AFAIK Silverlight is only required admin the legacy share cache service, which has been end-of-lifed (hence the reluctance to spend the effort needed to support

AFAIK Silverlight is only required admin the legacy share cache service, which has been end-of-lifed (hence the reluctance to spend the effort needed to support it in the web-based portal). They recently announced that they would keep the Silverlight legacy portal around for a bit longer do give people more time to move away from the shared cache service. I use Azure every day and I haven't needed to touch the Silverlight portal in months.