Microsoft today launched a new Azure service called Azure App Service that integrates Azure Web Sites, Azure Mobile Services and Azure BizTalk Services into an integrated service.
The new Azure App Services platform allows you to create Web Apps, Mobile Apps and Logic Apps within a single service. Here is a collection of information on the new services.
New Pricing/Billing/Scale Model
Azure App Services is an integration of existing services from Azure with some new features and a new billing model.
From a billing perspective, if you were running Azure Web Sites, Azure Mobile Services or Azure BizTalk Services these are now integrated together into a single “Azure Service Plan”. You can create multiple “apps” that all reside within a single plan so from a pricing perspective you’re charged only for that plan running in whatever scale you like instead of each different service having its own billing model.
The tiered pricing is the same as the only Azure Web Sites model with Free, Shared, Basic and Premium tiers. However, because you can now run multiple services on a single plan, you can leverage a consolidated price per instance.
In addition, each of these tiers now has additional quotas for things like API calls to connectors.
Azure Web Site is now Azure Web App
If you’re running an Azure Web Site, it has now been migrated to an Azure Web App running within an Azure App Service. Azure Web Sites is no longer a stand alone service, unlike Azure Mobile and Azure BizTalk.
Azure Mobile Services is now Azure Mobile Apps
Azure Mobile Apps takes Azure Mobile Services and adds some new features. Azure Mobile Services is still available as a standalone service because Azure Mobile Apps are still in Preview mode.
There are a number of new capabilities with Azure Mobile Apps including:
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- Staging slots for deployment
- WebJobs
- Traffic Manager Support
- Better Scale Options
These services have been part of Azure Web Sites for a while and now are extended into the Azure Mobile Service as they become integrated into the new service.
Azure Logic Apps – Brand New Service
Logic Apps represent a cloud based business process workflow solution for orchestrations across Azure services and external SAAS services. Logic Apps act as a distributed business process workflow solution that can integrate activities, actions and triggers across cloud services.
The connectors available include the key Azure services as well as external services.
In addition, you can use standard web protocols such as FTP, HTTP, SMTP, etc. to trigger actions or send messages within your workflow.
API Apps – Create Your Own APIs and Monetize Them
The connectors above are a type of the new API App. API Apps allow you to create your own APIs and monetize them. You can write APIs using a variety of technologies (ASP.NET, Java, Node.JS, Python) and you can leverage the existing APIs and connectors provided by Microsoft to create super APIs that integrate and extend these existing connections.
Your APIs can be published to a gallery that can be either private to your organization or public to be consumed by third party developers. The Azure Marketplace now supports selling of APIs as a new service for partners.
New Azure API Tools for Visual Studio
With all these new services, there is also a new Azure SDK that supports these new tools. This includes creating new Azure API App templates and a new API App consumption feature that generates client code for accessing the APIs automatically for you.
