August 29, 2013 News Thursday: What’s New in R2 Blog Series Finale and more Server and Tools News...

by STB Blogger

What’s New in R2 Blog Series: PaaS for the Modern Web

In the final installment of the “What’s New in R2” blog series, Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson’s blog highlighted the consistency in Platform as a Service capabilities across private and public clouds to build and run modern applications – particularly web applications.

To support this shift, Web Site service in the Windows Azure Pack has been built from the ground up to provide developers with a scalable, secure, and flexible platform for hosting these modern web applications. In addition, Web Sites is built from the same source code as the Windows Azure service, providing a highly consistent experience with the Microsoft-operated Windows Azure Web Sites service. This turnkey solution provides developers with the web application services they expect while simplifying administration for the IT professional.

For more information, check out Brad Anderson’s In the Cloud blog. We encourage customers to download the Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 R2 preview software and start evaluation today!

Online Marketing Startup Selects Windows Azure to Power Solution for Web Storefronts

When faced with critical infrastructure decisions, Bangkok-based Semantic Touch chose Windows Azure to power its e-commerce solution BentoWeb. Windows Azure’s reliability, low upfront cost and openness appealed to the startup, along with Windows Azure’s ability to simplify delivery of mobile apps across multiple platforms. “In just a few days, we were up and running in Windows Azure. Because the platform supports PHP, our developers didn’t have to learn any new development languages,” said Natthaseth Sirinanthanon, General Manager of Semantic Touch.

To read more about Semantic Touch’s use of Windows Azure, go to the Openness Customer Spotlight and the Microsoft Case Study.

Arista Reduces Customer Downtime through Open Management Infrastructure Support

Arista Networks announced Smart System Upgrade, a new network application for its Extensible Operating System (EOS) designed to minimize application downtime and reduce risks during network upgrades. Smart System Upgrade supports Microsoft’s Open Management Infrastructure (OMI), which allows devices to be easily taken out or put into service so customers can stay current on the latest software releases without downtime.

This underscores Microsoft’s commitment to delivering standards-based datacenter management and enabling a plug and play experience for customers using Arista’s OMI-enabled switches.

Read Arista’s press release for more information on Smart System Upgrade and check out Microsoft’s In the Cloud blog to learn about Microsoft’s Software Defined Networking strategy.