Mike it is a crazy platform. They will NEVER need a server again. The speed is sick. Anyone that does this will instantly see this is off the hook! It is the most exciting thing I have worked with in decades. It truly is. I can demo this stuff from anywhere in the world with a decent Internet connection. The next thing this nation has to become is number one with is fast network connectivity – everywhere. Mike this is simply the biggest deal to computing period. Especially if you’re on the MSFT platform and realize the great stuff that has been around for the last decade or so. The developer community as a whole has to step up or be left behind unlike ever before.

Have to love that Windows Azure enthusiasm!

Mike

Energized by those developer conversations and wanting a way to capture and prioritize it all, on the flight home I launched http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com (Wi-Fi on the plane helped). It’s a simple site where Windows Azure enthusiasts and customers (big or small) can tell Microsoft’s Windows Azure Team directly what they need by submitting and voting on ideas. I wasn’t sure anyone would participate, so I submitted a few ideas of my own to get things going and gauge interest in some ideas we were kicking around within the Windows Azure Team. The goal of the site was and is to better understand what you need from Windows Azure and to build plans around how we make the things that "bubble to the top" a reality for our customers in the future.

So what happened? Well, with a year now gone by and a slew of features on tap for release it’s the perfect time to reflect back. In the past 12 months, more than 2000 unique visitors to mygreatwindowsazureidea.com have submitted hundreds of feature requests and cast nearly 13,000 votes for the features that matter most to them. There were also hundreds and hundreds of valuable comments and blog posts that grew out of the ideas people were sharing on the site. Thank you for this amazing level of participation!

With the announcements last week at PDC 10 and with a look forward to things that weren’t announced, but are in the works, I am pleased to let you know that we are addressing 62% of all of the votes cast with features that are already or soon will be available. Said another way, we are addressing 8 out of the top 10 most requested ideas (and more ideas lower down on the list) that in total account for roughly 8000 of the nearly 13,000 votes cast.

I hope that you agree that we are sincerely listening to you and knocking these high priority ideas off one-by-one. I am sure there are some of you that want new features to come sooner or perhaps you’re not happy as your requested feature isn’t yet available (or it isn’t available exactly in the way that you envisioned). With more than 2000 people participating, this is going to happen - - I just hope with what we are releasing that you are now even more enthusiastic to keep an active dialog going with me. Also, please realize this site is just one of many channels we use to determine our engineering and business priorities, and this one just happens to be the most public.

On that note, I received this e-mail the other day that I wanted to share with you:

From: Paul <last name and e-mail address withheld>
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 4:15 AM
To: Mike Wickstrand
Subject: Windows Azure

Mike,

I’ve been keeping a close eye on Windows Azure, and so far it’s been a case of “Wow, I’d love to develop for this, but it’s too expensive”.  I’ve been looking on “mygreatwindowsazureidea.com”, and I have to say, the new announcements for $0.05 per hour instances and being able to run multiple roles <web sites> per instance has tipped me in favour of Azure enough to begin learning and developing for it.

Thanks so much for listening to the feedback of the developer community.  It gives me a warm feeling that we have our Microsoft of old back, who cares and listens to the developer community.

Honestly, this is great news.

Thanks,

Paul

(A born-again Microsoft fan-boi)

When I was sitting on that plane last year flying back from PDC 09 I hoped that in a year I was going to be able to look each of you in the eye and demonstrate to you that Microsoft listens and that the Windows Azure Team cares about what you need. In the best case scenario I envisioned that I would hear from customers like Paul. I gave you my assurance that if you tell us what you want that I will do my best to champion those ideas within Microsoft to make those things become a reality. I hope you feel like I’ve lived up that and that I’ve earned the right to keep hearing your ideas on how to make Windows Azure great for you and for your companies.

