Microsoft has released several enhancements to Windows Azure Management Portal with support for localization, operation log and SQL database metrics in addition to virtual machine, website, media service and virtual networking usability enhancements. Microsoft has also added improvements to cloud services including support for custom CNAME with storage accounts.
The portal provides support English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese languages. It also includes operation log using which administrators can review the various events related to services being managed. The log will display timestamp, name of the operation, operation ID and status of the services. According to Scott Guthrie, Microsoft will extend the operation log to apply to all Windows Azure services in an upcoming update.
The new portal provides an ability to monitor the number of successful and failed SQL Server connections and deadlocks in your SQL databases which you can view using the new dashboard view on each SQL Database resource including the ability to register custom domain names for your Windows Azure Storage Accounts.
The virtual machine enhancement feature enables you to create a new Windows or Linux VM using the Quick Create option in the portal. Moreover, you will be able to create sites in any geographical region and will have a provision to create 10 free sites in each supported region.
Microsoft has simplified the creation of virtual networks by adding a Quick Create experience where an administrator only need to provide VNET name, choose an address space and the size of the VNET address space. Moreover, the portal also provides an ability to register DNS servers and associate them with a virtual network using Register DNS Server task.
The portal provides support for deploying an application package and configuration file stored in a blob container in Windows Azure storage and also enables you to upload, encode, publish and play video files directly from the dashboard without having to write any code. Moreover, developers will be able to purchase services offered by various partners directly from the Windows Azure Store which is integrated with the management portal.