Category: microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure – Applications ”; Previous Next Windows Azure is usually misinterpreted as just a hosting solution, but there is a lot more that can be done using Windows Azure. It provides a platform to develop applications using a range of available technologies and programming languages. It offers to create and deploy applications using .net platform, which is Microsoft’s own application development technology. In addition to .net, there are many more technologies and languages supported. For example, Java, PHP, Ruby, Oracle, Linux, MySQL, Python. Windows Azure applications are scaled by creating multiple instances of the application. The number of instances needed by the application is specified by the developer while hosting the applications. If traffic is increased or decreased on the website or web application it can be managed easily by logging in to Windows Azure management portal and specifying the instances. Load balancing can also be automated which would allow Azure to make the decision itself as when to assign more resources to application. Web applications support .net, java, python, php and node.js. Tasks such as scaling and backups can be easily automated. A new feature called ‘webjobs’ is available, which is a kind of batch processing service. Webjobs can also be scaled and scheduled. The mobile application platforms supported are Xamarin iOS, Xamarin Android and IOS. Azure platform is developed in such a way that developers need to concentrate on only the development part and need not worry about other technical stuff outside their domain. Thus most of the administrative work is done by Azure itself. A marketplace is also set by Azure where its customers can buy applications and services. It is a platform where customers can search applications and deploy them in an easier way. Azure marketplace is available in 88 countries at present. An application purchased from the marketplace can be easily connected to the local development environment by the application developers. The pricing is done using 5 different models, which includes usage-based and monthly fee. Some of the applications are even free of charge. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Tables ”; Previous Next Storing a table does not mean relational database here. Azure Storage can store just a table without any foreign keys or any other kind of relation. These tables are highly scalable and ideal for handling large amount of data. Tables can be stored and queried for large amount of data. The relational database can be stored using SQL Data Services, which is a separate service. The three main parts of service are − Tables Entities Properties For example, if ‘Book’ is an entity, its properties will be Id, Title, Publisher, Author etc. Table will be created for a collection of entities. There can be 252 custom properties and 3 system properties. An entity will always have system properties which are PartitionKey, RowKey and Timestamp. Timestamp is system generated but you will have to specify the PartitionKey and RowKey while inserting data into the table. The example below will make it clearer. Table name and Property name is case sensitive which should always be considered while creating a table. How to Manage Tables Using PowerShell Step 1 − Download and install Windows PowerShell as discussed previously in the tutorial. Step 2 − Right-click on ‘Windows PowerShell’, choose ‘Pin to Taskbar’ to pin it on the taskbar of your computer. Step 3 − Choose ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Creating a Table Step 1 − Copy the following commands and paste into the screen. Replace the highlighted text with your account. Step 2 − Login into your account. $StorageAccountName = “mystorageaccount” $StorageAccountKey = “mystoragekey” $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $StorageAccountName – StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey Step 3 − Create a new table. $tabName = “Mytablename” New-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx The following image shows a table being created by the name of ‘book’. You can see that it has given the following end point as a result. https://tutorialspoint.table.core.windows.net/Book Similarly, you can retrieve, delete and insert data into the table using preset commands in PowerShell. Retrieve Table $tabName = “Book” Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx Delete Table $tabName = “Book” Remove-AzureStorageTable –Name $tabName –Context $Ctx Insert rows into Table function Add-Entity() { [CmdletBinding()] param( $table, [String]$partitionKey, [String]$rowKey, [String]$title, [Int]$id, [String]$publisher, [String]$author ) $entity = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.DynamicTableEntity -ArgumentList $partitionKey, $rowKey $entity.Properties.Add(“Title”, $title) $entity.Properties.Add(“ID”, $id) $entity.Properties.Add(“Publisher”, $publisher) $entity.Properties.Add(“Author”, $author) $result = $table.CloudTable.Execute( [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Insert($entity)) } $StorageAccountName = “tutorialspoint” $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey -StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext $StorageAccountName – StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary $TableName = “Book” $table = Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $TableName -Context $Ctx -ErrorAction Ignore #Add multiple entities to a table. Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition1 -RowKey Row1 -Title .Net -Id 1 -Publisher abc -Author abc Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition2 -RowKey Row2 -Title JAVA -Id 2 -Publisher abc -Author abc Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition3 -RowKey Row3 -Title PHP -Id 3 -Publisher xyz -Author xyz Add-Entity -Table $table -PartitionKey Partition4 -RowKey Row4 -Title SQL -Id 4 -Publisher xyz -Author xyz Retrieve Table Data $StorageAccountName = “tutorialspoint” $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName – StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary; $TableName = “Book” #Get a reference to a table. $table = Get-AzureStorageTable –Name $TableName -Context $Ctx #Create a table query. $query = New-Object Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableQuery #Define columns to select. $list = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.List[string] $list.Add(“RowKey”) $list.Add(“ID”) $list.Add(“Title”) $list.Add(“Publisher”) $list.Add(“Author”) #Set query details. $query.FilterString = “ID gt 0” $query.SelectColumns = $list $query.TakeCount = 20 #Execute the query. $entities = $table.CloudTable.ExecuteQuery($query) #Display entity properties with the table format. $entities | Format-Table PartitionKey, RowKey, @{ Label = “Title”; Expression={$_.Properties[“Title”].StringValue}}, @{ Label = “ID”; Expression={$_.Properties[“ID”].Int32Value}}, @{ Label = “Publisher”; Expression={$_.Properties[“Publisher”].StringValue}}, @{ Label = “Author”; Expression={$_.Properties[“Author”].StringValue}} -AutoSize The output will be as shown in the following image. Delete Rows from Table $StorageAccountName = “tutorialspoint” $StorageAccountKey = Get-AzureStorageKey – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName $Ctx = New-AzureStorageContext – StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName – StorageAccountKey $StorageAccountKey.Primary #Retrieve the table. $TableName = “Book” $table = Get-AzureStorageTable -Name $TableName -Context $Ctx -ErrorAction Ignore #If the table exists, start deleting its entities. if ($table -ne $null) { #Together the PartitionKey and RowKey uniquely identify every #entity within a table. $tableResult = $table.CloudTable.Execute( [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Retrieve(“Partition1”, “Row1”)) $entity = $tableResult.Result; if ($entity -ne $null) { $table.CloudTable.Execute( [Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Table.TableOperation] ::Delete($entity)) } } The above script will delete the first row from the table, as you can see that we have specified Partition1 and Row1 in the script. After you are done with deleting the row, you can check the result by running the script for retrieving rows. There you will see that the first row is deleted. While running these commands please ensure that you have replaced the accountname with your account name, accountkey with your account key. How to Manage Table using Azure Storage Explorer Step 1 − Login in to your Azure account and go to your storage account. Step 2 − Click on the link ‘Storage explorer’ as shown in purple circle in the following image. Step 3 − Choose ‘Azure Storage Explorer for Windows’ from the list. It is a free tool that you can download and install on your computer. Step 4 − Run this program on your computer and click ‘Add Account’ button at the top. Step 5 − Enter ‘Storage Account Name’ and ‘Storage account Key’ and click ‘Test Access. The buttons are encircled in following image. Step 6 − If you already have any tables in storage you will see in the left panel under ‘Tables’. You can see the rows by clicking on them. Create a Table Step 1 − Click on ‘New’ and enter the table name as shown in the following image. Insert Row into Table Step 1 − Click on ‘New’. Step 2 − Enter Field Name. Step 3 − Select data type from dropdown and enter field value. Step 4 − To see the rows created click on the table name in the left panel. Azure Storage Explorer is very basic and easy interface to manage tables. You can easily create, delete, upload, and download tables using this interface. This makes the tasks very easy for developers as compared to writing lengthy scripts in Windows PowerShell.

Microsoft Azure – CDN ”; Previous Next Caching is one of the ways for performance improvement. Windows Azure uses caching to increase the speed of cloud services. Content Delivery Network (CDN) puts stuff like blobs and other static content in a cache. The process involves placing the data at strategically chosen locations and caching it. As a result, it provides maximum bandwidth for its delivery to users. Let’s assume an application’s source is far away from the end user and many tours are taken over the internet to fetch data; the CDN offers a very competent solution to improve performance in this case. Additionally, it scales the instant high load in a very efficient manner. Create a CDN Step 1 − Login in to your Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click on ”New” at bottom left corner. Step 3 − Select ‘APP Services’ then ‘CDN’. Step 4 − Click on ‘Quick Create’. The