Windows Azure 30-day Trial pass – Try it out folks Today (No Credit Card Required) !!!

Microsoft is providing thru different channels a 30-day Trial pass for .NET folks to try out their Windows Azure (aka Microsoft Cloud Platform as a Service offering).
I thought of sharing one such pass found in one of the blog post thru this blog for others to try it out. Follow below steps to get one such Azure 30-day account, try to deploy a .NET app like ASP.NET/MVC web app or a WCF/Windows Workflow app in Azure and see how simple it is. You don't have to give your credit card details for creating a Azure account for you thru this approach.

Follow below simple steps to get your 30-day Trial pass;

1. Go to http://windowsazurepass.com/


2. Select the country and enter DPCE01 / MPR001 as the pass code


3. You'll get further details to create / login to your account from Microsoft


4. Get latest training Kit from here


5. Get support from Azure Team by contacting them thru below options


6. In case these 2 promo codes didn't work for you, you can contact Azure team by clicking the link ?Don't have a promo code?" in this page, login with a Live/Hotmail email id, and get your own code from Microsoft


7. In case you would like to go for a Full Azure account, not a Trial one, but use it for few months to try Azure features, you can go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure , register with a Credit Card, but, still it won't be charged until you exceed the limit. Use this option with caution, as it has lot of bells and whistles, I got billed by Microsoft once for around 50$ before I figure it out and cancelled it

Note: If you need assistance with your Windows Azure platform 30-day pass, please contact Microsoft; Chat Online Now* / Call @ 1-888-346-3129 / Email: Azure 30-day Trial Help

*online chat open between 07:00am – 3:00pm PST

A Web Application developed in ASP.NET/ASP.NET MVC/Silverlight app can be deployed in a Azure Web Role (it's nothing but, very similar to creating a Virtual Directory in IIS) and a WCF Web Service / Windows Workflow application can be deployed as a Worker Role (it's nothing but deploying a WCF/WF in a Windows Service).

Below are few scenarios you can try out;

1) A simple web app deployed in Azure as a Web Role. This way, you'll get a public URL like one I've provided below for my application. In this approach, you just deployed your Web App in Azure Web Role.

2) A WCF/WF app deployed in Azure as a Worker Role. In this scenario, you'll get a public URL, nothing but a Azure Service URL, you can consume in a Windows Form/WPF/Silverlight/Java/any other Application deployed anywhere in your Desktop or another Web Application developed in .NET/Java deployed anywhere else, consuming this Azure Service. In this approach, you just deployed your Service in Azure Worker Role.

3) A WCF/WF app deployed as an Azure Worker Role service, as mentioned in Scenario 2, and also develop another Web App, as mentioned in Scenario 1, deployed again Azure as a Web Role consuming your own Worker Role service. In this approach, you just deployed both your web app & service in Azure as a Web Role and a Worker Role.

4) The last scenario is just developing a Web App which consumes one/many Services already deployed in Azure as a Worker Role, nothing but a 3^rd party Service. This kind of services are nothing but called Azure Datamarket Apps (https://datamarket.azure.com/ ), which I've used in my below sample.

I've developed a tiny web application in ASP.NET and deployed using this Windows Azure 30-day trial pass in below location, as a prototype.

Simple Azure Web App URL: http://zillowazuredatamarket.cloudapp.net/

I've used Azure Datamarket Service called Zillow real-estate API, which does Mortgage calculation for US ZIP locations.

Note: Azure Datamarket is a Microsoft Cloud offering, a B2B App Market for their partners, Govt., anyone would like to share their data/API, again as a Cloud Middle tier, kind of ESB layer over cloud.

The Windows Azure platform 30-day pass includes the following resources :

Windows Azure

• 3 Small Compute Instances


• 3 GB of Storage


• 250,000 Storage Transactions

SQL Azure

• Two 1 GB Web Edition Database

AppFabric

• 100,000 Access Control Transactions


• 2 Bus Service Connections

Data Transfers

• 3 GB In


• 3 GB Out