Microsoft has announced the opening of the Windows Azure Preview Mobile Services for developers of Windows 8 mobile applications. Windows Azure Mobile Services is a platform that provides a turnkey solution in the cloud and to accelerate the development of connected applications on the client side.
The service streamlines the development process to exploit the cloud for common scenarios for mobile applications such as structured storage, user authentication and push notifications.
The Windows Azure Mobile has a graphical wizard allows the developer to configure the backend in simple and secure with a few clicks in the space of five minutes. It may then benefit from a number of scenarios including:
- Automated API CRUD functionality with mapping and structured storage;
- Structured storage for a Windows 8 can easily connect to a SQL Azure database;
- Integrated authentication and user authentication via Windows Live;
- Data access in SQL Azure without the need of developer to write or deploy custom code via OData.
“Windows Azure Mobile Services makes it incredibly easy to connect a scalable cloud backend to your client and mobile applications. It allows you to easily store structured data in the cloud that can span both devices and users, integrate it with user authentication, as well as send out updates to clients via push notifications,” Microsoft said in a blog post.
To build client applications that connect mobile services to Azure, developers must have a Windows Azure account. The service is still available for free for a trial period of 90 days.
The idea behind Windows Azure Mobile Services is enabling developers to move quickly in building applications, providing the backend so they can concentrate on the front-end, as well as gives them tools to make common tasks that normally consume time.
“The reason we are introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services is because a lot of developers don’t have the time/skillset/inclination to have to build a custom mobile backend themselves. Instead they’d like to be able to leverage an existing solution to get started and then customize/extend further only as needed when their business grows,” Microsoft said.
Access to the services is currently available from C# and JavaScript. The development team is working on a public REST API, which will receive the data and work with the services of any language. For now, only Windows 8 applications are supported by Mobile Azure Services. However, Microsoft announces support for next Windows Phone Azure Services on iOS, and Android platforms.