Does Azure offer free test credits to test a Mobile service? - azure

I'm developing an app with a mobile backend. I've thought of using Azure. How am I supposed to test run the service? do they offer dev/free credits? I know Parse offers this facility. They offer 30 API calls per second for testing.

You can test Mobile Services for free with these options:
When you create a new Azure account, you get over $200 of free credits to test the various services. Note that these credits must be spent during the first month. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/
Mobile Services has a free tier plan: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/mobile-services/
Are you working for a startup? Check the BizSpark program that includes free Azure credits: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/member-offers/bizspark-startups/
Are you a student? Check the DreamSpark program that includes free Azure credits: https://www.dreamspark.com/
Are you an MSDN subscriber? Then you have free Azure credits: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/member-offers/msdn-benefits/
You can try Mobile App for free without creating an Azure account. The caveat? Your service will last only an hour ;-) https://tryappservice.azure.com/

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Submit trial version of application on azure marketplace

I would like to submit an offering to the Azure Marketplace but I want the offering to be a trial version only. So, the user will have access to it for a certain period only and it will be free.
The offering I want to submit is a VM offering and right now I have an image of the VM ready.
I did not find much information on how can I achieve this or whether it is possible to only submit the trial version on Azure marketplace.
If you want to create a trial version VM offer, please set License Model as "Usage-based monthly billed SKU" in SKU tab when you create offer. For more details, please refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/marketplace/cloud-partner-portal/virtual-machine/cpp-skus-tab.
The Marketplace publishing guide is designed to help new and existing publishers learn how to use storefronts in the Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource to grow their business in partnership with Microsoft by listing applications and services.
Develop a Marketplace Application
I would recommend you to reach out to the concerned team by logging a ticket using this link.enter link description here
Additional information:
Please visit this link to learn more about the Microsoft Azure Certified program and how to publish and sell your applications and services in the Azure Marketplace.:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/programs/certified/
For more information, check this:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/marketplace/faq/

Understand Azure Websites Pay-As-You-Go

I have a Pay-As-You-Go subscription on Azure and I created an "app" with intention to have a small blog. I didn't add or setup any other services or anything else.
It says "App Service Plan: Default1 (Free: 0 Small)"
What does it mean?
I'd like to understand how it works, how am I being charged?
Shouldn't be free considering I didn't add any service?
How do I know I am on the free tier?
Sorry if it sounds stupid
In Azure when you create a Web App, you need to have a server to host it on. To achieve that Azure creates a think called an App Service Plan (Think hosting server). The App Service Plan is what your billing is based on. Depending on the App Service Plan selected, you can host multiple sites on a single app service plan like you would on an on-premise server.
Azure App Service Plans come in the following tiers:
F - Free - No cost but limited compute time (60 minutes a day)
D - Shared - $9.67
Basic - Starts at $55.80
Standard - Starts at $74.40
Premium
So from the looks of it, it says you are using a Free plan. To verify, go to the Azure Portal, navigate to your App Service. Then under that section got to App Service plan.
Which should give you the answer that you posted. So indeed you are using the Free tier of Azure. With that in mind, you app will only run 60 minutes a day, after that compute time has been used, your site will be shutdown. In addition realize that your site will "sleep" in between visitors causing the initial load to be affected.
Hope this helps.
More about costing can be found here.

How long will a app run if I publish it in azure?

I have a question about Azure. A few days ago I got a free student subscription pack from my university on Azure. And I have a project on .Net core that needs to be hosted for a month at least. I am thinking to publish it on Azure. But I am new to Azure as well. I hardly understand how Azure works. So I need to know how long will the project run with a free student subscription pack on Azure. Any help is appreciated.
i think free\student azure subscription is valid for 1 year. if you are using free tier of webapp it should work for 1 year as well :)
You can follow the links to find out more about free trials. Second link also lists specific services for students to use on top of free trial.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/students/?v=18.45

Azure Web Service Options that are "Legacy"

