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

Choosing which Windows Azure storage type to use


The Windows Azure Platform supports various storage types:

  • Blobs

  • Tables

  • Queues

  • Local storage

  • Azure Drive

  • SQL Azure

The Windows Azure Blob Service supports the storage of two types of blobs: block supporting streamed access and page supporting random read-write access. The maximum size of a block blob is 200 GB and the maximum size of a page blob is 1 TB. Block blobs can be used to host streaming content for websites and exposed through the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). The primary use case for page blobs is the storage of the virtual hard drive (VHD) used to back an Azure Drive. We can see more about blobs in Chapter 2, Handling Blobs in Windows Azure.

The Windows Azure Table Service provides for the schemaless storage of structured data, providing a NoSQL like feature in the Windows Azure Platform. A Windows Azure storage account can have many tables with each table comprising a collection of entities. Each entity has a Primary Key...