We’re working on ways to provide free and low cost onramps for developers, and expect to make more announcements in 2011. Today, there are already multiple ways for developers to get onto Azure cost effectively:

Free Introductory Offer – provides a limited monthly quota of Azure resources at no cost, with standard rates applying above those thresholds: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/

MSDN Premium, Ultimate, and BizSpark Subscription Benefit – provides significantly higher free quotas of Azure resources to MSDN subscribers for several months: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ee461076.aspx

Cloud Essentials for Partners – provides free/low cost access to Azure resources to members of the Microsoft Partner Network. http://www.microsoftcloudpartner.com/

At PDC 2010, we announced that the Web role will soon provide full IIS functionality, which enables multiple IIS sites per Web role and the ability to install IIS modules. The full IIS functionality enables developers to get more value out of a Windows Azure instance. Full IIS Support will be generally available to customers later this year.

Please let us know if there are important scenarios that the combination of admin mode + full IIS won’t solve for you.

This is now on the SQL Azure roadmap, though delivery will be post CY12.

We do still intend to support secondary indexes. However, no firm timeline has been established for when that capability will be made available. Based on our most current information, secondary indexes are not going to be released as a feature in 2011.

At PDC 2010, we announced a number of enhancements to the operator experience on Azure. These include a completely redesigned portal, access to new diagnostic information, a vastly simplified sign-up process, and scenario-based forums to help answer questions and facilitate knowledge sharing.

These Windows Azure enhancements will be generally available by the end of 2010.

Please continue to let us know how we can improve the deployment experience on Windows Azure for you.

Earlier this year, we announced the Windows Azure Platform Appliance, which will allow customers to run the Windows Azure environment in their own data centers or via a third-party hosting provider. Look for more announcements about the Platform Appliance in 2011.

At PDC 2010, we announced Windows Azure AppFabric Caching – a distributed, in-memory cache for applications running in Windows Azure.

Based on Windows Server AppFabric Caching capabilities, it’s intended to significantly speed up access to data for your Windows Azure applications.

This feature is in CTP now, and should be generally available in 2011. You can find more details here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazureappfabric/archive/2010/10/22/windows-azure-appfabric-ctp-october-release.aspx

This is on roadmap but ETA isn’t until post Fall 2012. More votes for this feature might help move it up though timing depends on some other factors as well. Mark Berman on the planning team suggested a workaround that involved removing the instance from the front-end load-balancer i.e. so that it doesn’t respond to any requests? RDFE has an API that allows you to stop sending requests to an instance. The idea being that you can have n number of instances in hot standby waiting. This is of course a workaround, but it might address some of the short term need while we wait on the feature.

At PDC 2010, we announced the introduction of new diagnostic information in Azure, and remote desktop functionality to make it easier to connect to a running instance for monitoring and troubleshooting. Both will will be generally available later this year.

We look forward to hearing how much these new features improve the remote debugging experience for you.