INTRODUCTION TO THE WINDOWS AZURE BOOK SERIES

It has been fascinating watching the maturation of Windows Azure since its introduction in 2008. When it was announced, Azure was touted as being Microsoft’s “new operating system.” And at that level, it has not really lived up to its billing. However, if you consider Azure to be a collection of platforms and tools that allow you to cloud-enable your corporation’s applications and infrastructure, well, now you’re on the right track.

And, as it turns out, a collection of co-operating tools and services is the best way to think of Azure. The different components that comprise Azure become the building blocks that allow you to construct an environment to suit your needs. Want to be able to host a simple website? Well, then Azure Web Sites fits the bill. Want to move some of your infrastructure to the cloud while leaving other systems on premise? Azure Virtual Networking gives you the capability to extend your corporate domain to include machines hosted in Azure. Almost without exception, each twist and turn in your infrastructure roadmap can take advantage of the building blocks that make up Windows Azure.

A single book covering everything that encompasses Azure would be huge. And, because of the breadth of components in Azure, such a book is likely to contain information that you are not necessary interested in. For this reason, the Windows Azure series from Wrox takes the same “building block” approach that Azure does. Each book in the series drills deeply into one technology. If you want to learn everything you need to work with a particular technology, then you could not do better than to pick up the book for that topic. But you don’t have to dig through 2,000 pages to find the 120 pages that matter to you. Each book stands on its own. You can pick up the books for the topics you care about and know that’s all that you will get. And you can leave the other books until desire or circumstance makes them of interest to you.

So enjoy this book. It will give you the information you need to put Windows Azure to use for you. But as you continue to look to other Azure components to add to your infrastructure, don’t forget to check out the other books in the series to see what topics might be helpful. The books in the series are:

• Windows Azure and ASP.NET MVC Migration by Benjamin Perkins, Senior Support Escalation Engineer, Microsoft
• Windows Azure Mobile Services by Bruce Johnson, MVP, Partner, ObjectSharp Consulting
• Windows Azure Web Sites by James Chambers, Product & Community Development Manager, LogiSense
• Windows Azure Data Storage by Simon Hart, Software Architect, Microsoft
• Windows Azure Hybrid Cloud by Danny Garber, Windows Azure Solution Architect, Microsoft; Jamal Malik, Business Solution Architect; and Adam Fazio, Solution Architect, Microsoft

Each one of these books was written with the same thought in mind: to provide deep knowledge of that one topic. As you go further into Azure, you can pick and choose what makes sense for you from the other books that are available. Constructing your knowledge using these books is like building blocks. Which is just the same manner that Azure was designed.

Bruce Johnson

Azure Book Series Editor