There were some bumps along the way today (like the SQL team saying things were ready for purchase, but there were now Buy Now buttons on the portal for several hours afterwards, and the Billing link went either nowhere or to Microsoft Online Services with no Azure services listed), but… it’s now open for business.  CTP accounts continue to be free until the end of Jan.  See information about the billing on-ramp.

If you on the Azure CTP and you purchase an offer on the Microsoft Online Services site with the same Live ID that you already use for your CTP, then your CTP account will be associated with that plan, so tread carefully.

See my previous entry and the links therein, especially if you are a partner or MSDN subscriber – this isn’t a half bad summary of the options.