Have you heard of Windows Azure? Maybe you have, but the concept is all fuzzy. Can I really use this cloud stuff? In December 2011, a whole slew of new Windows Azure features and improvements shipped. We’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of the platform and detail some of the new features and announcements from December. We’ll look at hosting cloud applications with Windows Azure Compute, and cover some data patterns for hosting data in the cloud with Windows Azure Storage and SQL Azure. Thinking of trying Azure out for a test drive? It’s easier than ever now and we’ll show you how.