the machine hours used to service actual activity. This would work well in combination with an auto-sizing feature as previously discussed.

We can make the same observation about SQL Azure. Today, you buy a database bucket in a certain size, such as 1GB or 10GB or 50GB. Whether that database is full, half full, or even completely empty does not affect the price you pay. Is this really consumption-based pricing? Yes, but again at a very coarse level. We can imagine a future where the amount of database storage in use drives the price, and we don’t have to choose a size bucket at all.

In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see more granular consumption-based pricing that more naturally lines up with usage and activities the way the customer thinks about them. It’s when the pricing model is at a distance from actual activity that surprises and disappointments come in using the cloud. We’ve already sold the ‘metering’ concept: now we need to give the customer the kind of meter they are expecting and can relate to.

6. Public-Private Portability: Doing Things the Same Way On-Prem or in the Cloud

I’m convinced many, many more businesses would be exploring the cloud right now if they could easily move portable workloads between cloud and on-premise effortlessly. Today, the cloud is a bit of a big step that requires you to change some things about your application. The cloud would be far more approachable if instead of that one big step, an enterprise could take several small, reversible steps.

In the Future Cloud, I’d like to be able to host things the same way in the cloud and on-premise so that I can effortlessly shuttle portable workloads between cloud and on-prem. Portable workloads would be huge. It doesn’t seem realistic that existing enterprise apps are going to just work in the cloud unchanged, because they weren’t designed to take advantage of a cloud environment. What does seem realistic is that you can update your apps to work “the cloud way” but be able to host identical VMs locally or in the cloud, giving you the ability to change your workload split anytime. The advent of private cloud will play a big role in making this possible.

7. Hybrid Clouds: Joining My Network to the Cloud

Today, on-premise and in-cloud are two very separate places separated by big walls. IT assets are either “over here” or “over there”, and special activities are needed to move applications, data, or messages between them. This makes certain scenarios a poor fit for the cloud today. Consider what I call the “Molar” pattern: an application with so many internal integrations that its deep roots make it impractical to extract out of the enterprise and move into the cloud.

In the Future Cloud, I’d like to be able to bridge parts of my local network to my assets in the cloud. The picture of what makes sense in the cloud changes radically if we can make connections between the cloud and our local network. That molar pattern, for example, might now be a suitable thing for the cloud because the in-cloud application now has a direct way to get to the internal systems it needs to talk to.

We know this is coming for Windows Azure. “Project Sydney”, announced at PDC 2009, will provide us with a gateway between our local networks and our assets in the cloud. What we can expect from this is that in addition to the “first wave” of applications that make sense in the cloud now, there will be a second wave.

8. Effortless Data Movement

Moving data to and from the cloud is not particularly hard—if it’s small, and of the type where you have a convenient tool at hand. When working with large amounts of data, your options are reduced and you may find yourself doing a lot of manual work or even creating your own tools out of necessity.

It’s not just moving data into the cloud and out that’s at issue: you may want to copy or move data between projects in the data center; or you may want to copy or move data to a different data center. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to be able to easily move data between on-premise and cloud data centers around the world, regardless of the amount of data.

9. A Simpler Pricing Model

If you look at Azure ROI Calculators and TCO tools, you’ll see that there are many dimensions to the pricing model. As we continue to get more and more services in the cloud, they will only increase. Although there’s something to be said for the transparency of separately accounting for bandwidth, storage, etc. it certainly puts a burden on customers to estimate their costs correctly. It’s very easy to get the wrong idea about costs by overlooking even one dimension of the pricing model. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see a simpler, more approachable pricing model. This might mean a less itemized version of the pricing model where you consume at a simple rate; with the ability to reduce your costs slightly if you are willing to go the itemized route. This would be similar to tax returns, where you can choose between easy and itemized forms.

10. Provide SaaS Services

Software-as-a-Service providers are ISVs who face a common set of challenges: they need to provide multi-tenancy and engineer their solutions in a way that protect tenants well. This includes protection and isolation of data, and may involve customer-controlled encryption keys. SaaS providers also have to deal with provisioning of new accounts, which they would like to be as automated as possible. Change management is another consideration, where there is a tension between the ability to provide customizations and the use of a common deployment to serve all customers.

