CHAPTER 2UNDERSTANDING

WINDOWS AZURE

PLATFORM ARCHITECTUREPLATFORM ARCHITECTURE

CONTENTS¢The Windows Azure Developer Portal¢Creating and running Projects in the

Azure Development Platform¢Using Azure Application Templates for¢Using Azure Application Templates for

Visual Studio 2008¢ Taking advantage of Auxiliary Cloud

Services¢ Deploying Application and Services to

the Azure Cloud.2

INTRODUCTION

¢ The Windows Azure Platform is Microsoft’s WindowsPlatforms a Service (PaaS) offering that runs on servers andrelated network infrastructure located in Microsoft datacenters and is connected to the public Internet.

¢ The platform consists of a highly scalable (elastic) cloudoperating system, data storage fabric and related servicesdelivered by physical or logical (virtualized) Windows Serverdelivered by physical or logical (virtualized) Windows Server2008 instances.

¢ The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK)provides a development version of the cloud-based services,as well as the tools and APIs needed to develop, deploy, andmanage scalable services in Windows Azure, including VisualStudio 2008 or 2010 templates for a standardized set of Azureapplications

INTRODUCTION

According to Microsoft, the primary uses for Azure are to

¢ Add web service capabilities to existing packaged applications

¢ Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web withminimal on-premises resources

¢ Perform services, such as large-volume storage, batchprocessing, intense or high-volume computations, and so on,processing, intense or high-volume computations, and so on,off premises

¢ Create, test, debug, and distribute web services quickly andinexpensively

¢ Reduce costs and risks of building and extending on-premisesresources

¢ Reduce the effort and costs of IT management

¢ Microsoft promises support for executing Ruby, PHP, andPython code in the cloud platform

SDK.

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THE WINDOWS AZURE DEVELOPER PORTAL

¢ The initial entry point for Azure developers movingASP.NET applications to the cloud is the Windows AzureDevelopment Portal

¢ https://windows.azure.com/Cloud/Provisioning/Default.aspx

¢ which requires logging in with a Windows Live ID.

¢ Azure Community Technical Previews (CTPs) requireseparate GUID tokens for Windows Azure, which includes

¢❑ Azure Hosted Services

¢❑ Storage Accounts

¢❑ SQL Azure

¢❑ Live Services

¢ https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/MS-AZR-0044P/

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CREATING AND RUNNING PROJECTS IN THE AZURE

DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM

¢ Azure Cloud Fabric and Azure Storage Services don’t supportcloud-based development or debugging operations, so theAzure SDK provides on-premises clones in the form of theDevelopment Fabric (DF) and Development Storage (DS)applications, which the Windows Azure SDK installs.

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REQUIREMENTS

¢ .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and SQL Express 2005 or 2008must be present.

¢ you must enable ASP.NET and WCF HTTP Activation forIIS 7.0 under Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista SP2,orIIS 7.0 under Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista SP2,orWindows 7 RC or later to install and run the SDK.

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INSTALLING WINDOWS AZURE SDK AND TOOLS

FOR VISUAL STUDIO

¢ 1)Install Azure SDKs

The Download link is as follows

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/downloads/

¢ 2) Download and install the Windows Azure Tools for VisualStudio to add templates for Web Cloud Service, WorkerStudio to add templates for Web Cloud Service, WorkerCloud Service and Workflow Service projects.

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/downloads/archive-net-downloads/

3) Windows PowerShell is required to run the CloudDrive sample.

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INSTALLING AND BUILDING THE WINDOWS AZURE

SDK SAMPLE APPLICATIONS

¢ Installing the Windows Azure SDK doesn’t install its sample applications, which are included in the

¢ C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Azure SDK\v1.0\samples.zip file.

Install the sample files by unzipping samples.zip to a folder to ¢ Install the sample files by unzipping samples.zip to a folder to which you have write access. C:\Windows Azure SDK Samples folder

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THE DEVELOPMENT FABRIC

¢ Simulates the Windows® Azure™ fabric so that you canrun and test a service locally before deploying it.

