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• SQL Azure Service Issues &ndash; 10.27.2012 (Restored Now)

  - by ToStringTheory

  Please note that if you have a Windows Azure website, or use SQL Azure, your site may be experiencing downtime currently.  Notice I just called in regarding one of my public facing internet sites, because the site was failing to load anything but its error page, I couldn’t connect to the database to inspect application error logs, and the Windows Azure Management portal won’t load the SQL Azure extension. After speaking to the representative, he also mentioned that they were also having some problems updating the Service Dashboard which shows service up/down time, and for now, they are posting messages at http://account.windowsazure.com.  Please note that this issue may only be effecting certain regions.  Last, I may have misheard the representative, but he said that the outage was being categorized as a level 8, and if I heard correctly, I think he said that level 8 was the worst level.  I can’t say for sure on this though, because the phone connection to their support number was bad – large amounts of white noise. Good Luck! Update It appears that this outage may also be effecting the following services: SQL Database, Service Bus, Datamarket, Windows Azure Marketplace, Shared Caching, Access Control 2.0, and SQL Reporting. The note on the account page says for the South Central US region, however, I believe the representative I spoke to also mentioned North Central. As I said before though, the connection was bad. Update 2 My site regained connectivity about an hour ago, and it appears that the service dashboard is back in operation with correct status and history. It does appear that I misheard on the phone regarding multiple regions, so chances are this only effected a percentage of the platform. All in all, if this WAS their worst level of a problem, they really got it fixed and back up pretty fast. All in all, I understand that it is inherent for a complex system such as Azure to have ups and downs, but at the end of the day, I am still happy to support Azure to its fullest!

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• Windows Azure Virtual Machines - Make Sure You Follow the Documentation

  - by BuckWoody

  To create a Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service Virtual Machine you have several options. You can simply select an image from a “Gallery” which includes Windows or Linux operating systems, or even a Windows Server with pre-installed software like SQL Server. One of the advantages to Windows Azure Virtual Machines is that it is stored in a standard Hyper-V format – with the base hard-disk as a VHD. That means you can move a Virtual Machine from on-premises to Windows Azure, and then move it back again. You can even use a simple series of PowerShell scripts to do the move, or automate it with other methods. And this then leads to another very interesting option for deploying systems: you can create a server VHD, configure it with the software you want, and then run the “SYSPREP” process on it. SYSPREP is a Windows utility that essentially strips the identity from a system, and when you re-start that system it asks a few details on what you want to call it and so on. By doing this, you can essentially create your own gallery of systems, either for testing, development servers, demo systems and more. You can learn more about how to do that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg465407.aspx   But there is a small issue you can run into that I wanted to make you aware of. Whenever you deploy a system to Windows Azure Virtual Machines, you must meet certain password complexity requirements. However, when you build the machine locally and SYSPREP it, you might not choose a strong password for the account you use to Remote Desktop to the machine. In that case, you might not be able to reach the system after you deploy it. Once again, the key here is reading through the instructions before you start. Check out the link I showed above, and this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc264456.aspx to make sure you understand what you want to deploy.  

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• SQL Azure Roadmap gets a little clearer &ndash; announcements from Tech Ed

  - by Eric Nelson

  On Monday at Tech?Ed 2010 we announced new stuff (I like new stuff) that “showcases our continued commitment to deliver value, flexibility and control of data through data cloud services to our customers”. Ok, that does sound like marketing speak (and it is) but the good news is there is some meat behind it. We have some decent new features coming and we also have some clarity on when we will be able to get our hands on those features. SQL Azure Business Edition Extends to 50 GB – June 28th SQL Azure Business Edition database is now extending from 10GB to 50GB The new 50GB database size will be available worldwide starting June 28th SQL Azure Business Edition Subscription Offer – August 1st Starting August 1st, we will have a new discounted SQL Azure promotional offer (SQL Azure Development Accelerator Core) More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/. Public Preview of the Data Sync Service  - CTP now Data Sync Service for SQL Azure allows for more flexible control over data by deciding which data components should be distributed across multiple datacenters in different geographic locations, based on your internal policies and business needs.  Available as a community technology preview after registering at http://www.sqlazurelabs.com SQL Server Web Manager for SQL Azure - CTP this Summer SQL Server Web Manager (SSWM) is a lightweight and easy to use database management tool for SQL Azure databases, to be offered this summer. Access 10 Support for SQL Azure – available now Yey – at last! Microsoft Office 2010 will natively support data connectivity to SQL Azure – we can now start developing those “departmental apps” with the confidence of a highly available SQL store provisioned in seconds. NB: I don’t believe we will support any previous versions of Access talking to SQL Azure. The Pre-announced Spatial Data Support to Become Live – Live now* At MIX in March we announced spatial was coming and apparently it is now here - although I need to check. Related Links UK based? Sign up at http://ukazure.ning.com SQL Azure Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/

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• Windows Azure Interop

  - by kaleidoscope

  How Windows Azure Platform is an open cloud platform. What makes it interoperable? The Windows Azure platform supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Developers can use their preferred programming frameworks including .NET, and PHP, now. Tools such as Eclipse have been created for PHP developers for building Windows Azure applications. Now external endpoints (inbound traffic) have been enabled to worker a role, which enables applications that receive internet traffic that aren’t running under IIS. Windows Azure interoperable with Java At PDC 09, solution accelerator for Tomcat is delivered. Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. The Windows Azure solution accelerator leverages a PDC09 feature that enable arbitrary processes to bind to inbound service endpoints. Windows Azure interoperable with PHP The Windows Azure tools for Eclipse extension builds upon the PHP Development Toolkit (PDT) and integrates Web Tools Platform (WTP) to provide a complete toolkit for Windows Azure web application development. For more details please refer to the link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/faq/   Rituraj

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• Windows Azure v1.7 Spring Release Today&ndash;New Management Dashboard

