This is a Quick Shot (mostly a reminder to myself to read later).
Just ran across a series of articles by Zoiner Tejada at Dev Pro Connections about using Node.js with Azure.
I just gave the articles the briefest skim since I'm at work and don't have time for a full read, but they look good enough to post links for later reading.
http://devproconnections.com/windows-azure-development/enabling-nodejs-server-side-app-windows-azure
Once I've read them, I'll (hopefully) come back and post some more about them here.
Update: 10/18/2013
Now I've read them and they were very interesting.
The level of support for Node on Azure is surprising. Not only have Microsoft embraced a technology they didn't create, they seem to be bending over backwards to support it.
One of the bits about Node that has always bothered me is the fact that it is single threaded. If you fire up a Node server you get ONE thread to do everything. If you have 16 cores, well ONE of them will get a workout while the others sip lattes and gossip.
Most talks I've listened to about node include a hand wave, Jedi-mind-trick explanation that one core is all you really need if you have asynchronous, non-blocking Javascript and oh-by-the-way you could fire up multiple Node instances if you really feel the need.
Firing up multiple instances of Node and parceling the workload among them sounds like a good idea, but not an easily implemented idea. Unless of course, Microsoft (or someone else) makes an easy way to do so.
The first article I linked to explains the iisnode module. That module works with the URL Rewrite module to spin up multiple instances of Node and handle the division of labor between them. That's pretty awesome.
The first article takes you through setting up your Node on Azure dev environment and the second article takes you through creating and deploying a RESTful Node app that is a bit more realistic than a “Hello, World”.
Definitely worth a read if you are curious about Node or would like to find a place to host your Node apps.