Windows Azure users will have to pay from next month

Microsoft will start to charge developers to use its Windows Azure cloud computing platform from next month. 

Windows Azure is essentially a hosted computing and storage service, run from Microsoft's own datacentres and accessed via the internet - and is the company's first major foray into cloud computing. 

Users of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of Windows Azure will need to upgrade their accounts to paid commercial subscriptions to carry on using the full service beyond January.

Use of Windows Azure (storage and processing), SQL Azure (database) and the AppFabric platform (used to connect online and on-premise applications and formerly known as .NET Services) will remain free of charge until the start of next month. From 1 February, Azure billing and service level agreements, as outlined in July last year, will begin. 

CTP accounts that aren't upgraded by 1 February will be disabled, with any data stored on Windows Azure becoming read-only and AppFabric namespaces - the set of endpoints and access control rules that allow two applications to be connected - being disabled. Similarly, from the start of next month users of SQL Azure CTP will be able to use existing databases but not create new ones. 

If CTP accounts still aren't upgraded to the commercial version before March, SQL Azure databases will be deleted on the first of the month while Windows Azure Storage accounts and AppFabric namespaces will suffer the same fate on 1 April. 

The Windows Azure Team blog therefore recommends developers should export the data held within these applications before these dates if they do not plan to upgrade to a commercial subscription. 

Microsoft has also announced changes to its pricing for AppFabric: users will be charged $3.99 for each month they are connected and an additional $1.99 per 100,000 transactions.