¢ DF comprises the following executables: DFAgent.exe,DFLoadBalancer.exe, DFMonitor.exe, and DFService.exe,which the Azure SDK setup program installs by default inthe development PC’s \Program Files\Windows AzureSDK\v1.0\bin\devfabric folder

To start DFRight-click the DF icon in the Taskbar’s¢ To start DFRight-click the DF icon in the Taskbar’sNotification Area, if present, and choose Start DevelopmentFabric Service

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THE DEVELOPMENT FABRIC

¢ Compile and run an Azure-enabled application in Visual Studio

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DEVELOPMENT STORAGE

¢ The Windows Azure Platform supports three types of scalable persistent storage

¢❑ unstructured data (blobs)

¢❑ structured data (tables)

¢❑ messages between applications, services, or both (queues)

¢ Executing rundevstore.exe or building and running Azure user code in Visual Studio starts all three services, even if your project requires only one, and displays the Development Storage

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DEVELOPMENT STORAGE

¢ To protect against data loss, the Azure cloud stores blobs,tables, and queues in at least three separate containers in asingle data center.

¢ Azure’s geolocation features let you duplicate data inmultiple Microsoft data centers for enhanced disasterrecovery and to improve performance in specific geographicrecovery and to improve performance in specific geographicregions.

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AZURE SERVICE DEFINITION AND SERVICE

CONFIGURATION FILES

¢ Azure applications that you run in the DevelopmentFramework can access data stored locally in DevelopmentStorage or uploaded to Azure cloud storage

¢ The application looks for the port number and stored data in¢ The application looks for the port number and stored data inthe location specified as endpoints in the project’s ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file.

¢ An Azure project’s ServiceDefinition.csdef file defines a set ofstandard input endpoints and configuration settings whosevalues the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file stores.

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AZURE TABLE SERVICES

¢ Choosing Tools, Table Service Properties in theDevelopmentStorage.exe application opens a dialog of thesame name to let you change the SQL Server ExpressEdition database name that stores development schemas.

¢ Azure Blob Services

¢ Blobs store binary data, such as images, XML documents,compressed (zipped or gzipped) files, and other content asan arbitrary array of bytes within a container that’san arbitrary array of bytes within a container that’sassociated with a storage account.

¢ A container is a user-defined set of blobs that has onlyproperties, which include a list of the blobs it contains.Containers don’t store data directly.

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AZURE QUEUE SERVICES

¢ Azure queues are messages up to 8KB in size that any clientor application with access to the storage account can accesson a first-in, first-out basis.

¢ Azure queues have a REST API that’s similar to that for blobs

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USING AZURE APPLICATION TEMPLATES FOR

VISUAL STUDIO 2008

¢ Downloading Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio adds aCloud Service template node to the New Project dialog.

¢ Double-clicking the Cloud Service node opens the NewCloud Service Project dialog, which enables addingASP.NET Web Roles, Worker Roles or CGI Web Roles toASP.NET Web Roles, Worker Roles or CGI Web Roles tothe project.

¢ Projects that use the Web Role template provide anASP.NET Default.aspx web page as the starting point for adefault cloud application UI

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USING AZURE APPLICATION TEMPLATES FOR

VISUAL STUDIO 2008

¢ The Live Framework node appears in the New Project dialog’s Project Types pane only if you install Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio, Live Framework SDK, and Live Framework Tools.

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TAKING ADVANTAGE OF AUXILIARY CLOUD

SERVICES

¢ The Windows Azure Platform incorporates three sets ofauxiliary services .NET Services, SQL Azure Database, andLive Services.

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.NET SERVICES

¢ Microsoft .NET Services are a set of scalable, developer-oriented services that are hosted by Windows Azurealongside Azure Storage Services in Microsoft data centers.