following screen will come up. You will see three fields in the pop up − Subscription − There will be a list of subscriptions you have subscribed to and you can choose from one of them. In this demo, only one option was there in the subscription dropdown, which was ‘BizSpark’, the current subscription. Origin Type − This dropdown will ask to select an origin type. The integrated service will have an option of Web Apps, Cloud Services, Storage and Media Services. Origin URL − This will show the URLs based on the chosen origin type in the dropdown. Step 5 − Choose one of the options from each dropdown as needed and click ‘Create’. CDN endpoint is created as show in the following image. Create CDN for Custom Origin Links In June 2015, CDN was updated with one more feature where users can specify a custom origin. Earlier only Azure services could be linked to CDN, but now any website can be linked to it using this service. When we are create a CDN service, in the ‘Origin Type’ dropdown, there is an option ‘Custom Origin’ as shown in the following image, and then you can specify the link in the URL field. Manage CDN Step 1 − Click on the Name of the CDN you want to manage in the list displayed in CDN services. Step 2 − Click on ‘manage cdn’. Country filtering − You can allow/bock your website in specified countries. This is going to protect your data for better. Step 3 − When you click on ‘manage cdn’ you will be taken to the following page in a new tab of your browser. Step 4 − Click on ‘Country Filtering’ from menu items at the top of screen. Click on ‘Add Country Filter’ button as shown in the following image. Step 5 − Specify the directory and select Allow/block. Step 6 − Select the country in the next screen and you are done. Compression − It allows files to be compressed. You can enable/disable compression. Also you can specify the file type. Step 7 − Click on ‘Cache Setting’ and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Step 8 − Select ‘Compression Enabled’ and click ‘Update’ button. By default, compression is disabled. Analytics − You can see very useful figures in this section. For example, number of overall hits or in a specific geographic region. The report will also show how many times requests are served from CDN endpoints and how many of them are going back to the original server. Step 9 − Click on ‘Analytics’ in menu items at the top of the page. You will see a list of all the reports in the left panel as shown in the following image. Step 10 − Additionally, you can download the report as an excel file by clicking on the excel icon at the top right corner. Map a Custom Domain Name You might want to use a custom domain name instead of CDN endpoint that is autogenerated by Azure service. Windows Azure has provided a new feature that allows you to map a custom domain name to his application’s CDN endpoint. Let’s see how it is done in Azure Portal. Step 1 − Click on ‘Manage Domain’ Button on the bottom horizontal menu. Step 2 − Enter the custom URL in the text box and its done. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Traffic Manager ”; Previous Next Let us first understand what is the service provided by Azure traffic manager. Basically, this service balances the traffic load of services hosted in Azure. The routing policy is defined by the client and traffic to the services hosted in Azure is redirected according to set policies. Traffic manager is a DNS-based service. Thus, it will improve the availability and performance applications. Let’s see how to create and configure traffic manager in Azure. Create Traffic Manager Step 1 − Login to Azure management portal and click ‘New’ at the bottom left corner. Step 2 − Select Network Services → Traffic Manager → Quick Create. Step 3 − Enter the DNS prefix and select the Load Balancing Method. There are three options in this dropdown. Performance − This option is ideal when you have endpoints in two different locations. When a DNS is requested, it is redirected to the region closest to the user. Round Robin − This option is ideal when you want to distribute the traffic among multiple endpoints. Traffic is distributed in round robin fashion by selecting a healthy endpoint. Failover − In this option, a primary access point is set up, but in case of failure alternate endpoints are made available as backup. Step 4 − Based on your needs you can choose a load balancing method. Let’s choose performance here. Step 5 − Click create. You will see the traffic manager created and displayed in your management portal. Its status will be inactive until it is configured. Create Endpoints to be Monitored via Traffic Manager Step 1 − Select the ‘Traffic Manager’ from the left panel in the management portal that you want to work on. Step 2 − Select ‘Endpoints’ from the top horizontal menu as shown in the following image. Then select ‘Add Endpoints’. Step 3 − The screen shown in the following image will appear. Choose the service type and items under that service will be listed. Step 4 − Select the service endpoints and proceed. Step 5 − The service endpoints will be provisioned. You can see that in this case, the service ‘tutorialsPointVM’ created in Azure will now be monitored by the traffic manager and its traffic will be redirected according to the specified policy. Configure the Policy Step 1 − Click on ‘Configure’ in the top menu bar as shown in the following image. Step 2 − Enter the DNS Time to Live (TIL). It is the amount of time for which a client/user will continue to use a particular endpoint. For example, if you enter 40 seconds the traffic manager will be queried after every 40 seconds for the changes in the traffic management system. Step 3 − You can change the load balancing method here by choosing a desired method from the dropdown. Here, let’s choose ‘Performance’ as chosen earlier. Step 4 − If you scroll down, you will see heading ‘Monitoring Setting’. You can choose the protocol; enter port number and relative path for a service to be monitored. