Commercial Availability of Windows Azure Platform

Today Microsoft announced commercial availability of its Windows® Azure™ platform which include Windows Azure, SQL Azure and  Windows Azure platform AppFabric. In addition, Microsoft also announced  new pricing and availability for Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
If you are CTP user then starting today you can upgrade your Community Technology Preview (CTP) accounts of the Windows^® Azure™ platform to paid commercial subscriptions. If you upgrade your CTP accounts during the month of January, 2010, all Windows Azure platform usage incurred during this month will be at no charge. You will also have full visibility during this month to your Windows Azure platform usage. Billing and SLAs for all commercial accounts will begin on February 1^st, 2010.
Customers with CTP accounts must upgrade their accounts prior to February 1, 2010. New customers can start using the services by signing up for one of the paid subscription offers.
To get started, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/.
How to  upgrade your CTP accounts,

• Visit offer page and select the offer of your choice.
• Purchase the selected offer, using the same Windows Live ID as that associated with your CTP accounts.

CTP account holders will also receive an email with instructions on how to upgrade their accounts and how they can access their usage data. You can also review more details of the process posted on the Windows Azure blog here.
To upgrade a CTP account, the credit card or purchase order billing address must be in one of the launch countries listed below. Support for other countries will be phased in over time, with many countries coming online in 2010.

Austria Belgium Canada Denmark Finland

France Germany Ireland India

Italy Japan Netherlands New Zealand

Norway Portugal Singapore Spain

Sweden Switzerland UK United States

If you elect not to upgrade by January 31, 2010:
· February 1, 2010: CTP accounts will be disabled and any Windows Azure Storage will be made read-only. SQL Azure CTP accounts will be able to keep using their existing databases but they will no longer be able to create new databases. Windows Azure platform AppFabric namespaces will be disabled.
· March 1, 2010: The SQL Azure CTP accounts that have not been upgraded will be deleted. For more information on SQL Azure, please visit the SQL Azure blog.
· April 1, 2010: The Windows Azure Storage CTP accounts and Windows Azure platform AppFabric namespaces that have not been upgraded will be deleted. It is important to remind customers to export their data if they do not plan to upgrade to a commercial subscription prior to these dates.
If you are participating in the Microsoft Codename “Dallas” CTP, your service remains in CTP and is not impacted by this.
If you are MSDN Premium subscriber then please Ref. Windows Azure Platform Benefits for MSDN Subscribers before you upgrade you CTP account. 
Related Links

• Windows Azure blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/
• Windows Azure platform AppFabric blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/netservices/
• SQL Azure blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/
• SQL Azure MSDN Documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee336279.aspx
• Windows Azure platform Pricing page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/
• Windows Azure platform FAQ: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/faq/