The new Azure .NET Services are simple .NET Services in the cloud. There are three services today, but more are to follow: .NET Access Control Service, .NET Service Bus, .NET Workflow Service.
The most important service is the Access Control Service. This is the “glue” for common access to all other services (including SQL Services) in the cloud. This is the service that will be mentioned in any speech about the azure services, because you can use Access Control Service to federate the customer’s existing identity management system. Whether the customer uses Active Directory service, other directory systems, or any standards-based infrastructure, just configure Access Control Service for it, and your application responds as if the customer’s user accounts were managed locally.
Access Control Service can federate with third-party Secure Token services to support processing identities from existing systems or from external organizations. Because the Access Control Service offers developers an entire infrastructure that supports using familiar programming frameworks and Web protocols, it’s easy to integrate your applications with many different platforms and architectures.
.NET Services Developer Center has links to all the information about .NET Services, including documentation, samples, forums, blogs.
Are you a Ruby or Ruby on Rails developer? .NET Services for Ruby is an open source software development kit that helps Ruby programs communicate with Microsoft .NET Services using plain HTTP. Specifically the SDK includes set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance & sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the .NET Services to extend their Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.