  - by ToStringTheory

  Today, Microsoft will be publicly releasing a new version of Azure for public consumption.  The web conference, at http://www.meetwindowsazure.com will be airing at 1 PM PST.  They have already released an update to the Service Dashboard that can be accessed by going to http://manage.windowsazure.com.  I have some images of the new dashboard here that I have gathered and removed any PII from.  Let me know what you think! Images You should be able to click any of the images for a full resolution image. Tutorial The first thing you get after signing in is the tutorial: Landing After the tutorial completes, you get a screen with services that are active on your account on the left, and a list of ALL services (db/blob/SQL Azure) on the right.  I like the quick access to services across any of my subscriptions: Service Information These are images from a running web site with several roles.  I love how easy they have made many of the features: SQL Azure They have given some great quick functionality for looking at your DB information: Storage Here is the basic information that they give you for any storage accounts you have: Adding Services Super quick and easy to add services with the new UI: Conclusion I am EXCITED!  As you may have seen in the left side of my blog, I am an MCPD in Azure Development, and I must say that I am excited to see Microsoft moving forward with the technology and not letting it stagnate.  After as much as I have fought the other Azure dashboard, I like the friendliness and fluidity of this one. The important thing to note about ALL of the images above: this is HTML, not Silverlight.  The responsiveness is FAST on all of the actions I completed, and I believe that this is a big step forward for Azure… So, what do you think?

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• jQuery and Windows Azure

  - by Stephen Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to describe how you can host a simple Ajax application created with jQuery in the Windows Azure cloud. In this blog entry, I make no assumptions. I assume that you have never used Windows Azure and I am going to walk through the steps required to host the application in the cloud in agonizing detail. Our application will consist of a single HTML page and a single service. The HTML page will contain jQuery code that invokes the service to retrieve and display set of records. There are five steps that you must complete to host the jQuery application: Sign up for Windows Azure Create a Hosted Service Install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio Create a Windows Azure Cloud Service Deploy the Cloud Service Sign Up for Windows Azure Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ and click the Sign up Now button. Select one of the offers. I selected the Introductory Special offer because it is free and I just wanted to experiment with Windows Azure for the purposes of this blog entry.     To sign up, you will need a Windows Live ID and you will need to enter a credit card number. After you finish the sign up process, you will receive an email that explains how to activate your account. Accessing the Developer Portal After you create your account and your account is activated, you can access the Windows Azure developer portal by visiting the following URL: http://windows.azure.com/ When you first visit the developer portal, you will see the one project that you created when you set up your Windows Azure account (In a fit of creativity, I named my project StephenWalther).     Creating a New Windows Azure Hosted Service Before you can host an application in the cloud, you must first add a hosted service to your project. Click your project on the summary page and click the New Service link. You are presented with the option of creating either a new Storage Account or a new Hosted Services.     Because we have code that we want to run in the cloud – the WCF Service -- we want to select the Hosted Services option. After you select this option, you must provide a name and description for your service. This information is used on the developer portal so you can distinguish your services.     When you create a new hosted service, you must enter a unique name for your service (I selected jQueryApp) and you must select a region for this service (I selected Anywhere US). Click the Create button to create the new hosted service.   Install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio We’ll use Visual Studio to create our jQuery project. Before you can use Visual Studio with Windows Azure, you must first install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/ and click the Get Tools and SDK button. The Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio works with both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010.   Installation of the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio is painless. You just need to check some agreement checkboxes and click the Next button a few times and installation will begin:   Creating a Windows Azure Application After you install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, you can choose to create a Windows Azure Cloud Service by selecting the menu option File, New Project and selecting the Windows Azure Cloud Service project template. I named my new Cloud Service with the name jQueryApp.     Next, you need to select the type of Cloud Service project that you want to create from the New Cloud Service Project dialog.   I selected the C# ASP.NET Web Role option. Alternatively, I could have picked the ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Role option if I wanted to use jQuery with ASP.NET MVC or even the CGI Web Role option if I wanted to use jQuery with PHP. After you complete these steps, you end up with two projects in your Visual Studio solution. The project named WebRole1 represents your ASP.NET application and we will use this project to create our jQuery application. Creating the jQuery Application in the Cloud We are now ready to create the jQuery application. We’ll create a super simple application that displays a list of records retrieved from a WCF service (hosted in the cloud). Create a new page in the WebRole1 project named Default.htm and add the following code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Products</title> <style type="text/css"> #productContainer div { border:solid 1px black; padding:5px; margin:5px; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Product Catalog</h1> <div id="productContainer"></div> <script id="productTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> Name: {{= name }} <br /> Price: {{= price }} </div> </script> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/jquery.tmpl.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var products = [ {name:"Milk", price:4.55}, {name:"Yogurt", price:2.99}, {name:"Steak", price:23.44} ]; $("#productTemplate").render(products).appendTo("#productContainer"); </script> </body> </html> The jQuery code in this page simply displays a list of products by using a template. I am using a jQuery template to format each product. You can learn more about using jQuery templates by reading the following blog entry by Scott Guthrie: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/05/07/jquery-templates-and-data-linking-and-microsoft-contributing-to-jquery.aspx You can test whether the Default.htm page is working correctly by running your application (hit the F5 key). The first time that you run your application, a database is set up on your local machine to simulate cloud storage. You will see the following dialog: If the Default.htm page works as expected, you should see the list of three products: Adding an Ajax-Enabled WCF Service In the previous section, we created a simple jQuery application that displays an array by using a template. The application is a little too simple because the data is static. In this section, we’ll modify the page so that the data is retrieved from a WCF service instead of an array. First, we need to add a new Ajax-enabled WCF Service to the WebRole1 project. Select the menu option Project, Add New Item and select the Ajax-enabled WCF Service project item. Name the new service ProductService.svc. Modify the service so that it returns a static collection of products. The final code for the ProductService.svc should look like this: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Activation; namespace WebRole1 { public class Product { public string name { get; set; } public decimal price { get; set; } } [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class ProductService { [OperationContract] public IList<Product> SelectProducts() { var products = new List<Product>(); products.Add(new Product {name="Milk", price=4.55m} ); products.Add(new Product { name = "Yogurt", price = 2.99m }); products.Add(new Product { name = "Steak", price = 23.44m }); return products; } } }   In real life, you would want to retrieve the list of products from storage instead of a static array. We are being lazy here. Next you need to modify the Default.htm page to use the ProductService.svc. The jQuery script in the following updated Default.htm page makes an Ajax call to the WCF service. The data retrieved from the ProductService.svc is displayed in the client template. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Products</title> <style type="text/css"> #productContainer div { border:solid 1px black; padding:5px; margin:5px; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Product Catalog</h1> <div id="productContainer"></div> <script id="productTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> Name: {{= name }} <br /> Price: {{= price }} </div> </script> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/jquery.tmpl.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $.post("ProductService.svc/SelectProducts", function (results) { var products = results["d"]; $("#productTemplate").render(products).appendTo("#productContainer"); }); </script> </body> </html>   Deploying the jQuery Application to the Cloud Now that we have created our jQuery application, we are ready to deploy our application to the cloud so that the whole world can use it. Right-click your jQueryApp project in the Solution Explorer window and select the Publish menu option. When you select publish, your application and your application configuration information is packaged up into two files named jQueryApp.cspkg and ServiceConfiguration.cscfg. Visual Studio opens the directory that contains the two files. In order to deploy these files to the Windows Azure cloud, you must upload these files yourself. Return to the Windows Azure Developers Portal at the following address: http://windows.azure.com/ Select your project and select the jQueryApp service. You will see a mysterious cube. Click the Deploy button to upload your application.   Next, you need to browse to the location on your hard drive where the jQueryApp project was published and select both the packaged application and the packaged application configuration file. Supply the deployment with a name and click the Deploy button.     While your application is in the process of being deployed, you can view a progress bar.     Running the jQuery Application in the Cloud Finally, you can run your jQuery application in the cloud by clicking the Run button.   It might take several minutes for your application to initialize (go grab a coffee). After WebRole1 finishes initializing, you can navigate to the following URL to view your live jQuery application in the cloud: http://jqueryapp.cloudapp.net/default.htm The page is hosted on the Windows Azure cloud and the WCF service executes every time that you request the page to retrieve the list of products. Summary Because we started from scratch, we needed to complete several steps to create and deploy our jQuery application to the Windows Azure cloud. We needed to create a Windows Azure account, create a hosted service, install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, create the jQuery application, and deploy it to the cloud. Now that we have finished this process once, modifying our existing cloud application or creating a new cloud application is easy. jQuery and Windows Azure work nicely together. We can take advantage of jQuery to build applications that run in the browser and we can take advantage of Windows Azure to host the backend services required by our jQuery application. The big benefit of Windows Azure is that it enables us to scale. If, all of the sudden, our jQuery application explodes in popularity, Windows Azure enables us to easily scale up to meet the demand. We can handle anything that the Internet might throw at us.

