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.

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/

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.