I am looking at possibly running some of our business on Azure.
I am trying to pick the services that would work best for my company, but I am getting mixed signals.
Because I am starting a new system, I want to pick the offerings that are not "legacy" (aka "current"). But there seems to be no way straight forward way to know that.
For example, this page of the Microsoft Documentation says
Cloud Services is similar to Service Fabric in degree of control versus ease of use, but it’s now a legacy service and Service Fabric is recommended for new development.
This page clearly states that Cloud Services is "legacy". However, you would never know this by going to the Cloud Services overview page. It has great marketing material that sells Cloud Services as a great option. But if I picked it, then I would be starting out on a platform that is in a legacy status.
Now I know that about Cloud Services vs Service Fabric. But there are tons offerings on Azure. I am trying to research them one by one to find out which ones are the most recent incarnation, but I feel like I am wasting my time.
Another example is storage. Lucky for me an Azure MVP answered my question on this one. Apparently, there is "older storage account" based disks and "managed" disks. Turns out managed disks are the new, easy way to do things. The storage account is harder. Still available, but not really what a new user should be picking. But again, this is very hard to find out unless someone who has been working with this stuff for a long time tells you.
I was about to start in on App Services and Web Apps, but I thought I would ask first to see if I am doing research that is already done and posted out there.
Is there somewhere that shows the current list of Azure services that you should look at if you are starting a new project?
I asked the similar question almost a year ago, and I even spoke with Azure Support Team after that. At that time, Microsoft did not officially state Cloud Service is legacy.
Does Azure App Service/Web App replace Azure Cloud Service?
We have been hosting our enterprise applications in Cloud Service since 2013, and a couple of them are in App Service. Here is my thought -
4 years ago we only have Cloud Service - Web Role and Worker Role,and App Service (formally named as Web App) is not fully ready for enterprise applications yet. Since App Service came up, Microsoft heavily promote App Service compare to Cloud Service. In addition, what I notice is Cloud Service did not get new features like App Service.
Service Fabric is quite new, and it doesn't have all the belts and whistles like App Service, so we might have to wait a bit for enterprise applications.
Only advantage of Cloud Service is you can remote desktop to a role instance, after the application is deployed.
If I host a new application in Azure today, I'll definitely use App Service.
Microsoft has published a list of Azure reference architectures. It was last updated in November 2016. You can browse it here, and there is some guidance given. But for example, you mentioned using Service Fabric (which is a great way to go for a robust app that really needs to scale), but Service Fabric isn't mentioned in the aforementioned resource.
I spend a lot of time running down Azure resources in relation to web applications (not to be confused with App Service Web Apps), and I have not found a definitive source of the type of info you're looking for personally.

How to implement Windows Azure or other cloud platform in my app?

I've made a simple productivity app for Windows store 8 and the most requested feature by the reviewers was cloud syncing. I've tried finding some tutorials on how to implement that but haven't found anything useful.
Do I have to use Windows Azure for Windows store 8 apps, because from what I've read it only gives a 3-month trial and It's not worth paying because my app is free with no source of income.
Are there any other cloud computing platforms that are easy to integrate in an app and free ?
Eventually every cloud provider would charge you for using their services and even under free mode, they will provide services with certain caveats. For example, Windows Azure Websites are currently free for 1 year when running under shared mode. Amazon AWS provides a free usage tier (http://aws.amazon.com/free/) but it also has some limitation and the moment you go above those, you will be charged.
Not knowing much about your application, there're three possible solution I could recommend (just thinking out loud :):
Keep a free version of the product with no cloud syncing (as you have currently).
Provide a ad supported free version of the product with cloud syncing(kind of freemium offering).
Provide a paid, ad-free version of the product with cloud syncing.
SkyDrive (officially Microsoft SkyDrive, previously Windows Live SkyDrive and Windows Live Folders) is a file hosting service that allows users to upload and sync files to a cloud storage.
It gives 7 GB of free cloud storage that's accessible from anywhere.

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