Neil Mackenzie a Windows Azure MVP has written a great blog post regarding Windows Azure AppFabric Applications which were introduced as part the Windows Azure AppFabric June CTP.

Neil summed up the concept very nicely in his post:

“I am a great advocate of the PaaS model of cloud computing. I believe that AppFabric Applications represents the future of PaaS for use cases involving the composition of services that can benefit from the cost savings of running in a multi-tenanted environment. AppFabric Applications reduces the need to understand the service hosting environment allowing the focus to remain on the services. That is what PaaS is all about.”

If you would also like to start using the June CTP here is what you need to do:

1. To request access to the Application Manager follow these steps:

• Sign in to the AppFabric Management Portal at .
• Choose the entry titled “Applications” under the “AppFabric” node on the left side of the screen.
• Click on the “Request Namespace” button on the toolbar on the top of the screen.
• You will be asked to answer a few questions before you can request the namespace.
• Your request will be in a “pending” state until it gets approved and you can start using the Application Manager capabilities.

2. In order to build applications you will need to install the Windows Azure AppFabric CTP SDK and the Windows Azure AppFabric Tools for Visual Studio. Even if you don’t have access to the Application Manager you can still install the tools and SDK to build and run applications locally in your development environment.

Please don’t forget to visit the Windows Azure AppFabric CTP Forum to ask questions and provide us with your feedback.

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