¢ .NET Services provide key infrastructure components forcloud-based Web and Worker applications

¢ .NET provides Access Control, Service Bus, and Workflowservices to take advantage of Web-standard protocols.

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ACCESS CONTROL SERVICES

¢ Microsoft claims that Access Control Services (ACS) ‘‘providean easy way to control web applications and services whileintegrating with standards-based identity providers, includingenterprise directories and web identity systems such asWindows Live ID.

¢ The advantage of ACS is that you can write a set of declarativerules that can transform incoming security claims into aclaims-based, federated identity to minimize developer effort.claims-based, federated identity to minimize developer effort.

¢ ACS relies on well-known user account stores, such as Live ID,Active Directory, or other stores that support Atom, AtomPub, SOAP or WS-*, and HTTP protocols.

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SERVICE BUS

¢ Microsoft states that the .NET Service Bus (SB), makes iteasy to connect applications together over the Internet

¢ Services that register on the Bus can easily be discoveredand accessed, across any network topology.’’ SBimplements that Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) applicationpattern with Windows Communication Foundationpattern with Windows Communication Foundation(WCF).

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WORKFLOW SERVICES

¢ Microsoft describes the .NET Workflow Services (WFS) as‘‘a high-scale host for running workflows in the cloud.

¢ WFS orchestrates the sending, receiving, and manipulatingof HTTP and Service Bus messages.

¢ It also provides hosted tools to deploy, manage, and track¢ It also provides hosted tools to deploy, manage, and trackthe execution of workflow instances, as well as a group ofmanagement APIs.

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SQL AZURE

¢ SQL Services are highly scalable, on-demand relationaldatabase management, business intelligence (BI), andreporting utility services based provided by SQL Server2008

¢ SQL Data Services and SQL Azure Database (SADB)

¢ SQL Azure Database (SADB) was originally called SQLServer Data Services (SSDS) when Microsoft announcedSSDS as a standalone Database as a Service (DaaS)

¢ SSDS’s initial architecture implemented schema less EAVtables similar to Azure’s Table Services in a non-relationalAuthority, Container, Entity (ACE) model.

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SADB WILL OFFER THE FOLLOWING SQL SERVER

FEATURES:

¢ Tables, indexes, and views

¢ Stored procedures and triggers

¢ Constraints

¢ Table variables

¢ Session temporary tables (#t)

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DEPLOYING APPLICATION S AND SER VICES

TO THE AZURE CLOUD¢ Azure Storage Services

¢ Changing from Development to Azure cloud storage requiresonly modifying the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg to change theAccountName value to the cloud storage project name andchange the BlogStorageEndpoint, QueueStorageEndpoint,TableStorageEndpoing or all three values to

¢ http://blob.core.windows.net,http://blob.core.windows.net,http://queue.core.windows.net,

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PUBLISHING PROJECTS TO THE AZURE SERVICES

DEVELOPER PORTAL

¢ When you create a new hosting project in the online Windows Azure Development Portal, Windows Azure assigns it a GUID as a Private Deployment ID.

¢ You could synchronize your Visual Studio developmentproject with the live version by opening the Propertieswindow for the master project node and selecting the Portalwindow for the master project node and selecting the PortalProvisioning page to expose the Application ID text box. Youcould copy the ID value from the portal page and paste it tothe Portal properties page’s text box,

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PUBLISHING THE PROJECT TO THE CLOUD FABRIC

¢ Publishing the project requires copying a package(ProjectName.cspkg) and a configuration file(*ServiceConfiguration.cscfg) to your Windows Azureinstance.

¢ A package for the cloud consists of a zipped and encryptedversion of the development package file (*.csx) created whenversion of the development package file (*.csx) created whenyou run the project in the Development Fabric.

¢ With the Application ID pasted into the Portal propertiespage, right-clicking the master project node and choosingPublish opens an Explorer window for the project’s

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THANK YOUTHANK YOU

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