It was a great pleasure for me to be part of the opening key note at our 3rd Developer Camp conference organized by some of our key partners in Austria (Techtalk, Cubido, CSS and Kentiko).
During this key note we introduced the Windows Azure platform to about 170 developers. Note that I also have a detailed description baked into the slides including screen shots to show you, how you can get access tokens for Windows Azure to test out the platform before the billing starts after PDC this November.
You can download the key note material incl. demos here.
Below are the direct URLs for requesting tokens for Windows Azure and SQL Azure:
Step 0: Register for Microsoft Connect if you haven’t done, yet
https://connect.microsoft.com/profile.aspx
Step 1: Fill out the sourvey “Register for Azure Services” on connect
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=129453
Note that for each Live-ID you can fill-out the survey just one time.
Step 2: Register for SQL Azure
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149681&clcid=0x09
Step 3: Usually it takes about 48 – 72 hours before you get the confirmation (depending on the interest of users it might take longer).
Step 4: After you’ve received the keys, sign-in to Windows Azure
http://lx.azure.microsoft.com/fs
Step 5: Activate your Azure Account with the tokens by clicking on the account tab or navigate to it directly and enter your tokens:
https://windows.azure.com/cloud/account.aspx
Step 6: Activate Your SQL Azure Account with the token received by navigating to the SQL Azure homepage
https://sql.azure.com/InvitationCode.aspx