Microsoft  has taken the wraps off its business and partner models for Windows Azure -- a services platform that enables computing applications to be hosted and run at the software giant's data centers.
Through Windows Azure, Microsoft expects to help customers and partners quickly develop and deploy cloud -based computing solutions, said Bob Muglia, president of the server and tools business at Microsoft.
"What's unique about the Windows Azure platform is that Microsoft manages the complexity, which allows partners to focus on what matters most for their business -- building innovative services solutions and driving new revenue," Muglia said. "This can drive down total cost of ownership by up to 60 percent for certain workloads during a three-year period."
Pay as You Go
Microsoft will offer Windows Azure under a pay-as-you-go pricing model where customers will pay only for the services they consume. Microsoft plans to charge 12 cents per hour for computing, 15 cents per gigabyte stored, and one cent per 10,000 storage transactions.
The Azure platform includes a Web-based relational database in Microsoft SQL Azure together with connectivity and interoperability with .NET services. Microsoft said it will charge $9.99 for the basic Web edition of its SQL Azure database, which includes up to a one-gigabyte relational database; and $99.99 for the business edition with up to a 10GB database. By contrast, .NET services will be 15 cents per 100,000 message operations, including service -bus messages and access-control tokens, the company said.
And when it comes to network bandwidth, Microsoft said it will charge between 10 and 15 cents per gigabyte for Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET services. The software giant also rolled out an enterprise -class guarantee backed by a service-level agreement that covers service uptime, connectivity and data availability for all three services. (continued...)
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