Microsoft has announced an update today to the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus. This release introduces enhancements to Service Bus that improve pub/sub messaging through features like Queues, Topics and Subscriptions, and enables new scenarios on the Windows Azure platform, such as:

• Async Cloud Eventing – Distribute event notifications to occasionally connected clients (e.g. phones, remote workers, kiosks, etc.)
• Event-driven Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – Building loosely coupled systems that can easily evolve over time
• Advanced Intra-App Messaging – Load leveling and load balancing for building highly scalable and resilient applications

These capabilities have been available for several months as a preview in LABS/Previews environment as part of the Windows Azure AppFabric May 2011 CTP. With this release Azure team have implemented the following two new meters in addition to the current Connections meter:

1. Entity Hours – A Service Bus “Entity” can be any of: Queue, Topic, Subscription, Relay or Message Buffer. This meter counts the time from creation to deletion of an Entity, totaled across all Entities used during the period.
2. Message Operations – This meter counts the number of messages sent to, or received from, the Service Bus during the period. This includes message receive requests that return empty (i.e. no data available).

These two new meters are provided to best capture and report your use of the new features of Service Bus. You will continue to only be charged for the relay capabilities of Service Bus using the existing Connections meter. Your bill will display your usage of these new meters but you will not be charged for these new capabilities.