Today we see the birth of the official build of Windows Azure Services on Windows Server. It will allow you to use Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012 SP1 and Antares (Websites service) in your own environment, just like you might already have experienced with Windows Azure.

As we speak I am installing Windows Azure Services in a new Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environment with System Center 2012 at one of the large hosters in the Netherlands offering IaaS services based on Hyper-V.

My fellow blogger Marc van Eijk already wrote a fantastic blog on his experiences while the product was still called KATAL, the beta name for Windows Azure Services.

Please take a look at his blog which was published:
http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/marcve/2012/11/windows-azure-services-for-windows-server/

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The first two services that are offered in this release are high scale, multi-tenant web site hosting and high density virtual machine provisioning and management. These services are lit up in the Service Management Portal and API. We will continue to bring more Windows Azure services on-premise in subsequent releases. You can find more information and download the bits at http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/en/us/services.aspx.

New features

In addition to the web sites, virtual machines, plans, accounts, sql and my sql features that were shipped in CTP and Beta, some of the exciting new features in this release include:

  • Virtual Machines – tenant ability to attach/detach networks, disks and iso, and overall parity of experience with Azure
  • Virtual Networks – tenant ability to create virtual networks and bind VMs
  • Git, Github and Codeplex integration
  • Web hosting gallery integration
  • Distributed Installation of all components
  • Admin and tenant API segregation to enable more secure deployment
  • Upgrade from Beta to GA for customers who have deployed Beta in production
  • Domain registration extension that will also serve as a sample for building a custom resource provider + accompanying documentation
  • Billing integration with Zuora sample adapter now includes usage data from System Center
  • Localization in 10 languages

Details on how to extend this product is available via documents posted on the Connect site – click here to download. These include the ability to theme a portal, use a custom portal, create a custom resource provider, customize the usage adapter to work with a billing solution and make available PowerShell scripts to end-users.

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