Strategy for Windows Azure Accounts Management

Question

From web search it appears that to be able to manage Windows Azure services, you need an account with one of the admin roles (service administrator, co-administrator etc).

From project management point-of-view, what is a good strategy to manage accounts for your company if you have several developers working on Azure?

Examples

1. A simple strategy could be to have a few designated administrators (e.g. team leaders) who upload the code while other developers use Azure Emulator on their machines.
2. Another example would be to have a shared Azure account used by many developers (not sure about licence implications for this one!).

These are just off the top of my head and have their drawbacks. What strategies do you use?

Answer 1

2 Places I've worked we've done the following.

Single Common A/C

• Create a common email-distribution group (myteamonazure@mycompany.com)
• Register this mail address as an MSN Passport
• Use it to sign up with Azure.

Pro's: Everyone on the team gets mails regarding the account.

Con's: If someone leaves the team, we need to change the account password.

Individual accounts

• Let each person signup with their own account. (Mandate it must be their company email... not personal msdn passport)
• Make one person the super-admin, and the rest co-admins

Pro's: If someone leaves, it's far easier to just revoke their credentials/privs

Con's: Lots more accounts to keep track of depending on the size of your team, particularly if you're company has a single Azure Account, with lots of different apps/projects hosted on it.

Personally, I prefer the second option as it's more secure/easier to revoke access to individuals.