Windows Azure Gets Its Own AT Command

The more features that are added to Windows Azure the harder it is to tell a difference between an on-premise installation of Windows Server and a Cloud-based OS. With the speed at which Windows Azure is being updated and the recent announcement of the Cloud OS Network, there will come a time soon when there will be no way to tell a difference at all.

Microsoft has recently added a scheduling command to Windows Azure, allowing admins to utilize the Windows Azure Management Portal for creating, updating, deleting, viewing, scheduling, and managing job collections.

A job collection is a group of jobs created to run on a calendar schedule to perform automated tasks.

The new Windows Azure Scheduler Service is currently offered as a Preview, meaning it's available for public testing. Testing requires a Windows Azure subscription or a free trial.

Here's some useful links for learning more about it:

Getting Started

Hierarchy, Concepts, and Terminology

Quotas, Limits, Throttles, and Error Codes