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – PowerShell ”; Previous Next PowerShell is a framework or you can say an interface built by Azure team that lets the user to automate and manage Windows Azure services. It is a command line tool that uses the scripts or cmdlets to perform tasks such as creating and managing storage accounts or Virtual Machines that can easily be done using the preset commands. Installing Azure PowerShell Step 1 − Login into Azure Management Portal. Step 2 − Click ‘Downloads’. Step 3 − In the following screen, locate ‘command-line tools’ and then ‘Windows Azure PowerShell’. Click ‘Install’ listed under it to download the setup and install it. Alternatively, you can visit the link http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads/ Connecting to Your Subscription Once you have installed Azure PowerShell, you will have to connect it to your Azure subscription. Step 1 − Locate Microsoft ‘Azure PowerShell’ in your programs. Step 2 − Pin it to the taskbar. You can run it as ISE by pinning it to the taskbar in Windows 8. Somehow, if it doesn’t show the option of ‘Run ISE as Administrator’ it is in programs. ISE lets copy paste commands easily. Step 3 − Right-click on ‘Microsoft Azure PowerShell’ and select ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Connect to Your Azure Account Using Active Directory To get started with Azure tasks, you will have to first add your Azure account to PowerShell. You just have to perform this step once on your computer and every time you run Azure PowerShell, it will connect to the account automatically. Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlet in PowerShell. Add-AzureAccount Step 2 − The screen shown in the following image will pop up and ask for credentials of your account. Enter the credentials and sign in. Step 3 − Now you are ready to perform tasks in Azure using Azure PowerShell. Using Certificate In this method, you can download a certificate on your machine and login to our account using that certificate. Step 1 − Enter the following cmdlet in PowerShell. You will be prompted to save a file and the file will be downloaded on your computer with the extension. publishsettings. Get-AzurePublishSettingsFile You will see a similar file on your computer. Step 2 − Enter the following cmdlet. Highlighted part is the path of the file downloaded in previous step. Also replace the name of the file with yours Import-AzurePublishSettingsFile C:UsersSahilDownloadsBizSpark-11-5-2015credentials.publishsettings Step 3 − Just to make sure that everything has gone right. Run the following cmdlet. It will display the details of your account and subscription. Get-AzureAccount Get-AzureSubscription You can add many accounts to Azure PowerShell. Remove Azure Account Run the following cmdlets. Replace the highlighted part with your account ID. It will ask for your confirmation and it is done. Remove-AzureAccount -Name [email protected] Get Help The following cmdlet will list all the commands available for Azure tasks. Get-Help Azure There are lots of tasks that can be managed using PowerShell such as creating and managing web applications, storage accounts, virtual machines, etc. In fact, many users find it quicker and better as compared to Azure Management Portal. To manage the Azure Storage using PowerShell refer to Table, Blobs and Queues chapter in this tutorial. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Blobs ”; Previous Next Let us first understand what a Blob is. The word ‘Blob’ expands to Binary Large OBject. Blobs include images, text files, videos and audios. There are three types of blobs in the service offered by Windows Azure namely block, append and page blobs. Block blobs are collection of individual blocks with unique block ID. The block blobs allow the users to upload large amount of data. Append blobs are optimized blocks that helps in making the operations efficient. Page blobs are compilation of pages. They allow random read and write operations. While creating a blob, if the type is not specified they are set to block type by default. All the blobs must be inside a container in your storage. Here is how to create a container in Azure storage. Create a Container Step 1 − Go to Azure portal and then in your storage account. Step 2 − Create a container by clicking ‘Create new container’ as shown in following image. There are three options in the Access dropdown which sets the permission of who can access the blobs. ‘Private’ option will let only the account owner to access it. ‘Public Container’ will allow anonymous access to all the contents of that container. ‘Public blob’ option will set