Book Image

Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook

By : Neil Mackenzie
Book Image

Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook

By: Neil Mackenzie

Overview of this book

The Windows Azure platform is Microsoft's Platform-as-a-Service environment for hosting services and data in the cloud. It provides developers with on-demand computing, storage, and service connectivity capabilities that facilitate the hosting of highly scalable services in Windows Azure datacenters across the globe. This practical cookbook will show you advanced development techniques for building highly scalable cloud-based services using the Windows Azure platform. It contains over 80 practical, task-based, and immediately usable recipes covering a wide range of advanced development techniques for building highly scalable services to solve particular problems/scenarios when developing these services on the Windows Azure platform. Packed with reusable, real-world recipes, the book starts by explaining the various access control mechanisms used in the Windows Azure platform. Next you will see the advanced features of Windows Azure Blob storage, Windows Azure Table storage, and Windows Azure Queues. The book then dives deep into topics such as developing Windows Azure hosted services, using Windows Azure Diagnostics, managing hosted services with the Service Management API, using SQL Azure and the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus. You will see how to use several of the latest features such as VM roles, Windows Azure Connect, startup tasks, and the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introduction


The Windows Azure AppFabric adds middleware services to the Windows Azure Platform. The initial focus extended Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services into the cloud. However, the Windows Azure AppFabric now provides many higher-level services that simplify the use of the Windows Azure Platform. It provides a Service Bus that services can use to host public endpoints acting as rendezvous addresses for various capabilities. It provides a Caching service that Windows Azure hosted services can use to cache and share frequently used data. It provides an Access Control Service that exposes a cloud-based Secure Token Service (STS) that various services in the Windows Azure Platform use to facilitate claims-based authentication.

The Windows Azure AppFabric provides a labs environment where new features can be tried out as Community Technology Previews (CTP). Two very powerful features currently being previewed are Windows Azure AppFabric Queues and Topics, and Windows Azure...