So…a big thank you to the more than 2000 people who shared ideas and voted for what you want and need from Windows Azure. To the thousands of Windows Azure customers who regularly receive e-mails from me asking for your opinions, thank you and please keep the feedback coming. And lastly, to the Windows Azure Team, thanks for making all of this happen, for Paul and for our thousands of customers just like him.

In the past year we’ve also added a few more ears to my team, so along the way please don’t hesitate to share your ideas with harism@microsoft.com (Haris), adamun@microsoft.com, (Adam) or rduffner@microsoft.com. (Robert).

We look forward to coming back to you in another year after PDC 11 and having an even better story to tell.

Mike

Mike Wickstrand
Senior Director, Product Planning
Windows Azure
Microsoft Corporation
Email: mike.wickstrand@microsoft.com
Share your ideas for Windows Azure: http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/
Twitter: @Wickstrand

We are in the final stages of accepting nominations for the newly formed Windows Azure Most Valued Professional (MVP) expertise. We are looking for outstanding community leaders that are sharing their knowledge with their peers in the developer community to become charter MVPs for Windows Azure. What does it take to become a Windows Azure MVP?

1. Potential MVPs are nominated by other technical community members, current and former MVPs, and Microsoft personnel who have noted their leadership and their willingness and ability to help others make the most of their Microsoft technology. To receive the Microsoft MVP Award, MVP nominees undergo a rigorous review process. A panel that includes members of the MVP team and Microsoft product groups evaluates each nominee's technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past 12 months. The panel considers the quality, quantity, community leadership and level of impact of the MVP nominee's contributions. Active MVPs receive the same level of scrutiny as other new candidates each year.
2. Can represent and amplify the voice of our communities and customers
3. Is a thought leader in online and local communities
4. Provides feedback to the Windows Azure development teams.

MVPs are independent of Microsoft, with separate opinions and perspectives, and are able to represent the views of the community members with whom they engage every day. Assuming you or someone that you know have these requisites, please send email to Robert Duffner (rduffner@microsoft.com) the Windows Azure Community Lead.

Thanks in advance - Mike

It’s always a boost to hear from customers directly, whether they have good things or bad things to say - - we are learning what we are doing well and what we can do better in the future. Whenever we do this, I do wish the response was higher as I can tell you that every single response gets read and reviewed. Beyond that, my team is offering a call with every single customer that expresses dissatisfaction with Windows Azure as part of this Q1 survey - - some customers are taking me up on this option, others are choosing to just shoot me a mail or complete the survey and share their thoughts there. We don’t care which feedback option the customer chooses, we just want to hear it!

So if you received a mail from me in the past day or so, please do take the time to complete that survey - - I can assure you the Windows Azure Team is listening and responding. If you are a Windows Azure customer and did not receive an invite from me, please send a mail and I’ll send you a link.

The bottom line is if you love Windows Azure please tell us why. If you hate it or if it has really pissed you off like it has Charlie who I traded mails with earlier, please tell us that too.

Thanks in advance – Mike

| Mike Wickstrand | Senior Director, Product Planning | Windows Azure | Microsoft |
| Email:

| Share your ideas for Windows Azure: http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/ |

These days all too often “offsites” are nothing more than going to work in Microsoft cafeteria or going to meet in another Microsoft building with a better view. We decided to buck that trend and really go offsite and head up to Orcas Island for a day of revisiting the team goals and planning out the next 6-9 months of work ahead of us.

The weather was absolutely beautiful and it was a productive and fun day that was extended by a couple of hours when I misread the ferry schedule. No problem, it turns out this gave us the opportunity for a nice dinner with Avi, David, Cynthia, Jag, and James at the Madrona Bar & Grill in Eastsound!

I’m looking forward to continuing to connect with Windows Azure customers in the weeks and months ahead. We have some new things planned to ensure we’re hearing what customers need & want from Windows Azure - - and sharing those learnings broadly with the Windows Azure Team and converting those learnings into plans. Of course, any feedback you have for the Windows Azure Team can always be shared with us as http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/ or just shoot me a mail.