open access to blob but won’t allow access to the container. Upload a Blob using PowerShell Step 1 − Go to ‘Windows PowerShell’ in the taskbar and right-click. Choose ‘Run ISE as Administrator’. Step 2 − Following command will let you access your account. You have to change the fields highlighted in all the commands. $context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName tutorialspoint StorageAccountKey iUZNeeJD+ChFHt9XHL6D5rkKFWjzyW4FhV0iLyvweDi+Xtzfy76juPzJ+mWtDmbqCWjsu/nr+1pqBJj rdOO2+A== Step 3 − Run the following command. This will get you the details of you Azure account. This will make sure that your subscription is all set. Get-AzureSubscription Step 4 − Run the following command to upload your file. Set-AzureStorageBlobContent -Blob Montiorlog.png -Container images -File “E:MyPicturesMonitorLog.png” -Context $context -Force Step 5 − To check if the file is uploaded, run the following command. Get-AzureStorageBlob -Container $ContainerName -Context $ctx | Select Name Download a Blob Step 1 − Set the directory where you want to download the file. $localTargetDirectory = “C:UsersSahilDownloads” Step 2 − Download it. $BlobName = “Montiorlog.png” Get-AzureStorageBlobContent -Blob $BlobName Container $ContainerName -Destination $localTargetDirectory -Context $ctx Remember the following − All command names and file names are case sensitive. Commands should be in one line or should be continued in the next line by appending ` in the preceding line (`is continuation character in PowerShell) Manage Blobs using Azure Storage Explorer Managing blobs is pretty simple using ‘Azure Storage Explorer’ interface as it is just like Windows files and folder explorer. You can create a new container, upload blobs, see them in a listed format, and download them. Moreover, you can copy them to a secondary location in a very simple manner with this interface. The following image makes the process clear. As can be seen, once an account is added, we can select it from the dropdown and get going. It makes operating Azure storage very easy. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Storage ”; Previous Next The Storage component of Windows Azure represents a durable store in the cloud. Windows Azure allows developers to store tables, blobs, and message queues. The storage can be accessed through HTTP. You can also create our own client; although Windows Azure SDK provides a client library for accessing the Storage. In this chapter, we will learn how to create a Windows Azure Storage account and use it for storing data. Creating Azure Storage Account Step 1 − When you login into your Azure account, you can find ‘Storage’ under ‘Data Services’. Step 2 − Click on ‘Quick Create’ and it will ask for ‘Account Name’. You can see there are four options in the ‘Replication’ dropdown. A copy of the data is kept so that it is durable and available at high speed. It is retained even in case of hardware failure. Let’s see what these options mean − Locally redundant storage − Copy of the data is created in the same region where storage account is created. There are 3 copies of each request made against the data that resides on separate domains. Zone-redundant storage (available for blobs only) − Copy of the data is created on separate facilities either in the same region or across two regions. The advantage is that even if there is failure on one facility, the data still can be retained. Three copies of data are created. One more advantage is that data can be read from a secondary location. Geo-redundant storage − `Copy is created in a different region which means data is retained even if there is a failure in the complete region. The numbers of copies of data created are 6 in this case. Read-access geo-redundant storage − This option allows reading of data from a secondary location when data on the primary location is not available. The number of copies created is 6. The main advantage here is that availability of data can be maximized. There are different price plans for each replication option and the ‘Local Redundant’ is the cheapest of them all. So, choosing the replication of data depends on the cost and individual requirements. Storage Account Endpoints Step 1 − Click on the ‘Storage Account’ it will take you to the next screen. Step 2 − Click on ‘Dashboard’ from top horizontal menu. Here you can see four items under services. You can create blobs, tables, queues and files in this storage account. There will a unique URL for each object. For example, here account name is ‘tutorialspoint’ then the default URL for blob is https://tutorialspoint.blob.core.windows.net Similarly, replace blob with table, queue and file in the URL to get the respective URLs. To access an object in the location is appended in the URL. For example, http://tutorialspoint.blob.core.windows.net/container1/blob1 Generating an Access Key Access key is used to authenticate the access to the storage account. Two access keys are provided in order to access the account without interrupting it, in case, one key has to be regenerated. To get the Access Keys, click on ‘Manage Access Keys’ in your storage account. The following screen will come up. Regenerating the key at regular intervals is advised for security reasons. Managing Data to Azure Storage How can you upload or download data to Azure