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• The web publishing extension is not installed which is required to publish

  - by Chong Wang

  I was tring to deploy an ASP.NET Web Application to a Windows Azure Web Site by following the tutorial through this link: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/tutorials/get-started/ After download the public profile, which is a ".PublishSettings" file, I go back to Visual Studio and right-click the project in Solution Explorer and select Publish from the context menu as the tutorial said. However, a warning box jumped up and it showed me that "The Web Publishing extension is not installed which is required to publish. You can install it from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=208120." I already installed "Windows Azure SDK for .NET (VS 2012)" and I also tried to uninstall this and install again, but the same problem is still there. Anyone knows how to solve this? I am really appreciated.

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• Azure, SLAs and CAP theorem

  - by dayscott

  Azure itself is imo PaaS and not IaaS. Do you agree? MS gurantees an availability of 99% and a strong consistency. You can find MS SLAs here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/sla (three SLAs Uptime: http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4889/unbenanntqt.png ) I can't find anyhing about how they are going to archive that. Do they do backups? If Yes: How do they manage consistency? According to the Cap theorem (http://camelcase.blogspot.com/2007/08/cap-theorem.html ) their claims are not realistic. 2.1 Do you know detailed technical stuff about the how they are going to realize the claims about consistency and availability? On the MS page you'll find three SLAs .docs, one for SQL Azure, the second for Azure AppFabric/.Net Services and the third for Azure Compute&Storage.(Screenshot in 1.) How can one track whether SLAs are violated? Do they offer some sort of monitor, so I don't have to measure the uptime by myself?

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• Reading what is in the vsdiagnostics blob in Azure (1.7)

  - by tomasmcguinness

  I've enabled Diagnostics in one of my Worker roles and published it to Azure. There was a new blob container created called "vsdiagnostics" and contained within in are two binary files. I'm assuming that these files contain the output of my Trace statements, but I'm unable to open these files as I have no idea what format they are in. I've not found anything on www.windowsazure.com about it and most of the tools they recommend are very outdated. I have installed Cerebrata's Azure Diagnostics Manager, but that isn't able to load the Trace Logs. If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd be grateful!

