Networking
Windows Azure offers a range of networking capabilities to help you integrate existing applications with the cloud and manage your network traffic.
Windows Azure Connect
Windows Azure Connect provides an easy way to set up network-level connectivity between Windows Azure services and on-premise resources such as database servers and domain controllers, allowing each access to the other as if they were on the same network.
There are several uses for Windows Azure Connect:
Distributed applications
Windows Azure Connect makes it easier to build cloud applications hosted in a hybrid environment, maintaining secure connections with on-premise infrastructure without the creation of custom codes. For example, a web application hosted in Windows Azure can securely access an on-premise SQL Server database server or authenticate users against an on-premise Active Directory service.
Remote debugging
With Windows Azure Connect, you can create a direct connection between your local development machine and applications hosted in Windows Azure, which allows you to troubleshoot and debug them using the same tools you would use for on-premise applications.
Capabilities and Benefits of Windows Azure Connect
Easy agent-based installation
- Installed on your local, on-premise machine, the agent software establishes and maintains a secure connection with Windows Azure roles without altering your local network topology. The connection also adheres to corporate firewall policy and can be rapidly provisioned and reconfigured.
Open, secure, and granular control
- Windows Azure Connect uses industry-standard end-to-end IPSEC protocol to establish secure connections between on-premise machines and roles in the cloud. Unlike a traditional Virtual Private Network (VPN), which establishes secure connectivity at gateway level, Windows Azure Connect offers more granular control by establishing secure connections at a machine and role level.
Windows Azure Connect is currently in Community Technology Preview (CTP) and available at no charge. To start using it, please visit the Beta Programs section of the Windows Azure Management portal.
Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager allows you to load balance incoming traffic across multiple hosted Windows Azure services whether they’re running in the same datacenter or across different datacenters around the world. By effectively managing traffic, you can ensure high performance, availability and resiliency of your applications.
With Traffic Manager, you can build:
Highly available applications
Traffic Manager enables you to improve the availability of your critical applications by monitoring your hosted services in Windows Azure and providing automatic failover capabilities when a service goes down.
Responsive applications
Windows Azure allows you to run services in datacenters located globally. By serving end users with the hosted service that is “closest” to them in terms of network latency, Traffic Manager can help you the responsiveness of your applications and content delivery times.
Capabilities and Benefits of Traffic Manager
Set up within minutes
- Once your services are hosted in a production environment, Traffic Manager policies can be set up within minutes. This simplifies the task of building highly-reliable and scalable applications.
Load balancing methods
- Traffic Manager provides you a choice of three load balancing methods: performance, failover, or round robin. You can decide how you want to optimize your application based on these methods.
Windows Azure Traffic Manager is currently in Community Technology Preview (CTP) and available at no charge.
For more information about Windows Azure Traffic Manager, see MSDN.