RightScale to Support Windows Azure Infrastructure Services

Following Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) announcement of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, RightScale isn't missing a beat. The cloud management solutions provider is adding Azure to its list of supported cloud platforms.

RightScale is making quite the to-do about its Azure support, as well, with a program it's calling "Get Your App to Azure" (catchy, ain't it?). With the new program, RightScale is going to help Azure customers accelerate application development on the Microsoft cloud platform with its multicloud management platform.

"RightScale has the experience and the technology to get companies up and running quickly on Windows Azure Infrastructure Services," said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale, in a prepared statement. "Enterprises want IaaS choice. RightScale enables our customers to provision, configure, and automate individual servers or entire deployments on Windows Azure in minutes."

With Azure Infrastructure Services, Microsoft is gearing up to take on AWS in the IaaS market, but the Redmond-based technology giant also introduced a new pricing scheme for its services to compete with AWS (and likely others) on a cost basis.

RightScale already supports most of the major clouds, including AWS, Google Compute Engine, Rackspace Cloud and more. It was only a matter of time before the company added Windows Azure to its list of supported clouds. And that's good news for RightScale customers who may use one, two or more different cloud platforms for their business needs.

Some of the benefits RightScale touts in its cloud management platform include:

• The ability for IT professionals and developers to get applications on the cloud quicker—pre-built templates are meant to make it simple and quick to launch apps on the supported cloud platforms.
• Automated multicloud management.
• The ability to do global deployments across the six geographic regions supported by RightScale.

"Customers can take advantage of Windows Azure's openness and flexibility while using RightScale for faster onboarding and full-feature automation for their cloud deployments," said David Aiken, group product manager for Server and Tools Marketing at Microsoft, in a prepared statement.