ITWire

One of the promises of cloud computing is the ability to move workloads between in-house servers and a cloud provider's infrastructure, whether that's to cope with spikes in demand, or to take advantage of a cloud provider's economies of scale. A new feature of Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud platform allows virtual hard disks (VHDs) to be moved back and forth between on-premises servers and Azure. These VHDs aren't limited to Windows images, but can also be Linux systems.

OSes initially available in the Azure gallery are Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, OpenSUSE 12.1, CentOS 6.2, Ubuntu 12.04, and SUSE Enterprise Server 11 SP2.

Several other new Azure features are being previewed.

Windows Azure Virtual Network allows the creation and management of VPNs in Azure, including the extension of on-premises networks into Azure via secure IPSEC connections.

Windows Azure Web Sites can be constructed using .NET, Node.js, PHP, Git and FTP. There's also provision for the easy deployment of popular open source software such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

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