In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see services and a framework for SaaS functionality. Microsoft themselves are solving this for SaaS offerings such as SharePoint Online and CRM Online. Why not offer provisioning, multi-tenancy, and data isolation services for SaaS ISVs as a general cloud service?

11. E-Commerce Services in the Cloud

In line with the BizSpark program and other Microsoft initiatives to support emerging business, e-commerce services in the cloud would be highly useful. A cloud-based shopping cart and payment service would an excellent beginning, best implemented perhaps in conjunction with a well-known payment service such as PayPal. For more established businesses, we could imagine a deeper set of services that might include common ERP and commerce engine features. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see shopping, payment, and commerce services.

12. Basic IT Services in the Cloud

It may be unrealistic to expect enterprises will put everything they have in the cloud, but start-ups are another matter altogether. For many start-ups, all of their IT will be in the cloud. They won’t have any local IT assets whatsoever beyond laptops. That means the basics, such as email, conferencing, Active Directory, domain management, and backup/restore will need to be in the cloud. We have a start on that today with Exchange Online, Office Communications Online, and Live Meeting in BPOS, but more is needed to complete the picture. In the Future Cloud, I’d like to see basic IT services provided by the cloud to support the fully-in-the-cloud customer.

Well, there’s my wish list. What do you think needs to be in the future cloud? Send me your comments.

Stupid Cloud Tricks #1: Hosting a Web Site Completely from Windows Azure Storage

Can you host a web site in Windows Azure without using Windows Azure Compute? Sure you can: you can ‘host’ an entire web site in Windows Azure Storage, 100% of it, if the web site is static. I myself am currently running several web sites using this approach. Whether this is a good idea is a separate discussion. Welcome to “Stupid Cloud Tricks” #1. Articles in this series will share interesting things you can do with the Windows Azure cloud that may be non-obvious and whose value may range from “stupid” to “insightful” depending on the context in which you use them.

If you host a web site in Windows Azure the standard way, you’re making use of Compute Services to host a web role that runs on a server farm of VM instances. It’s not uncommon in this scenario to also make use of Windows Azure blob storage to hold your web site assets such as images or videos. The reason you’re able to do this is that blob storage containers can be marked public or private, and public blobs are accessible as Internet URLs. You can thus have HTML <IMG> tags or Silverlight <Image> tags in your application that reference images in blob storage by specifying their public URLs.

Let’s imagine we put all of the files making up a web site in blob storage, not just media files. The fact that Windows Azure Storage is able to serve up blob content means there is inherent web serving in Windows Azure Storage. And this in turn means you can put your entire web site there—if it’s of the right kind: static or generated web sites that serve up content but don’t require server-side logic. You can however make use of browser-side logic using JavaScript or Ajax or Silverlight.

How does ‘hosting’ a static web site out of Windows Azure Storage compare to hosting it through Windows Azure Compute?

• With the standard Windows Azure Compute approach, a single VM of the smallest variety @$0.12/hr will cost you about $88/month--and you need at least 2 servers if you want the 3 9's SLA. In addition you’ll pay storage fees for the media files you keep in Windows Azure storage as well as bandwidth fees.
• If you put your entire site in Windows Azure storage, you avoid the Compute Services charge altogether but you will now have more storage to pay for. As a reminder, storage charges include a charge for the amount of storage @$0.15/GB/month as well as a transaction fee of $0.01 per 10,000 transactions. Bandwidth charges also apply but should be the same in either scenario.

So which costs more? It depends on the size of your web site files. In the Compute Services scenario the biggest chunk of your bill is likely the hosting charges which are a fixed cost. In the storage-hosted scenario you’re converting this aspect of your bill to a charge for storage which is not fixed: it’s based on how much storage you are using. It’s thus possible for your 'Storage-hosted’ web site charges to be higher or lower than the Compute-hosted approach depending on the size of the site. In most cases the storage scenario is going to be less than the Compute Services scenario.

As noted, this is only useful for a limited set of scenarios. It’s not clear what this technique might cost you in terms of SLA or Denial of Service protection for example. Still, it’s interesting to consider the possibilities given that Windows Azure Storage is inherently a web server. The reverse is also true, Windows Azure Compute inherently comes with storage--but that’s another article.