Want to know what’s being announced about Windows Azure at TechEd 2010 this week in New Orleans? Here’s the rundown: the Windows Azure team will discuss the release of the June 2010 version of the Windows Azure Tools + SDK, the production launch (including pricing) of the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) and enablement of the OS auto-upgrade feature.  The SQL Azure team is also making several announcements so be sure to read about them on their blog here.

New Windows Azure Tools + SDK

The June 2010 release of the Windows Azure Tools + SDK will include:

• Full support for Visual Studio 2010 RTM
• .NET 4 support to provide developers with the flexibility to build services targeting either the .NET 3.5 or .NET 4 framework
• Cloud storage explorer to make it easier for developers to build compelling services by displaying a read-only view of Windows Azure tables and blob containers through the Visual Studio Server Explorer
• Integrated deployment, which will enable developers to deploy services directly from Visual Studio by selecting ‘Publish’ from the Solution Explorer
• Service monitoring to help developers track and manage the state of their services through the ‘compute’ node in Server Explorer
• IntelliTrace support for services running in the cloud to simplify the process of debugging services in the cloud through the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate IntelliTrace feature. For more information see this post.

To download the new Tools + SDK, please click here.

Production Launch of the Windows Azure CDN

As previously announced on this blog, usage of the Windows Azure CDN for all billing periods that begin after June 30, 2010 will be charged using the three following billing meters and rates:

• $0.15 per GB for data transfers from European and North American locations
• $0.20 per GB for data transfers from other locations
• $0.01 per 10,000 transactions

With 19 locations globally (United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America), the Windows Azure CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content, enhancing end user performance and reliability by placing copies of data, at various points in a network, so that they are distributed closer to the user. Content types supported by the Windows Azure CDN include web objects (e.g. JPG, CSS, and JavaScript), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents) and other components for Internet delivery. The Windows Azure CDN supports HTTP delivery of public content stored in Windows Azure storage.

All usage for billing periods beginning prior to July 1, 2010 will not be charged. To help you determine which pricing plan best suits your needs, please review the comparison table, which includes this information.

To learn more about the Windows Azure CDN and how to get started, please be sure to read our previous blog post or visit the FAQ section on WindowsAzure.com.

OS Auto-upgrade Feature

The OS-auto upgrade feature provides developers the flexibility to have the Guest OS for their service deployment automatically upgrade to the latest available release. Developers will continue to retain the ability to manually upgrade to a specific release of the Guest OS as well. Developers can enable the OS auto-upgrade feature either through the Service Management API or through the developer portal. The list of OS releases can be found here.  

If you want to stay on top of all that’s happening with Windows Azure at TechEd this week, follow WindowsAzure on Twitter; to stay up-to-date on all things TechEd, follow @TechEd_NA on Twitter.