Getting Azure just got easier

Dec 1, 2011 by John

In a recent mailing, Microsoft have outlined the changes they’ve made to the process of signing up for Azure and a more flexible way of managing your usage of the PaaS solution.

Here’s the text:

Dear Customer,

Based on your feedback, we are making a number of improvements to streamline your Windows Azure experience. We would like to take this opportunity to provide some details on what’s coming.

Highlights:

• Simplified Sign-up Process:

• Create new subscriptions in 3 simple steps
• Take advantage of the new spending limit feature to sign up for a new 3-Month Free Trial and/or one of our MSDN subscriptions without fear of overage charges

• Flexible Subscription Management:

• Quickly add or update your subscriptions
• More easily switch between offers
• Cancel un-needed subscriptions directly from the Windows Azure Management portal

• Streamlined Billing Experience:

• Access real-time usage and billing details directly in the Windows Azure Management portal
• Billing will occur at the same time each month, regardless of the number of subscriptions
• Simpler, summarized invoice

Concurrent with the release of these new capabilities for managing your use of Windows Azure, (e.g., spending caps, real-time access to usage and charges), we will retire our monthly email notifications reporting when you reach 75%, 100% and 125% of the compute hours included in your offer (or your 3 month rolling average for offers without included compute hours).As we get closer to launch, we will provide the specific timing of these updates and include additional details. During the planned update, our billing system will be briefly offline during a weekend – under 24 hours from start to finish. While you won’t be able to add new subscriptions during the update process, this update will not impact any Windows Azure applications that you have running.We are excited to deliver these improvements as part of our commitment to deliver a flexible, easy to use cloud computing platform.

 

There have been mutterings in the past that the Microaoft PaaS has been less than simple to get onto, with luck this will set aside some of those concerns.