Using SkyDrive (or OneDrive) for Source Code

14th of January, 2013 / / 5 Comments

I don’t keep anything on my laptop and haven’t done for some time. Of course there is the very simple problem of losing a device or a hard disk, but now, with the advent of multiple virtual machines and physical devices, I find myself working on a large number of different machines that may or may not be on my physical laptop. That means I need a home for source code that is available from many machines and backed up somewhere safe.… [Keep reading] “Using SkyDrive (or OneDrive) for Source Code”

Build a RESTful Router using WCF (Browse Azure Table Storage with Excel)

9th of November, 2012 / / 11 Comments

In the Visualise Azure Table Storage with Excel and Fiddler I described how to use Fiddler as a handy proxy that can be used to inject the protocol differences between standard oData and the non-standard oData supported by Azure Table storage. While Fiddler is a handy desktop tool to illustrate the solution, it is not really appropriate as a part of a system architecture. A simple request to host the same Azure Table Storage to oData functionality as a hosted service lead me down a long and windy road in the world of WCF, but one worth documenting.… [Keep reading] “Build a RESTful Router using WCF (Browse Azure Table Storage with Excel)”

A Better Dynamic TableServiceEntity

30th of September, 2012 / / 3 Comments

When working with Azure Table Storage the recommended class to use is the provided TableServiceEntity class. This abstract class is designed to be inherited from in the data class which then requires the implementation of PartitionKey, RowKey and the addition of the attribute DataServiceKey which tells the underlying persistence system which properties map to those mandatory Azure Table Storage columns; like this:

[DataServiceKey(“PartitionKey”, “RowKey”)]
public class DomainClass : TableServiceEntity
{
   public DomainClass(): base(“PartitionKey”, “1”)
   {
   }
   public string PropertyOne { get; set; }
   public string PropertyTwo { get; set; }
} 

There are plenty of blogs on the .NET… [Keep reading] “A Better Dynamic TableServiceEntity”

Add oData Paging to Azure Table Storage

23rd of September, 2012 / / 2 Comments

After reading my previous blog, one of my Kloud colleagues raised a good point:

“What about continuation tokens?”

“Hmm, not sure, let me check. They should just pass through.”

Not so much.

Continuation tokens are used by the Azure Table Storage API as a way to move through a result set which may be larger than the maximum (1000) or has been limited using a $top parameter. Sure enough, a quick check shows that the previous solution is limited to 1000 rows in Excel.… [Keep reading] “Add oData Paging to Azure Table Storage”

Visualise Azure Table Storage with Excel and Fiddler

19th of September, 2012 / / 6 Comments

Today I came across an interesting problem;

I’m a big fan of Table Storage but its potential is yet to be realised because the tool support just isn’t a match for databases. We’ve got a solution which lays down a lot of data into Azure Table storage but the options to view that data is limited. There are plenty of available viewers including Visual Studio, Azure Storage Explorer and others. The problem with all of these viewers is they are limited to plain old tablular data views.… [Keep reading] “Visualise Azure Table Storage with Excel and Fiddler”

Configuring ASP.NET 4.5 for Windows Azure Active Directory

14th of July, 2012 / / 6 Comments

Yesterday, the Active Directory team announced the Developer Preview of Windows Azure Active Directory (AD). Windows Azure AD is Identity Management as a Service. Today, it is the identity provider for Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online, and Windows Intune. The Developer Preview enables developers to implement Web Single Sign-On (SSO) for Software as a Service, and line-of-business, and cloud applications.

With the new announcement, Vittorio Bertocci published a deep-dive article that describes Web SSO with Windows Azure AD.… [Keep reading] “Configuring ASP.NET 4.5 for Windows Azure Active Directory”

Windows Azure Connect compatibility on Windows 8/2012 Release Preview

17th of June, 2012 / / 6 Comments

We recently had the need to connect local endpoint to an Azure instance as part of a scalable load testing rig. To do this remote Visual Studio load test Agents are installed in a Web Role and connect back to a local Controller located somewhere closer to Visual Studio so we can generate *lots* of traffic close to the target application but get results back in Visual Studio.

Running Visual Studio 12 and Windows 8 Release Preview sometimes adds to the complexity.… [Keep reading] “Windows Azure Connect compatibility on Windows 8/2012 Release Preview”

Publish Content to the Azure CDN with URLRewrite

23rd of May, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Content Delivery Network

A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers that will cache and serve content from edge nodes closer to the user’s browser. By utilising this functionality websites can offload much of their static content delivery to those servers saving valuable web processing and bandwidth for core business related activities and giving the user a better online experience.

A CDN should be considered for delivering content for Internet workloads that exhibit:

  • Static or slow changing content
  • Content shared by many users
  • Geographically dispersed users
  • Ad-hoc or irregular usage (and therefore don’t get the benefit of the browser cache)
  • Expensive or saturated bandwidth connections

One or more of these characteristics is an indicator that a CDN may be a worthwhile investment, but the investment need not be a large one.… [Keep reading] “Publish Content to the Azure CDN with URLRewrite”