Windows Azure

Windows Azure + WIF + Access Control (ACS)

By Marcel Meijer

When you going to use the Access Control Service (ACS) on the Windows Azure platform, then there are enough resources to help you. For example here. A lot of configuration has to be done, but it is do-able on the ACS website and in your application. But deploying your Windows Azure application to the Cloud is a different cookie. Here are some steps I found the hard way. NB It is a good practice to make the website use SSL. 1) The Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) runtime. On the standard Windows Azure instances the WIF runtime is not there. After … Continue reading Windows Azure + WIF + Access Control (ACS)

New Billing Portal for Windows Azure

By Marcel Meijer

The Billing Portal for Windows Azure has been redesigned and much more useful. On the Windows Azure management portal you can click on the Billing link at the top. After that you a second tab within Internet Explorer will open and redirect you to the Billing portal. New is you don’t have to retype your password, but SSO will do the trick. On the Subscription overview screen you see your subscriptions and the running costs. You can edit your profile and it is more easier to add a new subscription. Clicking on the subscription will result in more details about … Continue reading New Billing Portal for Windows Azure

SQL Azure Databases

By Marcel Meijer

When I do sessions on Windows Azure, then SQL Azure is always part of that. Most of the time remarks about the maximum sizes of SQL Azure database come from the audience. Quick summary. There are 2 SQL Azure editions available: Web and Business. I have not found any differences between the two, but perhaps this will come in the future. The Web edition comes in sizes of 1 Gb and 5 Gb. The Business edition starts at 10 Gb and ends with 50 Gb, in steps of 10 Gb. In December the maximum will be 150 Gb (here). The … Continue reading SQL Azure Databases

Windows Azure MVC 3 with Tools 1.4 (Profiling)

By Marcel Meijer

Like I posted in my previous blog post, I also checked the profiling option. So after I deployed the application and found out it really worked, I went to the Server Explorer. There you can connect to Windows Azure Compute and while clicking down, you can choose for View Profiling Report. Visual Studio gets busy and in the Windows Azure Activity log a new activity starts. At that point the data for the report is gathered form the Windows Azure tables with the tracing data. When this is finished you will see the report. Clicking on the link near the … Continue reading Windows Azure MVC 3 with Tools 1.4 (Profiling)

Windows Azure MVC 3 with Tools 1.4

By Marcel Meijer

One of the new things in Visual Studio Windows Azure tools 1.4 Augustus update (what a mouthful) is that MVC 3 is a standard WebRole. But also Profiling is now a serious option for debugging, besides the already present Web deploy possibility. So when I was playing with the Tools update, I took a vanilla MVC 3 WebRole and deployed this one to my second Hosted Service with all options. So with profiling on. If you select this option, you have to select a level of profiling. I choose CPU sampling, I will have a look at the other choices … Continue reading Windows Azure MVC 3 with Tools 1.4

Windows Azure Visual Studio Tools 1.4 Augustus update

By Marcel Meijer

As of today there is a update for the Windows Azure Visual Studio Tools. This update can be installed via the Microsoft Web platform Installer. More info: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/08/03/announcing-the-august-2011-release-of-the-windows-azure-tools-for-microsoft-visual-studio-2010.aspx Did you read my previous blog post on Windows Azure & Configuration transformation? Than you saw that the transformation for another environment was a bit of a hassle. My experience was also that is was not very reliable on different machines. But on the other hand if it works, it is perfect. Now the update of the Windows Azure Visual Studio tools make the transformation part quite a bit easier. When creating … Continue reading Windows Azure Visual Studio Tools 1.4 Augustus update

Windows Azure Scale UP – Scale OUT

By Marcel Meijer

Couple of days ago I had to explain a colleague at the customer side some things about Windows Azure. And of course Scalability comes around the corner. I saw myself drawing all kinds of pictures to make it clear. So I made a nice presentation, here are a few bits of it. But first some terminology. On the Windows Azure platform we know 5 different sizes of Virtual Machines. That is the SCALE UP. If you change the number of instances in ServiceConfiguration.csdfg from the default 1 to more, then we speak about SCALE OUT. Of course there are combination … Continue reading Windows Azure Scale UP – Scale OUT

SQL Azure Custom Logging to Windows Azure Table storage

By Marcel Meijer

At a Windows Azure customer of ours they keep track of changes on the tables in the SQL Azure database. This is done by a trigger, the trigger inserts the change in a table. I can not think of another solution without losing data or changes. But the downside of this, the logging space in SQL Azure costs a lot of money. This logging is only used for an analyses of a problem and the read frequency is rather low. And btw the data is not relational. So the space for this logging data in the SQL Azure database is … Continue reading SQL Azure Custom Logging to Windows Azure Table storage

Update Record in Windows Azure Table storage

By Marcel Meijer

As told in my previous Blogpost I kept a list of the Blob name and the LastModifiedUtc. To make this solution usable for more then one instances I stored this list in a Windows Azure storage table. So if I copied a Blob with a changed LastModifiedUtc, I had to update my list too. Adding a new record to the Table storage was rather simple. this.context.AddObject( BlobCheckListContext.BlobCheckListTable, newItem ); this.context.SaveChanges(); But for updating you need to do something little extra. Btw this also goes for a deletion. this.context.AttachTo( BlobCheckListContext.BlobCheckListTable, updatedItem, “*” ); this.context.UpdateObject(updatedItem); this.context.SaveChangesWithRetries( SaveChangesOptions.ReplaceOnUpdate ); So before updating of … Continue reading Update Record in Windows Azure Table storage

Windows Azure Blob storage Modified date

By Marcel Meijer

I made a solution for a customer where I copied blobs from Windows Azure Blobstorage to an different location on Windows Azure Blobstorage. But to be a bit efficient I was keeping a list of blobs I have copied already. This list contains a Last modified date. So I the Last modified date was not changed I did not copy etc. Smart and at first it looked rater simple. Take a Blob look at the property LastModifiedUtc and voila. blockBlob.Properties.LastModifiedUtc So with a blob I look in the list compare the LastModifiedUtc of the Blob with the one in the … Continue reading Windows Azure Blob storage Modified date