Creating
an Azure account is simple, but it takes quite a few steps because of
the amount of information required. To begin setting up your Azure
account, open your browser and go to www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers. This URL takes you to the Windows Azure Platform Offers page, shown in Figure 1.
This page lists several packages based on your usage (transactions,
connections, and so on) and storage. You can see detailed information
about each package by clicking the View Details button in the
comparison table on the page.
It's highly recommend that
you select the Introductory Special package to begin working with
Azure. With this package, you get the following at no charge:
25 hours of small compute instance, 500MB of storage, and 10,000 storage transactions on Windows Azure
1 Web Edition database on SQL Azure
100,000 access control transactions and 2 service bus connections on AppFabric
500MB in and 500MB out for data transfer (per region)
NOTE
The Introductory Special
offer, per the details of the offer, ends on October 31, 2010. Standard
rates will apply after that date. It's unknown at the time of this
writing whether a free or "lite" version will continue to be offered.
Standard rates are based on storage, computer, AppFabric transactions,
and data transfers. You can find information regarding the exact
standard rates by clicking the Details button for any of the offers.
To sign up for an Azure
account, you must have a Windows Live ID. Clicking the Buy button
prompts you to sign in with that ID. After you've signed in, creating
your account is a four-step process:
Creating
Your Profile. This step asks you to enter your contact and business
information and then select the location that will use the Azure
service so it can determine the services available as well as calculate
tax.
Billing
Information. After the introductory special ends, you begin to be
billed for using Azure services. This step asks you to enter your
billing information, including payment options and payment information.
Service
Activation. This step lets you to create a meaningful subscription name
and define a service administrator (the individual who is responsible
for setting up and managing your service). The service administrator is
created/assigned by the account owner (the individual defined in the
main contact profile).
Confirmation. In this step, you provide additional information regarding the activation of your Azure service.
The Confirmation page tells
you that an e-mail has been sent to your Windows Live ID e-mail
address. This e-mail contains a link to the Microsoft Online Services
Customer Portal, with the following instructions:
Click the link, and log in with your Windows Live ID.
In the Customer Portal, open the Subscriptions page, and locate your subscription.
In the Actions list for your subscription, select Activate Now, and then click the Go button.
At this point, your service is activated and ready to go.
