Cloud Computing, SOA and Windows Azure

"The Windows Azure platform is an Internet-scale cloud computing
services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. Windows tools
provide functionality to build solutions that include a cloud services
operating system and a set of developer services. The key parts of the
Windows Azure platform are: Windows Azure -- application container,
Microsoft SQL Azure, and Windows Azure platform AppFabric

The Windows Azure platform is part of the Microsoft cloud, which
consists of multiple categories of services: (1) Cloud-based
applications: These are services that are always available and highly
scalable. They run in the Microsoft cloud that consumers can directly
utilize. Examples include Bing, Windows Live Hotmail, Office.
(2) Software services: These services are hosted instances of
Microsoft's enterprise server products that consumers can use directly.
Examples include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office
Communications Online, etc. (3) Platform services: This is where the
Windows Azure platform itself is positioned. It serves as an application
platform public cloud that developers can use to deploy next-generation,
Internet-scale, and always available solutions. (4) Infrastructure
services: There is a limited set of elements of the Windows Azure
platform that can support cloud-based infrastructure resources.

SQL Azure is a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL
Server technologies that exposes a fault-tolerant, scalable, and
multi-tenant database service. SQL Azure does not exist as hosted
instances of SQL Server. It also uses a cloud fabric layer to abstract
and encapsulate the underlying technologies required for provisioning,
server administration, patching, health monitoring, and lifecycle
management.

Summary of Key Points: (1) The Windows Azure platform is primarily a
PaaS deployed in a public cloud managed by Microsoft. (2) Windows Azure
platform provides a distinct set of capabilities suitable for building
scalable and reliable cloud-based services. (3) The overall Windows
Azure platform further encompasses SQL Azure and Windows Azure platform
AppFabric." More Info See also XML in Clinical Research and Healthcare Industries:

2008 Predictions: SOA, Grid, SCA, Web 2.0, REST

"(1) Grid computing will grip the attention of enterprise IT leaders,
although given the various concepts of hardware grids, compute grids,
and data grids, and different approaches taken by vendors, the
definition of grid will be as fuzzy as ESB. This is likely to happen
at the end of 2008. (2) At least one application in the area of what
Gartner calls 'eXtreme Transaction Processing' (XTP) will become the
poster child for grid computing. This killer app for grid computing
will most likely be in the financial services industry or the travel
industry. Scalable, fault tolerant, grid enabled middle tier caching
will be a key component of such applications. (3) Event-Driven
Architectures (EDA) will finally become a well understood ingredient
for achieving realtime insight into business process, business metrics,
and business exceptions. New offerings from platform vendors and
startups will begin to feverishly compete in this area. (4) Service
Component Architecture (SCA) will become the new way for SOA applications
to be defined as support from all the major platform vendors (sans
Microsoft) will be rolled out... (9) By end of year it will be clear
that an understanding of infrastructure requirements for common
problems such as predictable scalability, reliability, security,
(*-ilities) will be necessary in order to support any combination of
SOA, REST, or Web 2.0 style applications. However the exact architecture
or even the list of requirements in support of such infrastructure
will not be well understood or agreed upon. Such a common understanding
will not come to bear until at least 2010. This will be the new
frontier to explore in the coming years..."