Windows Azure has increased the maximum number of roles allowed in a deployment from 5 to 25. This change allows customers to deploy up to 25 distinct roles, which can be a mixture of Web Roles, Worker Roles, and Virtual Machine Roles, as part of a single deployment. This increase gives application developers a more granular level of control over the lifecycle of different aspects of their deployment, since each of these 25 roles can be scaled and updated independently.

Additionally, Windows Azure has changed the way in which we account for endpoints. Previously, a deployment was restricted to a maximum of 5 internal endpoints per role. Now, a deployment can have the total 25 internal endpoints allocated to roles in any combination (including all 25 on the same role).

This aligns with the way input endpoints can be allocated. Windows Azure now supports 25 internal endpoints and 25 input endpoints, allocated in 25 roles in any combination.

Further details on enabling role communication can be found here.   

Corey Sanders is a Principal Program Manager working on the Fabric Controller team on Windows Azure.