Microsoft Azurelight: Product support in the cloud

A Microsoft architect is building a cloud-based product-support service he has dubbed "Azurelight."

In a posting to his blog, Microsoft Architect Aleksey Savateyev announced his plan to deliver Azurelight via the Microsoft Developer Network "sometime in the summer" of 2009. He said he plans to release the full source code and documentation for free.

Here's how Savateyev described his project:

"'Azurelight' is an easy-to-use application for providing basic product support in the cloud, collecting feedback about products and exchanging opinions with other users. It's also intended to be used by developers as a reference application utilizing both Windows Azure and Silverlight for rich yet scalable and highly available business solutions."

Azurelight builds on top of a number of Microsoft technologies besides its Windows Azure cloud operating-system and Silverlight plug-in, he said. It also will make use of Microsoft's ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services (a k a "Astoria") and SQL Data Services on the back-end, Savateyev said.

According to the profile on his blog, Savateyev is an architect "working with Global ISVs on building software based on new and emerging technologies mostly in Web and S+S (Software Plus Services) space."