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• ServiceBus WorkerRole DiagnosticMonitor Error

  - by user1596485

  I have a WebRole and 2 ServiceBus WorkerRoles running, During the OnStart of the roles I get the following Exception: [System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException] invalid syntax for container log4net Parameter name: initialConfiguration Running Azure: ConfigurationManager version=1.7.0.3 ServiceBus version=1.7.0.1 Storage version=1.7.0.0 This occurs while running locally in the dev Azure environment and in the Cloud. All roles have the following Configurtion settings: <LocalStorage name="Log4Net" cleanOnRoleRecycle="true" sizeInMB="2048" /> All Roles have the following code in the OnStart: try { // Configure Disgnostics to poll Log file to Blob Storage var diagnosticsConfig = DiagnosticMonitor.GetDefaultInitialConfiguration(); diagnosticsConfig.Directories.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5); diagnosticsConfig.Directories.DataSources.Add( new DirectoryConfiguration { Path = RoleEnvironment.GetLocalResource("Log4Net").RootPath, DirectoryQuotaInMB = 512, Container = "wad-WebRolelog4net" }); DiagnosticMonitor.Start("Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString", diagnosticsConfig); } catch { OnStop(); return false; }

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• Azure Service Bus Scalability

  - by phebbar

  I am trying to understand how can I make Azure Service Bus Topic to be scaleable to handle 10,000 requests/second from more than 50 different clients. I found this article at Microsoft - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh528527.aspx. This provides lot of good input to scale azure service bus like creating multiple message factories, sending and receiving asynchronously, doing batch send/receive. But all these input are from the publisher and subscriber client perspective. What if the node running the Topic can not handle the huge number of transactions? How do I monitor that? How do I have the Topic running on multiple nodes? Any input on that would be helpful. Also wondering if any one has done any capacity testing with Topic/Queue and I am eager to see those results... Thanks, Prasanna

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• Windows and SQL Azure Best Practices: Affinity Groups

  - by BuckWoody

  When you create a Windows Azure application, you’ll pick a subscription to put it under. This is a billing container - underneath that, you’ll deploy a Hosted Service. That holds the Web and Worker Roles that you’ll deploy for your applications. along side that, you use the Storage Account to create storage for the application. (In some cases, you might choose to use only storage or Roles - the info here applies anyway) As you are setting up your environment, you’re asked to pick a “region” where your application will run. If you choose a Region, you’ll be asked where to put the Roles. You’re given choices like Asia, North America and so on. This is where the hardware that physically runs your code lives. We have lots of fault domains, power considerations and so on to keep that set of datacenters running, but keep in mind that this is where the application lives. You also get this selection for Storage Accounts. When you make new storage, it’s a best practice to put it where your computing is. This makes the shortest path from the code to the data, and then back out to the user. One of the selections for the location is “Anywhere U.S.”. This selection might be interpreted to mean that we will bias towards keeping the data and the code together, but that may not be the case. There is a specific abstraction we created for just that purpose: Affinity Groups. An Affinity Group is simply a name you can use to tie together resources. You can do this in two places - when you’re creating the Hosted Service (shown above) and on it’s own tree item on the left, called “Affinity Groups”. When you select either of those actions, You’re presented with a dialog box that allows you to specify a name, and then the Region that  names ties the resources to. Now you can select that Affinity Group just as if it were a Region, and your code and data will stay together. That helps with keeping the performance high. Official Documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh531560.aspx

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• Claims-based Identity Terminology

  - by kaleidoscope

  There are several terms commonly used to describe claims-based identity, and it is important to clearly define these terms. · Identity In terms of Access Control, the term identity will be used to refer to a set of claims made by a trusted issuer about the user. · Claim You can think of a claim as a bit of identity information, such as name, email address, age, and so on. The more claims your service receives, the more you’ll know about the user who is making the request. · Security Token The user delivers a set of claims to your service piggybacked along with his or her request. In a REST Web service, these claims are carried in the Authorization header of the HTTP(S) request. Regardless of how they arrive, claims must somehow be serialized, and this is managed by security tokens. A security token is a serialized set of claims that is signed by the issuing authority. · Issuing Authority & Identity Provider An issuing authority has two main features. The first and most obvious is that it issues security tokens. The second feature is the logic that determines which claims to issue. This is based on the user’s identity, the resource to which the request applies, and possibly other contextual data such as time of day. This type of logic is often referred to as policy[1]. There are many issuing authorities, including Windows Live ID, ADFS, PingFederate from Ping Identity (a product that exposes user identities from the Java world), Facebook Connect, and more. Their job is to validate some credential from the user and issue a token with an identifier for the user's account and  possibly other identity attributes. These types of authorities are called identity providers (sometimes shortened as IdP). It’s ultimately their responsibility to answer the question, “who are you?” and ensure that the user knows his or her password, is in possession of a smart card, knows the PIN code, has a matching retinal scan, and so on. · Security Token Service (STS) A security token service (STS) is a technical term for the Web interface in an issuing authority that allows clients to request and receive a security token according to interoperable protocols that are discussed in the following section. This term comes from the WS-Trust standard, and is often used in the literature to refer to an issuing authority. STS when used from developer point of view indicates the URL to use to request a token from an issuer. For more details please refer to the link http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/developers/dotnetservices/ Geeta, G

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• Clone an Azure VM using Powershell

