Microsoft Announces Batch Processing for Azure at TechEd Europe, Preview Available Now

Batch processing has been around for decades, but is still needed in the Cloud. When you think about batch processing, you might be old enough to remember how it transformed mainframe computers by automating tasks. And more recently (but still an older concept), IT Pros have used batch files to automate local tasks.

As part of an acquisition this year, Batch for Microsoft Azure is built on technology from a New Zealand-based company called GreenButton. At the time of the acquisition, Microsoft promised to integrate the technology into Azure. And now, as part of the opening keynote for TechEd Europe by Jason Zander, Corporate Vice President of Azure, that integration is complete.

GreenButton's PaaS-based technology was originally positioned as a tool to move on-premises workloads to the Cloud, but has since been developed as a sort of orchestration component for Azure.

Per the preview (or beta) page:

Azure Batch makes it easy to run large-scale parallel and HPC workloads in Azure. Use Batch to scale-out parallel workloads, manage the execution of tasks in a queue, and enable applications to offload compute jobs in the cloud.

For the preview period, pricing is only available in a Basic tier, but follows a pay-as-you-go model with these instances:

You can join the Preview here: Microsoft Azure Batch Preview