Class overview :

Class goals :

• Build scalable, fault-tolerant and secure cloud-based applications using the Windows Azure Platform
• Leverage existing knowledge of Visual Studio and .NET to develop applications for the cloud
• Create, deploy, configure and monitor ASP.NET applications that run in the Azure cloud
• Host Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services using Azure
• Employ worker roles and queues for asynchronous processing
• Create and access SQL Azure databases for cloud-based storage

Content of Windows Azure Platform Introduction: Programming Cloud-Based Applications

Introduction to Azure Features and Services

• Scalablity
• Fault tolerance
• Security
• Affordability
• Cloud-based storage
• AppFabric
• SQL Azure

Developing Azure Applications with Visual Studio

Creating a Windows Azure program

• Registering a Windows Azure account
• Building Azure projects in Visual Studio
• Adding Web and Worker roles
• Programming ASP.NET applications for Azure

Uploading and testing Azure applications

• Testing applications using the development fabric
• Publishing an Azure application
• Configuring Azure applications

Saving data with Azure blob storage

• Configuring blob storage locally and for the cloud
• Adding blob containers
• Saving, listing, accessing and deleting blobs

Storing structured data using Azure tables

• Configuring table storage
• Creating entities
• Controlling concurrency and transactions

Migrating ASP.NET Applications to Azure

Deploying Azure applications to production

• Monitoring and debugging cloud-based applications
• Scaling Azure applications
• Reconfiguring Azure applications

Customizing Web Forms security for Azure

• Employing Azure-enabled membership and role providers
• Configuring access rules and roles
• Leveraging ASP.NET login controls within Azure
• Implementing transport security with SSL

Enabling ASP.NET sessions and profiles for Azure

• Investigating design considerations for Azure Web applications
• Writing sessions to Azure storage
• Modifying profile configuration for Azure

Building Service-Oriented Azure Applications

Hosting WCF services with Azure

• Adding WCF services to an ASP.NET application
• Creating a WCF Service Web Role
• Programming WCF interfaces, attributes and configuration
• Implementing a WCF service

Building interoperable Azure services

• Locating Azure services
• Adding service references
• Setting WCF bindings
• Accessing Azure services using SOAP or REST
• Employing Azure services from WPF, Silverlight and non-.NET environments

Leveraging Azure for Asynchronous Computing

Adding worker roles to Visual Studio projects

• Asynchronous background processing
• Communicating between roles
• Polling for worker completion using Ajax

Implementing queue storage for messaging

• Sending messages to queues
• Serializing objects for queues
• Reading queued messages

SQL Azure Cloud-Based Storage

Overview of SQL Azure

• Creating a SQL Azure account
• Identifying the differences between SQL Azure and SQL Server
• SQL Azure tool support

Migrating to a SQL Azure database

• Building tables
• Consuming SQL Azure data
• Synchronizing data sources with Microsoft Sync Framework

Implementing AppFabric

Distributing applications with the service bus

• Registering services via the service bus
• Sending messages using the service bus

Controlling access using AppFabric

• Supported standards
• Authenticating and authorizing users