If someone is hosting something in Azure and a new KB comes along and requires the .net framework to be updated, how is this handled in Azure? Do they automatically update it for you or give you the option to remain at the older version?
I'm more interested in how the versioning is handled, rather than uptime etc. Do they force you to stay at the most up to date version of a given version number? As in, the most up to date version of 3.5, etc.
As of the June 2010 release, version 1.2, OS upgrades are automatic, but you can opt out of automatic upgrades from the portal. You can choose a specific OS version anywhere from version 1.0 to the present Guest OS release, which supports .NET 4 and IntelliTrace.
OS upgrades are not automatic. The 'auto' upgrade feature is an opt-in feature. Essentially, when you deploy (without specifying the OS version), you are given the latest version and you will be pegged there. If you were to look at your configuration, you would see a specific Guest OS string.
In order to get the 'auto' upgrade behavior, you must change the guest OS version to '*'. This is not automatic today however (and likely won't be).
Edit: I am wrong, experimenting with the feature proves that we are setting the * by default. Move along... nothing to see here... :)