  - by jamiet

  In a few months time I will, in association with Technitrain, be running a training course entitled Introduction to SQL Server Data Tools. I am currently working on putting together some hands-on lab material for the course delegates and have decided that in order to save time in asking people to install software during the course I am simply going to prepare a virtual machine (VM) containing all the software and lab material for each delegate to use. Given that I am an MSDN subscriber it makes sense to use Windows Azure to host those VMs given that it will be close to, if not completely, free to do so. What I don’t want to do however is separately build a VM for each delegate, I would much rather build one VM and clone it for each delegate. I’ve spent a bit of time figuring out how to do this using Powershell and in this blog post I am sharing a script that will: Prompt for some information (Azure credentials, Azure subscription name, VM name, username & password, etc…) Create a VM on Azure using that information Prompt you to sysprep the VM and image it (this part can’t be done with Powershell so has to be done manually, a link to instructions is provided in the script output) Create three new VMs based on the image Remove those three VMs Simply download the script and execute it within Powershell, assuming you have an Azure account it should take about 20minutes to execute (spinning up VMs and shutting the down isn’t instantaneous). If you experience any issues please do let me know. There are additional notes below. Hope this is useful! @Jamiet  Notes: Obviously there isn’t a lot of point in creating some new VMs and then instantly deleting them. However, this demo script does provide everything you need should you want to do any of these operations in isolation. The names of the three VMs that get created will be suffixed with 001, 002, 003 but you can edit the script to call them whatever you like. The script doesn’t totally clean up after itself. If you specify a service name & storage account name that don’t already exist then it will create them however it won’t remove them when everything is complete. The created image file will also not be deleted. Removing these items can be done by visiting http://manage.windowsazure.com. When creating the image, ensure you use the correct name (the script output tells you what name to use): Here are some screenshots taken from running the script: When the third and final VM gets removed you are asked to confirm via this dialog: Select ‘Yes’

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• Application Integration Future &ndash; BizTalk Server &amp; Windows Azure (TechEd 2012)

  - by SURESH GIRIRAJAN

  I am really excited to see lot of new news around BizTalk in TechEd 2012. I was recently watching the session presented by Sriram and Rajesh on “Application Integration Futures: The Road Map and What's Next on Windows Azure”. It was great session and lot of interesting stuff about the feature updates for BizTalk and Azure integration. I have highlighted them below, definitely customers who haven’t started using Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit should start using them which is going to be part of the core BizTalk product in future release, which is cool… BizTalk Server feature enhancements Manageability: ESB Tool Kit is going to be part of the core BizTalk product and Setup. Visualize BizTalk artifact dependencies in BizTalk administration console. HIS administration using configuration files. Performance: Improvements in ordered send port scenarios Improved performance in dynamic send ports and ESB, also to configure BizTalk host handler for dynamic send ports. Right now it runs under default host, which does not enable to scale. MLLP adapter enhancements and DB2 client transaction load balancing / client bulk insert. Platform Support: Visual Studio 2012, Windows 8 Server, SQL Server 2012, Office 15 and System Center 2012. B2B enhancements to support latest industry standards natively. Connectivity Improvements: Consume REST service directly in BizTalk SharePoint integration made easier. Improvements to SMTP adapter, to add macros for sending same email with different content to different parties. Connectivity to Azure Service Bus relay, queues and topics. DB2 client connectivity to SQL Server and SQL Server connectivity to Informix. CICS Http client connectivity to Windows. Azure: Use Azure as IaaS/PaaS for BizTalk environment. Use Azure to provision BizTalk environment for test environment / development. Later move to On-premises or build a Hybrid cloud approach. Eliminate HW procurement for BizTalk environment for testing / demos / development etc. Enable to create BizTalk farm easily and remove/add more servers as needed. EAI Service: EAI Bridge Protocol transformation Message Transformation Running custom code Message Enrichment Hybrid Connectivity LOB Applications On-premises Application On-premises Connectivity to Applications in the cloud Queues/ Topics Ftp Devices Web Services Bridge can be customized based on the service needs to provide different capabilities needed as part of the bridge. Look at the sample for EDI bridge for EDI service sample. Also with Tracking enabled through the portal. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh674490 Adapters: Service Bus Messaging adapter - New adapter added. WebHttp adapter - For REST services. NetTcpRelay adapter - New adapter added. I will start posting more and once I start playing with this…

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• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last week I blogged about developing a High-Availability plan. The specifics of a given plan aren't as simple as "Step 1, then Step 2" because in a hybrid environment (which most of us have) the situation changes the requirements. There are those that look for simple "template" solutions, but unless you settle on a single vendor and a single way of doing things, that's not really viable. The same holds true for support. As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the term "cloud", and would rather use the tem "Distributed Computing". That being said, more people understand the former, so I'll just use that for now. What I mean by Distributed Computing is leveraging another system or setup to perform all or some of a computing function. If this definition holds true, then you're essentially creating a partnership with a vendor to run some of your IT - whether that be IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or more often, a mix. In your on-premises systems, you're the first and sometimes only line of support. That changes when you bring in a Cloud vendor. For Windows Azure, we have plans for support that you can pay for if you like. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/plans/ You're not off the hook entirely, however. You still need to create a plan to support your users in their applications, especially for the parts you control. The last thing they want to hear is "That's vendor X's problem - you'll have to call them." I find that this is often the last thing the architects think about in a solution. It's fine to put off the support question prior to deployment, but I would hold off on calling it "production" until you have that plan in place. There are lots of examples, like this one: http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/customer.html some of which are technology-specific. Once again, this is an "it depends" kind of approach. While it would be nice if there was just something in a box we could buy, it just doesn't work that way in a hybrid system. You have to know your options and apply them appropriately.

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• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last week I blogged about developing a High-Availability plan. The specifics of a given plan aren't as simple as "Step 1, then Step 2" because in a hybrid environment (which most of us have) the situation changes the requirements. There are those that look for simple "template" solutions, but unless you settle on a single vendor and a single way of doing things, that's not really viable. The same holds true for support. As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the term "cloud", and would rather use the tem "Distributed Computing". That being said, more people understand the former, so I'll just use that for now. What I mean by Distributed Computing is leveraging another system or setup to perform all or some of a computing function. If this definition holds true, then you're essentially creating a partnership with a vendor to run some of your IT - whether that be IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or more often, a mix. In your on-premises systems, you're the first and sometimes only line of support. That changes when you bring in a Cloud vendor. For Windows Azure, we have plans for support that you can pay for if you like. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/plans/ You're not off the hook entirely, however. You still need to create a plan to support your users in their applications, especially for the parts you control. The last thing they want to hear is "That's vendor X's problem - you'll have to call them." I find that this is often the last thing the architects think about in a solution. It's fine to put off the support question prior to deployment, but I would hold off on calling it "production" until you have that plan in place. There are lots of examples, like this one: http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/customer.html some of which are technology-specific. Once again, this is an "it depends" kind of approach. While it would be nice if there was just something in a box we could buy, it just doesn't work that way in a hybrid system. You have to know your options and apply them appropriately.