store? There are many ways to do it, but it can’t be done within the Azure portal itself. You will have to either create your own application or use an already built tool. There are many tools available for accessing the data in an explorer that can be accessed by clicking on ‘Storage Explorer’ under ‘Get the Tools’ in your Azure storage account. Alternatively, an application can also be built using Software Development Kit (SDK) available in Windows Azure Portal. Using the PowerShell commands is also an option to upload data. PowerShell is a command line application that facilitates administering and managing the Azure storage. Preset commands are used for different tasks to manage the storage. You can install PowerShell by going to ‘Downloads’ on the following screen in your account. You will find it under Command-Line tools. There are specific commands for each task. You can manage you storage account, create a new account, and create a container. Additionally, blobs, tables, queues messages can also be managed using PowerShell. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Components ”; Previous Next Categorizing the services would help you understand Azure better. These categories are termed as ‘Components’ in this tutorial. The Individual components are explained with detailed pictures in subsequent chapters. Compute / Execution Models This is the interface for executing the application, which is one of the basic functions of Azure. As seen in the above image, there are different models such as Web App, Virtual Machine, Mobile Service, Cloud Service, and Batch Service. These models can be used either separately or in combination as per the requirement. Data Management Data management can be done by using SQL server Database component or the simple data storage module offered by Windows Azure. SQL server database can be used for relational database. The storage module can store unrelated tables (without foreign key or any relation) and blobs. Blobs include binary data in the form of images, audio, video, and text files. Networking Azure traffic manager routes the requests of a user intelligently to an available datacenter. The process involves finding the nearest datacenter to the user who makes the request for web application, and if the nearest datacenter is not available due to various reasons, the traffic manager deviates the request to another datacenter. However, rules are set by the owner of the application as to how a traffic manager should behave. The virtual network is another feature that is part of networking in services offered by Windows Azure. The virtual network allows a network between local machines at your premise and virtual machine in Azure Datacenter. IPs to virtual machines can be assigned in a way that makes them appear to be residing in your own premise. The virtual network is set up using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) device. The following image shows how these two features actually look in Azure portal. Big Data and Big Compute The large amount of data can be stored and managed using Windows Azure. Azure offers HDInsight which is Hadoop-based service. Organizations often need to manage large amount of data which is necessarily not relational database management. Hadoop is a prominent technology used these days. Thus, Azure offers Hadoop service on their platform for clients. The term ‘Big Compute’ refers to high performing computations. This is achieved by executing code on many machines at the same time. Messaging Windows Azure offers two options for handling the interactions between two apps. One falls under storage component of the service and is called ”Message Queues”. The other one comes under the app service and is called ”Service Bus”. The messages can be sent to initiate communication among different components of an application or among different applications using these two options. Caching Microsoft Azure offers two kinds of caching which are in-memory Caching and Content Delivery Network (CDN) for caching frequently accessed data and improves the application performance. CDN is used to cache the blob data that will be accessed faster by users around the world. Identity and Access This component is about management of users, authentication and authorization. Active directory stores the information of users accessing the application and also the organization’s information. It can synchronize with the related information on local machines residing on premises. Multifactor Access (MFA) service is built to address the security concerns such as only the right user can access the application. Mobile Service Windows Azure offers a very easy platform to develop mobile application. You can simply start using mobile development tools after logging into your account. You don’t have to write big custom codes for the mobile application if you use this service. The push notifications can be sent, data can be stored and users can be authenticated in very less time. Backup The site recovery service replicates the data at secondary location as well as automates the process of recovery of data in case of data outage. Similarly Azure backup can be used to backing up the on premise data in clouds. Data is stored in encrypted mode in both the cases. Windows Azure offers a very effective and reliable backup service