[ Developer]

It’s a brand new year and Microsoft’s cloud computing platform has gotten another update, complete with new features that asp.net developers can make the most of. Microsoft Developer VP Scott Guthrie this week detailed all of the latest Windows Azure updates in a brand new blog post.

The biggest rollout inside the latest Azure update is support for staged publishing. Developers can now enable the feature for Azure sites, letting them use a staged version in their sites for testing updates before immediately rolling them out to the true site. The feature also allows site managers to roll out their changes without notice, instead of updating files so as.

Other updates to Azure include an “Always On” feature, in an effort to regularly ping websites to make certain they may be active, and support for SenchaTouch on Azure Mobile Services. Monitoring for sites and SQL databases has also been improved, with site metrics now updated every minute and alerts expanded further for SQL databases.

The Hyper-V Recovery Manager for Windows Azure has also now been made generally available. The software is fully supported by Microsoft Support and is backed by an enterprise service-level agreement (SLA).

In addition to the updates, Azure has now been compliance validated for meeting Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS). Azure developers can now receive PCI DSS certification for his or her own applications through Azure.

Windows Azure Gets New Features, PCI DSS Compliance January 17, 2014