We do a lot of business with Microsoft on our sites. There are two things we have happening with Microsoft that I thought I should pass along. Firstly, we have a Cloud Computing Showcase that has been created where we have a number of resources on Windows Azure. The second is that we have a link to a free 30 day Windows Azure Platform trial. This is access to try out the features of Azure without having to pay any money.
On the show case, there are a number of resources and articles that have been published. One of the newer articles has gotten a lot of attention. The article, Building a Facebook Marketing App on Azure” not only touches on Windows Azure, but also talks about Facebook applications. The inspiration for this article was the Facebook application that Outback Steakhouse had built. That application went viral. The infrastructure was able to handle it as a result of using the scaling powers of the Cloud. We actually have an article on that as well, “Thuzi, Outback and Azure: Tapping the Power of Facebook and the Cloud.”
If you are looking at Facebook or pondering the Cloud, both articles and the Cloud Computing Showcase are all worth a few minutes.
Of course, let me once again disclose that we do business with Microsoft. They sponsor the Cloud Computing Showcase.