After you have completed your first Windows Azure website or migrated an existing site to a webrole/website architecture you are probably wondering  "How Can I Get This Too The Real Cloud?". Well Microsoft does offer some Free Trial hosting but it is only for a month. If you have an MSDN license already you can gain access to some hosting resources for free which is great, but most of us don't have this because it is expensive. If you are a BizSpark member you get an MSDN license for free and thus can gain access to the Azure resources.

I took the road of signing up for BizSpark and it was very easy. BizSpark is free except that if you ever leave the BizSpark network you have to pay $100.00. If your company is privately held and less than three years old you are good to go.

Once you secure the BizSpark affiliation you can easily gain access to the MSDN license and thus the Azure hosting tools. Once all that is done you can deploy your new website to Windows Azure.

See the BizSpark benefits here.

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About the Author:

Arra Derderian serves as the President and as a Lead Technical Architect for Cloud Construct. As a founder at Cloud Construct, Arra is involved in all levels of the business from new project engagements, project planning, and development.

He also serves as the founder of the Boston Orchard CMS User Group and is a member of the Windows Azure Insiders group.

Arra graduated from Northeastern University School with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.