MIX11 Day 1: Windows Azure Platform Updates and ASP.NET MVC 3 Tools Update

During his day one MIX11 keynote in Las Vegas (watch it:live.visitmix.com ), Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Microsoft .NET
Developer Platform, announced several offerings that are designed to make web
development easier and more seamless, while giving developers the flexibility
and freedom to use the tools they choose across cloud, web, and phone
development.

Windows Azure: With new Windows Azure platform services
and capabilities, developers can take advantage of skills they already know in
order to build and scale web applications that can be hosted in the cloud. For
example, the new version of Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control helps
developers build federated authorization into applications. In addition, Windows
Azure AppFabric Caching improves high-speed access and scalability for Windows
Azure applications. You can sign up for these at the Windows Azure Portal.

For developers
that want built-in media streaming capabilities via encrypted channels, the new
Windows Azure Content Delivery Network for IIS Smooth Streaming is also being
announced. The CTP of Windows Azure Content Delivery Network for IIS Smooth
Streaming will be released in Q2 of this calendar year. To learn how to access
the CTP, visit Windows Azure Portal.

Developers who
need to balance application performance across multiple geographies will want
to learn about the CTP of Windows Azure Traffic Manager CTP, which is available
now. Information on applying for the CTP will be available on the Beta
Programs section of the Windows Azure platform Management Portal.

Microsoft
Web Platform:
A number of new updates to the Microsoft Web Platform are now
available, including the ASP.NET
MVC 3 Tools Update, which gives web developers an array of newly built-in
features, such as Entity Framework 4.1 with Code First; Scaffolding that automatically
writes the Controller and database code; new HTML 5 markup support that lets
developers style HTML5 elements in browser versions prior to Internet Explorer
8; and jQuery project templates. In addition, developers can easily access the
latest versions of project templates by means of the NuGet feed.

Underscoring Microsoft's commitment to
sponsoring open source projects, the latest release of Orchard 1.1 is also available. Orchard is a free open source
content management system in the Outercurve Foundation's ASP.NET Open Source
Gallery. To download the latest Microsoft Web Platform updates, including the
latest release of Orchard, visit www.microsoft.com/web.

For more
information, check out the MIX Virtual Press Room.