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• Squid on an Azure VM

  - by LantisGaius

  I can't get it to work. Here's exactly what I did: Create a new Azure VM, Windows Server 2012. RDP to the new VM Download & Extract Squid for Windows (2.7.STABLE8) Rename the conf files (squid, mime & cachemgr) Add the following lines on the end of squid.conf auth_param basic program c:/squid/libexec/ncsa_auth.exe c:/squid/etc/passwd.txt auth_param basic children 5 auth_param basic realm Welcome to http://abcde.fg Squid Proxy! auth_param basic credentialsttl 12 hours auth_param basic casesensitive off acl ncsa_users proxy_auth REQUIRED http_access allow ncsa_users Use http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator-windows/ to create passwd.txt Test passwd.txt via c:/squid/libexec/ncsa_auth.exe c:/squid/etc/passwd.txt (success) squid -z squid -i net start squid (No errors so far). go to https://manage.windowsazure.com, Virtual Machines - myVM - Endpoints Add Endpoint: Name: Squid Protocol: TCP Public Port: 80 Private Port: 3128 That's it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I think I screwed something up at the endpoint? I'm not sure.. help? EDIT: I'm testing it via Firefox - Options - Advanced - Network, and the exact error is "The Proxy Server is refusing connections." I'm using my DNS as the Proxy server "abcdef.cloudapp.net" and port 80 (since that's my public endpoint).

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• Configure an Azure VM for Dynamic DNS for Cloud Services

  - by Adam

  I am trying to setup an azure VM with proper DNS to allow multiple cloud services to communicate across cloud service boundaries. As I understand it, I need to provide my own DNS server. I do not have any on-premise infrastructure, so I am trying to configure an Azure VM to act as my DNS. This SO question (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21858926/azure-how-to-connect-one-cloud-service-with-other-in-one-virtual-network) is very similar to my setup. This article (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156088.aspx) describes my particular case: Name resolution between virtual machines and role instances located in the same virtual network, but different cloud services Here is what I have done: Created Azure Virtual Network and declared subnets for each of my cloud services. Created an Azure VM (Windows 2012 R2) with DNS enabled RDP to the VM and enabled the DNS role and installed features Added the appropriate NetworkConfiguration xml section to each of my cloud services .csfg files Re-deployed my cloud services I have verified that I setup the virtual network and networkconfiguration properly because my cloud service hosts are able to communicate with each other if I use the internal ips. However, name resolution doesn't appear to be working, and it doesn't appear that my cloud service roles can communicate with my DNS server. How do I configure my VM so that my different cloud services roles register themselves with my DNS server? EDIT: I think I am 1 step closer to getting this to work. The cloud services that I was using are in an old affinity group which is not supported by VMs, so I was unable to add my VM into my virtual network. I created a new VNET in a new affinity group with my VM added into it. However, I still don't know how to configure the azure VM's DNS server so that the cloud services register themselves for name resolution. Also, an added bonus guaranteed to get a +1 would be to explain if it is possible to register a DNS entry for the VIP for an internal endpoint of my cloud services so we can get load balancing. Thanks!

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• Azure's Ubuntu 12.0.4 fails to install PHP5

  - by Alex Kennberg

  Similar to this article from Azure themselves: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/linux/common-tasks/install-lamp-stack/ I am trying to install PHP5 on Ubuntu 12.0.4 virtual machine. However, it fails installing the ssl-cert. $ sudo apt-get install php5 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done php5 is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 49 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y Setting up ssl-cert (1.0.28) ... Could not create certificate. Openssl output was: Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key ............................+++ ...................................................................................................................+++ writing new private key to '/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key' ----- problems making Certificate Request 140320238503584:error:0D07A097:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_mbstring_ncopy:string too long:a_mbstr.c:154:maxsize=64 dpkg: error processing ssl-cert (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: ssl-cert E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) Any tips appreciated.

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• Java Resources for Windows Azure

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is a Platform as a Service – a PaaS – that runs code you write. That code doesn’t just mean the languages on the .NET platform – you can run code from multiple languages, including Java. In fact, you can develop for Windows and SQL Azure using not only Visual Studio but the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) as well.  Although not an exhaustive list, here are several links that deal with Java and Windows Azure: Resource Link Windows Azure Java Development Center http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/java/  Java Development Guidance http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh690943(VS.103).aspx  Running a Java Environment on Windows Azure http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2010/10/28/running-a-java-environment-on-windows-azure.aspx  Running a Java Environment on Windows Azure http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2010/10/28/running-a-java-environment-on-windows-azure.aspx  Run Java with Jetty in Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dachou/archive/2010/03/21/run-java-with-jetty-in-windows-azure.aspx  Using the plugin for Eclipse http://blogs.msdn.com/b/craig/archive/2011/03/22/new-plugin-for-eclipse-to-get-java-developers-off-the-ground-with-windows-azure.aspx  Run Java with GlassFish in Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dachou/archive/2011/01/17/run-java-with-glassfish-in-windows-azure.aspx  Improving experience for Java developers with Windows  Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/23/improving-experience-for-java-developers-with-windows-azure.aspx  Java Access to SQL Azure via the JDBC Driver for SQL  Server http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_swan/archive/2011/03/29/java-access-to-sql-azure-via-the-jdbc-driver-for-sql-server.aspx  How to Get Started with Java, Tomcat on Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usisvde/archive/2011/03/04/how-to-get-started-with-java-tomcat-on-windows-azure.aspx  Deploying Java Applications in Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mariok/archive/2011/01/05/deploying-java-applications-in-azure.aspx  Using the Windows Azure Storage Explorer in Eclipse http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_swan/archive/2011/01/11/using-the-windows-azure-storage-explorer-in-eclipse.aspx  Windows Azure Tomcat Solution Accelerator http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/winazuretomcat  Deploying a Java application to Windows Azure with  Command-line Ant http://java.interoperabilitybridges.com/articles/deploying-a-java-application-to-windows-azure-with-command-line-ant  Video: Open in the Cloud: Windows Azure and Java http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/PDC/PDC10/CS10  AzureRunMe  http://azurerunme.codeplex.com/  Windows Azure SDK for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/windows-azure-sdk-for-java  AppFabric SDK for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/azure-java-sdk-for-net-services  Information Cards for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/information-card-for-java  Apache Stonehenge http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/apache-stonehenge  Channel 9 Case Study on Java and Windows Azure http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Azure/Gigaspaces/Solution-Provider-Streamlines-Java-Application-Deployment-in-the-Cloud/400000000081   

