It’s a new year and Microsoft’s cloud computing platform has gotten another update, complete with new features that asp.net developers can take advantage of. Microsoft Developer VP Scott Guthrie this week detailed all the latest Windows Azure updates in a new blog post.

The biggest rollout in the latest Azure update is support for staged publishing. Developers can now enable the feature for Azure sites, allowing them to use a staged version of their sites for testing updates before immediately rolling them out to the real site. The feature also allows site managers to roll out their changes all at once, rather than updating files in order.

Other updates to Azure include an “Always On” feature, which will regularly ping websites to ensure they are active, and support for SenchaTouch on Azure Mobile Services. Monitoring for sites and SQL databases has also been improved, with site metrics now updated every minute and alerts expanded further for SQL databases.

The Hyper-V Recovery Manager for Windows Azure has also now been made generally available. The software is fully supported by Microsoft Support and is backed by an enterprise service-level agreement (SLA).

In addition to the updates, Azure has now been compliance validated for meeting Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS). Azure developers can now receive PCI DSS certification for their own applications through Azure.