Windows Azure - When do I use What?

At this week’s Azure Dev Camp in Sydney, I showed a slide with suggestions as to when you’d use Windows Azure Web Sites, when you’d use Windows Azure Cloud Services, and when you’d use Windows Azure Virtual Machines. I pinched the slide from Yochay Kiriaty and Craig Kitterman’s TechEd US Session “Windows Azure Websites: Under The Hood (AZR305)”, which is well worth a watch by the way.

I’ve had a few questions and a couple of requests to post the slide, so here it is (reformatted for the blog format)

Windows Azure Web Sites are ideal for

Modern web apps
Perfect if your app consists of client side markup and scripting, server side scripting and a database. Powerful capability to scale out and up as needed.
Continuous development
Deploy directly from your source code repository, using Git or Team Foundation Service.
Popular open source apps
Launch a professional looking site with a few clicks using apps like WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, DotNetNuke and Umbraco

Multi-tier applications
Cloud-based applications that separate application logic into multiple tiers (i.e. caching middle tier, asynchronous background processes like order processing) using both Web and Worker Roles
Apps that require advanced administration
Cloud-based applications that require admin access, remote desktop access or elevated permissions
Apps that require advanced networking
Cloud-based applications that require network isolation for use with Windows Azure Connect or Windows Azure Virtual Network

Enterprise server applications
Run your existing enterprise applications in the cloud, such as SQL Server, SharePoint Server or Active Directory.
Porting existing line of business apps
Choose an image from the library or upload your own VHD.
Windows or Linux operating system
Support for Windows Server, along with community and commercial versions of Linux. Connect virtual machines with cloud services to take full advantage of PaaS services.