What are the three main components of the Windows Azure Platform?

Windows Azure provides platform and infrastructure by providing accessible and cost-effective computing, storage, and networking resources on demand.

The Windows Azure has three main components in Azure, namely compute, storage and fabric.

Windows Azure Compute

Windows Azure provides a hosting environment for managed code. It provides a computation service through roles. Windows Azure supports three types of roles:

• Web roles used for web application programming and supported by IIS7.
• Worker roles are also used for background processing of web roles.
• Virtual Machine (VM) roles are generally used for migrating windows server applications to Windows Azure in an easy way.

Windows Azure Storage

 Windows Azure provides storage in the cloud. It provides four different types of storage services:

• Queues for messaging between web roles and worker roles.
• Tables for storing structural data.
• BLOBs (Binary Large Objects) to store text, files or large data.
• Windows Azure Drives (VHD) to mount a page blob. They can easily be downloaded and uploaded via blobs.

Windows Azure AppFabric

AppFabric provides infrastructure services for developing, deploying and managing Windows Azure application. It provides five services:

• Service bus
• Access
• Caching
• Integration
• Composite