Retire Your Data Center: Figure 1: Move ASP.NET Web Apps to the Cloud
The foundation for the Azure Services Platform is the Windows Azure operating system, which provides the fabric for virtualized Windows 2008 Server instances; schemaless persistent table, blob, and queue storage; .NET Services for managing authentication/ authorization, inter-service communication, and workflows; and SQL Services for data management with relational database features and consumer-oriented Live services. Like the Google App Engine, Azure provides a development environment that emulates its cloud operating system and storage services.