

Motivation
Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD) is another important building block offered as part of the Windows Azure platform. You can think of WAAD as a repository for your organization’s directory data in the cloud. Directory objects include users and groups along with their identity and access information.
By externalizing the directory data into a common location (WAAD), it is possible to provide a single sign-on and sign-out experience for enterprise applications, as well as SaaS offerings.
While WAAD is a cloud-based service, you can use it for on-premises in addition to cloud-based applications. Read More…
Motivation
Azure Worker Roles are executing units that can be used to offload long-running, compute-intensive tasks. You can also think of them as “managed” VMs that execute custom tasks for you. I refer to VMs as “managed” because you don’t have to worry about OS, patches, fault-tolerant setup, etc. Worker roles are backed by a 99.95 uptime SLA. Furthermore, it is possible to dynamically scale worker roles based on load (both horizontally by adding more worker role instances, and vertically by provisioning larger VMs). Read More…