A big thanks to my team for enduring the very long day, hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Mike

So before we get to those upgrade related questions, let’s get grounded with some terminology and facts that you’ll need to know in order to answer the questions accurately.

Let’s start out with that Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft datacenters.

An instance of a role in a Windows Azure service runs in a virtual machine (VM). This VM has an operating system installed on it, which is referred to as the Guest Operating System (Guest OS). The Guest OS in Windows Azure is customized for the best performance in the Window Azure environment but is substantially compatible with Windows Server OS as well to enable a large number of Windows based applications to run on it.

When a user deploys a service on Windows Azure, the platform provisions the VMs needed by the service and deploys the Guest OS on it as the first step. Subsequently, all the other pieces of the developer stack and the service code itself is deployed on top of the Guest OS. Windows Azure team attempts to keep the Guest OS up to date with the latest patches available. To that end Windows Azure team releases a new Guest OS at a regular intervals.

Managing upgrades of the Guest OS (today)

In order to keep their service on the latest (and most secure Guest OS available), customers can specify the latest Guest OS version in their service configuration file (.cscfg) and perform an upgrade of their service. This triggers the platform to move all instances of all roles in the service deployment to use the specified Guest OS. This is done while maintaining the availability of the service as whole.

Managing upgrade of the Guest OS updates (future)

The mechanism for managing upgrade of the Guest OS is fairly manual for the user today. The Windows Azure Team is contemplating some changes to make this process more convenient and intuitive for the user. To that end we would like to get your opinion.

We have a very short survey for you (< 5min) that will give us some insights into how you, as a customer of Windows Azure, think about upgrades to the Guest OS.

Here’s the link –> http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22ABKSYVB3K

Thanks in advance – Mike

| Mike Wickstrand | Senior Director, Windows Azure Product Planning |
| Microsoft |
| Email: mikewic@microsoft.com | Twitter: @Wickstrand |
| Web: http://blogs.msdn.com/wickstrand/|
| Help design the future of Windows Azure, visit mygreatwindowsazureidea.com! |

In the spirit of opening up another channel where the Windows Azure Team can hear your voice, today we are launching http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com/, a site where you can post your own ideas for new Windows Azure features as well as vote for and discuss ideas posted by the community. To get you started I posted some high-level themes there. If you see something that you need please vote for it and add some comments on what specifically you need and why. Of course, if you need something else, please post it and see what others have to say.

If you want to influence the future direction of Windows Azure and have a direct voice into the Windows Azure Engineering Team please hop on the site and tell us what you need!

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Mike

| Mike Wickstrand | Senior Director, Windows Azure Product Planning | Microsoft |
| Email: mikewic@microsoft.com | Twitter: @Wickstrand |Web: http://blogs.msdn.com/wickstrand/|
| Help design the future of Windows Azure, visit mygreatwindowsazureidea.com! |

We’ve been fortunate in that since PDC last year we’ve experienced a strong interest in the Windows Azure platform while it has been a Community Technology Preview (CTP). No doubt, many of you were some of the early adopters who spent a bunch of time telling me either through e-mails or questionnaires what you need and want from Windows Azure. I really can’t thank you enough for the ideas you shared with me and the Team, I can assure you that we spend a ton of time going through it all. With the enhancements you are seeing to Windows Azure in the past couple of weeks and the new things you'll learn this week I'm confident you'll conclude that the Windows Azure Team has been listening to you closely.

Like the rest of the Windows Azure Team, I couldn’t be more excited that PDC ’09 is almost here. On a personal level, it’s unbelievably satisfying that you’ll finally get to see the work of the super talented Windows Azure Team that I’m fortunate to get to work with on a day-to-day basis. By the way, if you are interested in more frequent updates (than my future blogs posts), follow me @Wickstrand.

Mike

| Mike Wickstrand | Senior Director, Product Planning | Windows Azure | Microsoft |
| Email: mikewic@microsoft.com | Twitter: @Wickstrand |