to clients and ensures they don’t face inconvenience in case of hardware failures. Media This service addresses multiple concerns related to uploading media and making it available to end users easily. Users can manage tasks related to the media like encoding, ad insertion, streaming, etc. easily. Commerce Windows Azure offers the opportunity to users to buy or sell applications and data through their platform. The applications are put in the marketplace or Azure store from where they can be accessed and bought by other users. Software Development Kit (SDK) Azure applications can be produced by the developers in various programming languages. Microsoft currently provides language-specific SDKs for Java, .NET, PHP, Node.js, Ruby, and Python. There is also a general Windows Azure SDK that supports language, such as C++. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Azure – Compute Module ”; Previous Next In the last chapter, we explained how to create an Azure account. In this chapter, you will find step by step explanation of each component − Step 1 − First, login in to your Azure account. Step 2 − Click ‘New’ at the left bottom corner and drag your cursor to ‘Compute‘. Now you will see a list of models under Compute Model as shown in the following image. Create a Web App Step 1 − Click Web App. Step 2 − Click Quick Create and enter the URL and choose a service plan from the dropdown list as shown in the following image. When you go back to the main screen, it will show the website just created. And when you click the website URL, it will take you to the website. The following image shows how your website will look when you click the URL. Similarly, you can choose ‘From Gallery’ when creating a web app instead of ‘Quick Create’. This will let you choose the development framework in which you want to create your app. Windows Azure supports .Net, Java, PHP, Python, Node.js and Ruby. There are several ways of publishing the code to Azure server. It can be published using FTP, FTPs, Microsoft Web Deploy technology. Various source control tools such as GitHub, Dropbox and Codeplex can also be used to publish the code. It provides a very interactive interface to keep track of changes that have been published already and also unpublished changes. Create a Virtual Machine Step 1 − Click on ‘Virtual Machine’ from the list. Step 2 − Then click ‘From Gallery’. Step 3 − Choose the Operating System or Program you want to run. Step 4 − Choose the configuration and fill in the details. The Username and Password you set up here will be needed to access the virtual machine every time. On the next two screens you can leave the default values on for the first time. Step 5 − The virtual machine just created will be displayed when you click on ‘Virtual Machine’ on the left panel as shown in following image. It might take a few minutes to show up. Step 6 − Once the machine is created you can connect to it by clicking on the connect icon displayed at the bottom of the screen. It will save a .rpd file on your machine as shown in the following image. Chose ‘save file’ on the screen and it will save in ‘downloads’ or the in the set location on your machine. Step 7 − Open that .rpd file and you can connect to the VM by filling in the credentials into the following screen. You can also use your own image by capturing the image of an existing virtual machine or virtual hard drive. Virtual machines are beneficial in several ways. A user can try new operating system without actually installing them. A VM can be deleted when you are done with the operating system. New versions of an operating system can be tried and tested before the user installs them on the machine. VM provides a very economical and hassle free way of using a development framework or a tool that runs on specific version of OS. Creating a Mobile Service Mobile services compute hosting model is optimized to provide a cloud backend for applications that run on mobile devices. For creating a mobile service − Step 1 − Select Mobile services under Compute and click on create. A new window will be open as shown in the following image. Step 2 − Fill in the URL. Select the database, region and backend. Step 3 − Tick the check box if you want to configure the advance push settings. This option allows us to configure our Mobile Service to use an existing notification hub or specify the name of a new one. If you leave this checkbox unmarked, a new hub will be created in a new namespace with a default name. Creating Batch Service Batch service is needed when a large scale application is run and a parallel high performing computing is required. The developers can create batches to run a task parallel that eases the workload at no extra cost. Azure charges for only the virtual machines which are being used. They can schedule a task, put them in queues and manage the workload in cloud. Batch creation does not involve setting up a separate VM, cluster or job scheduling. To creating a batch service follow the similar steps for creating other services under Compute model. The following image shows how a batch service can be created quickly. Once you have created a batch service, you can see the details by selecting it from the left panel. The following image pops up on the screen. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;