Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0

USB 3.0 is the next version of the USB 2.0, the main feature of this version is speed. It is faster than its predecessor by 10x. Also it provides full duplex transmission mode. And it is greener in terms of power usage.

Difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 :-

      Physical Difference:

USB 3.0 port also has “SS” mentioned on it, it is of blue color. Also the wires are bit thicker. The regular 2.0 connectors are usually grey in color.

      Wires:

USB 2.0                                                      USB 3.0

4 Pins within the wire.

9 pins within the wire.

  Transmission speed:

USB 2.0 has data transfer rate upto 480 Mbps. Whereas the USB 3.0 has 4.8 Gbps of transfer rate. This is almost 10 times faster than the 2.0.

       Transmission mode:

USB 2.0 can either send or receive the data (Half duplex).

USB 3.0 can perform both sending and receiving data simultaneously (Full duplex).

       Backward compatibility:

USB 3.0 devices are backward compatible, means they can be used with the standard USB 2.0 product, but the benefit of speed, bandwidth will not be up to the mark as expected from the standard USB 3.0 port.

        Power:

USB 2.0 uses upto 500 mA power.

USB 3.0 uses upto 900 mA powers. But is more efficient.

USB 3.0 is much more power “aware”, as it controls the power of the devices, like when the device needs maximum throughput it will provide full power, but it will use less power when the device is only connected i.e. is in idle state. Also it can power more devices from the single hub.

WINDOWS AZURE

What is “Azure”?

Windows Azure simply can be described as the Operating System made by Microsoft Corporation for the “Cloud”.

What is “Cloud”?

Now, the Cloud means “Internet” and its infrastructure and various other applications such as hardware, software, computing power which is managed by particular company which has a “Data-center”.

What is a “Data-center”?

Data-center has huge collection of servers which are connected through very large network of routers and switches and thousands of miles of cabling, A Data-center is where the internet lives. They are mainly used for storage of data, hosting web sites and are never tuned “off”.

Back to Azure

Windows Azure is the Operating system for cloud computing which provides an environment that has automated service management, immense computing potential, practically unlimited storage. It is available 24/7 with the ability to scale up and down with very little problems. This helps the developer to focus more on the applications rather than worrying about the system’s infrastructure.

Windows Azure has very powerful hosting environment which makes it favorite amongst the cloud community. All the servers are virtualized efficiently with multiple fault domains which make the overall system fault tolerant and very high in availability.

Reliable storage is an essential element of any application platform today. Windows Azure provides highly scalable cloud storage with the ability to store data in various forms such as tables, queues, blobs etc 

Development:-

Windows Azure developers have made very efficient and easy to use platform for developing cloud based applications, the experience you get while developing is almost same as the Microsoft’s visual studio. And the developers can run and test applications on desktop as well.