Windows Azure Adds Node.js Support, Hadoop Preview
Though Azure has its own, "wizard-like" way of deploying apps that's more familiar to long-time Windows developers, that's a new dance entirely for folks in the open source realm. So yesterday, Microsoft published a set tutorials featuring two methods to deploy a Node.js application in Azure, the second of which features the tools and frameworks with which Node.js devs are already familiar, including Express.
Both deployment methods utilize the new Node Package Manager (npm) for Windows, which is designed to be installed using Microsoft's command-line tool of choice (at last), PowerShell. This tool was released yesterday, along with Microsoft's complete SDK for Node.js on Azure, not on CodePlex - which is the company's own distribution source for open source software - but instead through GitHub , which is more widely embraced by the OSS community.
That little concession, along with the fact that Microsoft's demos did not involve a single branded, commercial development tool (outside of Windows itself, of course) suggests that the company is learning that the way to invite open source devs is to first accept the invitations they have received.
As Microsoft preps Hyper-V 3 to ship with Windows 8 Server (and client) operating systems later this year, and Red Hat beats the drum for its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) 3.0,, VMware is sticking to its guns, asserting that vSphere remains