Microsoft is announcing Azure App Service today, a consolidation of existing Website and Mobile services as well as some exciting new services for workflows and APIs.

Microsoft is making it easier to build apps for any device on their Azure cloud service by consolidating several existing services into a unified model called Azure App Services.  Azure Web Sites and Azure Mobile Services are now moved under the Azure App Services banner and they have also added two new services called Logic Apps and API Apps.  And perhaps the best part, the new services are effectively free.

All of these features can be used together at one low price.  In fact, the new Azure App Service pricing is exactly the same price as our previous Azure Websites offering.  If you are familiar with our Websites service you now get all of the features it previously supported, plus additional new mobile support, plus additional new workflow support, plus additional new connectors to dozens of SaaS and on-premises solutions at no extra charge.  — Scott Guthrie’s Blog

Web Apps

Web Apps are the Azure Websites rebranded.  All of the features previously supported via Azure Websites is still supported under Web Apps.  If you’re looking in the preview portal, you’ll find any existing Websites now under the Web Apps option.

Mobile Apps

Formerly Azure Mobile Services, this service provides all of the core capabilities but with added support for things like:

  • Built-in AutoScale support (automatically scale up/down based on real-world load)
  • Traffic Manager support (geographically scale your apps around the world)
  • Continuous Integration/Deployment support with Visual Studio Online, GitHub, and BitBucket
  • Virtual networking support and hybrid connections to on-premises databases
  • Staged deployment and test in production support
  • WebJob support for long running background tasks

Logic Apps

LogicAppLogic Apps are new services that allow you to create workflows that combine input from multiple connectors into logical flow.  Workflow creation is done through the Azure portal itself or via JSON.  The list of connectors supported out-of-the-box is fairly impressive and include:

  • Box
  • Chatter
  • Delay
  • Dropbox
  • Azure HD Insight
  • Marketo
  • Azure Media Services
  • OneDrive
  • SharePoint
  • SQL Server
  • Office 365
  • Oracle
  • QuickBooks
  • SalesForce
  • Sugar CRM
  • SAP
  • Azure Service Bus
  • Azure Storage
  • Timer/Recurrence
  • Twilio
  • Twitter
  • IBM DB2
  • Informix
  • Websphere MQ
  • Azure Web Jobs
  • Yammer
  • Dynamics CRM
  • Dynamics AX

API Apps

API Apps allow you create and consume REST based APIs in a scalable and secure.  These can then be included in Logic Apps as connectors.

For more information, check out the official launch announcement at 11am PDT here.  Scott Hanselman also has new Azure Friday videos ready that show how to use the new services.  You can view those at