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• Java Resources for Windows Azure

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is a Platform as a Service – a PaaS – that runs code you write. That code doesn’t just mean the languages on the .NET platform – you can run code from multiple languages, including Java. In fact, you can develop for Windows and SQL Azure using not only Visual Studio but the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) as well.  Although not an exhaustive list, here are several links that deal with Java and Windows Azure: Resource Link Windows Azure Java Development Center http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/java/  Java Development Guidance http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh690943(VS.103).aspx  Running a Java Environment on Windows Azure http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2010/10/28/running-a-java-environment-on-windows-azure.aspx  Running a Java Environment on Windows Azure http://blogs.technet.com/b/port25/archive/2010/10/28/running-a-java-environment-on-windows-azure.aspx  Run Java with Jetty in Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dachou/archive/2010/03/21/run-java-with-jetty-in-windows-azure.aspx  Using the plugin for Eclipse http://blogs.msdn.com/b/craig/archive/2011/03/22/new-plugin-for-eclipse-to-get-java-developers-off-the-ground-with-windows-azure.aspx  Run Java with GlassFish in Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dachou/archive/2011/01/17/run-java-with-glassfish-in-windows-azure.aspx  Improving experience for Java developers with Windows  Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/23/improving-experience-for-java-developers-with-windows-azure.aspx  Java Access to SQL Azure via the JDBC Driver for SQL  Server http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_swan/archive/2011/03/29/java-access-to-sql-azure-via-the-jdbc-driver-for-sql-server.aspx  How to Get Started with Java, Tomcat on Windows Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usisvde/archive/2011/03/04/how-to-get-started-with-java-tomcat-on-windows-azure.aspx  Deploying Java Applications in Azure http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mariok/archive/2011/01/05/deploying-java-applications-in-azure.aspx  Using the Windows Azure Storage Explorer in Eclipse http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_swan/archive/2011/01/11/using-the-windows-azure-storage-explorer-in-eclipse.aspx  Windows Azure Tomcat Solution Accelerator http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/winazuretomcat  Deploying a Java application to Windows Azure with  Command-line Ant http://java.interoperabilitybridges.com/articles/deploying-a-java-application-to-windows-azure-with-command-line-ant  Video: Open in the Cloud: Windows Azure and Java http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/PDC/PDC10/CS10  AzureRunMe  http://azurerunme.codeplex.com/  Windows Azure SDK for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/windows-azure-sdk-for-java  AppFabric SDK for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/azure-java-sdk-for-net-services  Information Cards for Java http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/information-card-for-java  Apache Stonehenge http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/projects/apache-stonehenge  Channel 9 Case Study on Java and Windows Azure http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Azure/Gigaspaces/Solution-Provider-Streamlines-Java-Application-Deployment-in-the-Cloud/400000000081   

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• Autoscaling in a modern world&hellip;. Part 4

  - by Steve Loethen

  Now that I have the rules and services XML files in the cloud, it is time to sever the bounds of earth and live totally in the cloud.  I have to host the Autoscaling object in Azure as well, point it to the rules, tell it the management certs and get out of the way. A couple of questions.  Where to host?  The most obvious place to me was a worker role.  A simple, single purpose worker role, doing nothing but watching my app.  Here are the steps I used. 1) Created a project.  Separate project from my web site.  I wanted to be able to run the web in the cloud and the autoscaler local for debugging purposes.  Seemed like the easiest way.  2) Add the Wasabi block to the project. 3) Configure the settings.  I used the same settings used for the console app.  It points to the same web role, uses the same rules file.  4) Make sure the certification needed to manage the role is added to the cert store in the sky (“LocalMachine” and “My” are default locations). I ran the worker role in the local fabric.  It worked.  I then published to the cloud, and verified it worked again.  Here is what my code looked like. public override bool OnStart() { Trace.WriteLine("Set Default Connection Limit", "Information"); // Set the maximum number of concurrent connections ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 12; Trace.WriteLine("Set up configuration change code", "Information"); // set up config CloudStorageAccount.SetConfigurationSettingPublisher((configName, configSetter) => configSetter(RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue(configName))); Trace.WriteLine("Get current diagnostic configuration", "Information"); // Get current diagnostic configuration DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration dmc = DiagnosticMonitor.GetDefaultInitialConfiguration(); Trace.WriteLine("Set Diagnostic Buffer Size", "Information"); // Set Diagnostic Buffer size dmc.Logs.BufferQuotaInMB = 4; Trace.WriteLine("Set log transfer period", "Information"); // Set log transfer period dmc.Logs.ScheduledTransferPeriod = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1); Trace.WriteLine("Set log verbosity", "Information"); // Set log filter to verbose dmc.Logs.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter = LogLevel.Verbose; Trace.WriteLine("Start the diagnostic monitor", "Information"); // Start the diagnostic monitor DiagnosticMonitor.Start("Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString", dmc); Trace.WriteLine("Get the current Autoscaler from the EntLib Container", "Information"); // Get the current Autoscaler from the EntLib Container scaler = EnterpriseLibraryContainer.Current.GetInstance<Autoscaler>(); Trace.WriteLine("Start the autoscaler", "Information"); // Start the autoscaler scaler.Start(); Trace.WriteLine("call the base class OnStart", "Information"); // call the base class OnStart return base.OnStart(); } public override void OnStop() { Trace.WriteLine("Stop the Autoscaler", "Information"); // Stop the Autoscaler scaler.Stop(); } I did have to turn on some basic logging for wasabi, which will cover in the next post.  This let me figure out that I hadn’t done the certificate step.

