Cloudware Vendor Solutions - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 340

Studio and Microsoft WebMatrix) can help deploy and manage user
applications and cloud resources. Windows Azure also has a REST-
based service API for managements and deployments.
• Hypervisor : Microsoft does not provide Windows Azure Hypervisor
as a single product for cloud consumers or end users.
• Reliability : Windows Azure guarantees a 99.95% computing reliabil-
ity and a 99.9% role instance and storage reliability.
• OS Supports : Windows Azure currently supports both Windows and
Linux Operation Systems for Virtual Machines (VMs).
• Scalability : In Windows Azure, computing resources can be separated
from storage to achieve independent scalability of computing and
storage. This mechanism also provides isolation and multitenancy.
In 2012, the Windows Azure team built a new flat network system
that could create Flat Network Storage (FNS) crossing all Windows
Azure data centers. The FNS system resulted in bandwidth improve-
ments of network connectivity to support Windows Azure VMs. The
new networking design better supports high-performance comput-
ing (HPC) applications that require massive communications and
significant bandwidth between computing nodes.
• Cost : Windows Azure does not have upfront costs. The cost for each
component is based on the cloud configuration. Windows Azure
payment plans include pay-as-you-go, 6-month plans, or 12-month
plans. Microsoft provides an official cost calculator2 for Windows
Azure so that users can easily estimate the cost.
Cost is calculated based on computing usage. The cost includes
• Website cost
• Virtual machines cost
• Cloud service cost
• Mobile service cost
• Data management cost
16.3 Software as a Service (SaaS) Solutions
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a hosted application that is available over
the Internet via a Web browser. SaaS, sometimes referred to as on-demand
software , is the most complete of the cloud services. Computing hardware,
software, and the solution are offered by a vendor. The cloud application layer
is the only layer visible to end users who are the target users for this layer.