We are happy to announce updated Bitnami application images for the Azure cloud. These new images are based on Ubuntu 14.04, the latest long-term support release of the popular operating system.
Ubuntu 14.04 provides improved performance, usability and security for a large number of scenarios. This includes cloud deployments, where Ubuntu is already the preferred operating system for many users. You can learn more about Ubuntu 14.04 new features in the release notes announcement.
Over time, we will be making Ubuntu 14.04 the default operating system for our virtual machines and other cloud offerings. Currently the best way to enjoy this new version is to head over to the VMDepot website or use our own Azure Launchpad to launch your favorite apps on Microsoft Azure with one click.
Bitnami users have been able to install one-click application packages into the Windows Azure cloud for a while now. But today we're excited to announce expanded support for Azure. Starting today, you can deploy Bitnami apps in just a few clicks with the new Bitnami Launchpad for Windows Azure. From the new console, you can...
Choose from any of the 90 open source applications and dev stacks in the Bitnami library,
Select your server size and preferred geographic region from any of those supported in Windows Azure,
And click the launch button and you will have your server up and running in minutes!
We have also launched an online Azure resource center that includes a step by step guide for using Bitnami in Azure. Of course, all of the Bitnami apps are also available through the VM Depot, so you can still launch them from there as well.
With 80+ apps, Bitnami cloud images and installers have become incredibly popular with millions of users around the world. Bitnami makes it possible for anyone, regardless of their background, to install applications such as WordPress, Redmine, CraftBukkit Minecraft, DreamFactory, Alfresco, SugarCRM, WAMP stack, Drupal and more with the click of a button. Our pre-configured application packages make it a snap to install applications either locally or in the cloud, and save users hours of time trying to get software to work.
We created a video to show just how easy it is:
Ready? Try the Launchpad for Azure yourself and install applications in the cloud with just one click.
We are committed to matching Amazon Web Services prices for commodity services like compute, storage, and bandwidth. Effective March 13, we are reducing prices by up to 20 percent for Block Blobs Storage, up to 28 percent for Locally Redundant Disks/Page Blobs Storage, and, we are also lowering the price of Storage transactions by 50 percent.
Azure is rapidly gaining ground to Amazon. According to a recent Nasuni 2013 Cloud Storage Report, “This year, our tests revealed that Microsoft Azure Blob Storage has taken a significant step ahead of last year’s leader, Amazon S3, to take the top spot across three primary tests (performance, scalability and stability), Microsoft emerged as a top performer in every category.”
Whatever flavor you prefer — AWS or Azure — you’re able to use your favorite Bitnami images. Bitnami is the largest single provider of images on both platforms with over 80 open source apps and development stacks to choose from. To launch a Bitnami image from Azure, visit the Azure VM Depot.
Every month, hundreds of thousands of BitNami users visit our website to launch their favorite web applications, from project management tools to development environments and business apps. Part of what makes BitNami so attractive to so many users is our focus on providing a consistent experience on different platforms. You can download a WordPress installer or virtual machine and develop locally in your laptop, regardless of whether it is running Windows, Mac or OS X. Once you are ready to go into production, you can easily launch a machine in the cloud with the exact same configuration and easily transfer your content.
Today, we are happy to announce our support for Windows Azure. Starting today, and over the next few weeks, we will be making all BitNami applications available on their Open Source community portal, called the VM Depot. We have been working closely with Microsoft Open Technologies to make this happen and we have to say we are impressed with the focus and determination to make open source apps run optimally on top of their platform. For those of us that lived through Microsoft domination of the 1990s and early 2000s, this was a bit puzzling at first. But looking at the fiercely competitive landscape of Cloud Computing, it makes perfect sense in order to further the adoption of the platform. With the release of the community portal, Microsoft just took another significant step on their way to challenge the current dominant Cloud player.
We are happy to add Windows Azure as an additional Cloud platform, providing our users with the choice of one more high-quality platform to deploy our apps. Moving forward we plan to continue to invest significant resources to make BitNami applications run smoothly on Windows Azure.
