Windows Azure SDK for Nov 2011 Released

I tweeted about this yesterday, but for those of you following the blog, Microsoft has released a new Windows Azure SDK along with a new HPC (High Performance Computing) Scheduler SDK and Windows Azure Platform Training Kit.

One of the great new features of this SDK and Visual Studio Tools is the simplified deployment.  Now there is a way to get a publishing settings file which will reduce the number of steps necessary to do deployments from Visual Studio.  These settings can then be shared across developers so that the same management certificate is used.  It will definitely make things a lot easier to get going with Windows Azure, just be careful that when you get a publisher setting from the management portal and allow the management certificate to be created for you it can add it to all of your hosted services across multiple subscriptions.  If you are a co-admin on several subscriptions, this may not be the desired effect. 

There are several new features other than just simplified deployments for Visual Studio.  For example, via Visual Studio you can now create Hosted Services and Storage accounts without going to the portal.  Check it out the official blog post for more information and get the update via the Web Platform Installer.