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• Windows Azure Emulators On Your Desktop

  - by BuckWoody

  Many people feel they have to set up a full Azure subscription online to try out and develop on Windows Azure. But you don’t have to do that right away. In fact, you can download the Windows Azure Compute Emulator – a “cloud development environment” – right on your desktop. No, it’s not for production use, and no, you won’t have other people using your system as a cloud provider, and yes, there are some differences with Production Windows Azure, but you’ll be able code, run, test, diagnose, watch, change and configure code without having any connection to the Internet at all. The best thing about this approach is that when you are ready to deploy the code you’ve been testing, a few clicks deploys it to your subscription when you make one.   So what deep-magic does it take to run such a thing right on your laptop or even a Virtual PC? Well, it’s actually not all that difficult. You simply download and install the Windows Azure SDK (you can even get a free version of Visual Studio for it to run on – you’re welcome) from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsazure/cc974146.aspx   This SDK will also install the Windows Azure Compute Emulator and the Windows Azure Storage Emulator – and then you’re all set. Right-click the icon for Visual Studio and select “Run as Administrator”:    Now open a new “Cloud” type of project:   Add your Web and Worker Roles that you want to code:   And when you’re done with your design, press F5 to start the desktop version of Azure:   Want to learn more about what’s happening underneath? Right-click the tray icon with the Azure logo, and select the two emulators to see what they are doing:          In the configuration files, you’ll see a “Use Development Storage” setting. You can call the BLOB, Table or Queue storage and it will all run on your desktop. When you’re ready to deploy everything to Windows Azure, you simply change the configuration settings and add the storage keys and so on that you need.   Want to learn more about all this?   Overview of the Windows Azure Compute Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432968.aspx Overview of the Windows Azure Storage Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432983.aspx January 2011 Training Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en      

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• Azure Mobile Services: lessons learned

  - by svdoever

  When I first started using Azure Mobile Services I thought of it as a nice way to: authenticate my users - login using Twitter, Google, Facebook, Windows Live create tables, and use the client code to create the columns in the table because that is not possible in the Azure Mobile Services UI run some Javascript code on the table crud actions (Insert, Update, Delete, Read) schedule a Javascript to run any 15 or more minutes I had no idea of the magic that was happening inside… where is the data stored? Is it a kind of big table, are relationships between tables possible? those Javascripts on the table crud actions, is that interpreted, what is that exactly? After working for some time with Azure Mobile Services I became a lot wiser: Those tables are just normal tables in an Azure SQL Server 2012 Creating the table columns through client code sucks, at least from my Javascript code, because the columns are deducted from the sent JSON data, and a datetime field is sent as string in JSON, so a string type column is created instead of a datetime column You can connect with SQL Management Studio to the Azure SQL Server, and although you can’t manage your columns through the SQL Management Studio UI, it is possible to just run SQL scripts to drop and create tables and indices When you create a table through SQL script, add the table with the same name in the Azure Mobile Services UI to hook it up and be able to access the table through the provided abstraction layer You can also go to the SQL Database through the Azure Mobile Services UI, and from there get in a web based SQL management studio where you can create columns and manage your data The table crud scripts and the scheduler scripts are full blown node.js scripts, introducing a lot of power with great performance The web based script editor is really powerful, I do most of my editing currently in the editor which has syntax highlighting and code completing. While editing the code JsHint is used for script validation. The documentation on Azure Mobile Services is… suboptimal. It is such a pity that there is no way to comment on it so the community could fill in the missing holes, like which node modules are already loaded, and which modules are available on Azure Mobile Services. Soon I was hacking away on Azure Mobile Services, creating my own database tables through script, and abusing the read script of an empty table named query to implement my own set of “services”. The latest updates to Azure Mobile Services described in the following posts added some great new features like creating web API’s, use shared code from your scripts, command line tools for managing Azure Mobile Services (upload and download scripts for example), support for node modules and git support: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/06/14/windows-azure-major-updates-for-mobile-backend-development.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2013/06/14/custom-apis-in-azure-mobile-services.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2013/06/19/custom-api-in-azure-mobile-services-client-sdks.aspx In the mean time I rewrote all my “service-like” table scripts to API scripts, which works like a breeze. Bad thing with the current state of Azure Mobile Services is that the git support is not working if you are a co-administrator of your Azure subscription, and not and administrator (as in my case). Another bad thing is that Cross Origin Request Sharing (CORS) is not supported for the API yet, so no go yet from the browser client for API’s, which is my case. See http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsazure/en-US/2b79c5ea-d187-4c2b-823a-3f3e0559829d/known-limitations-for-source-control-and-custom-api-features for more on these and other limitations. In his talk at Build 2013 Josh Twist showed that there is a work-around for accessing shared script code from the table scripts as well (another limitation mentioned in the post above). I could not find that code in the Votabl2 code example from the presentation at https://github.com/joshtwist/votabl2, but we can grab it from the presentation when it comes online on Channel9. By the way: you can always express your needs and ideas at http://mobileservices.uservoice.com, that’s the place they are listening to (I hope!).

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