Windows Azure, the cloud services platform from Microsoft is not just a single product. It consists of many such as SQL Azure, App Fabric,etc,.One of the main advantages of Windows Azure platform is that it supports various programming languages such as .NET, PHP, Ruby or Java and development tools such as Visual Studio or Eclipse. At PDC last year Microsoft announced broader support for Java adding to their current Windows Azure SDK for Java or the Tomcat Solution Accelerator. As part of their promise, Microsoft today announced the availability of Windows Azure Starter Kit CTP which is an open source project released under the Apache 2.0 license and is available for download here. The kit allows Java developers to simply configure, package and deploy their web applications to Windows Azure. Here is an excerpt from their blog,
What’s the Windows Azure Starter Kit for Java?
This Starter Kit was designed to work as a simple command line build tool or in the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE). It uses Apache Ant as part of the build process, and includes an Ant extension that’s capable of understanding Window Azure configuration options.
The Windows Azure Starter Kit for Java is an open source project released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it is available for download at: http://wastarterkit4java.codeplex.com/
What’s inside the Windows Azure Starter Kit for Java?
The Windows Azure Starter Kit for Java is a Zip file that contains a template project and the Ant extension. If you look inside this archive you will find the typical files that constitute a Java project, as well as several files we built that will help you test, package and deploy your application to Windows Azure.
Source: Microsoft Interoperability Blog Via:Windows Azure Blog
