Most everyone has heard of cloud computing initiatives offered by Amazon, Google, IBM, Sun, and others. Come to this session and learn about Microsoft's Windows in the cloud initiative: Azure. The Windows® Azure™ Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. Learn how to get started with Azure, using resources provided by Microsoft to develop applications for the cloud. We will introduce you to the core pieces of the Azure Services Platform and show you how to use your Visual Studio and .NET skills to develop applications for deployment in Microsoft's cloud.