Using Graphics Mill with Microsoft Azure

Cloud technologies are becoming more and more popular. Graphics Mill is designed to allow deploying it in Microsoft Azure. Based on customer feedback, we anticipate that this feature is going to be very popular.

Here is a handy guide to the Azure support contained in the Graphics Mill. Azure has three modes of operation, called execution models (Introducing Windows Azure). Graphics Mill works with specific Azure models in the following manner:

1. Web Sites. There is easy deployment right from Visual Studio but with limited administrative capabilities.
2. Virtual Machines. This works the same way as if you install your web application on a Windows Server. As long as you have the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installed, Graphics Mill works great.
3. Cloud Services. This is a very capable and flexible execution module when using Graphics Mill. When properly configured, Azure automatically creates virtual machines with all necessary pre-installed software. In particular, you can configure Azure to install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package right before an instance is created.

To sum up, Graphics Mill interacts with Azure in the following ways:

1. For Web Site models, there is easy deployment right from Visual Studio but with limited administrative capabilities.
2. The Virtual Machine model works great, as long as you have the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installed.
3. Cloud Services are supported as long as they are configured to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package on startup.