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

Autoscaling with the Windows Azure Service Management REST API


One of the attractions of cloud computing is the financial saving gained through the elastic provision of compute services, that is, the ability to scale up and down the number of instances of a hosted service. Windows Azure charges by the hour for each compute instance, so the appropriate number of instances should be deployed at all times.

A hosted service may have a predictable pattern such as heavy use during the week and limited use at the weekend. Alternatively, it may have an unpredictable pattern identifiable through various performance characteristics. The Windows Azure Service Management REST API can be used to autoscale a hosted service, so that it can handle the current and predicted load. By autoscale we mean the ability of a hosted service to scale itself elastically by modifying automatically the number of running instances.

The basic idea is that the number of instances for the various roles in the hosted service...