What’s New for the Windows Azure Developer? Lots!!

July 2012

About Me

Michael S. Collier

National Architect,

Windows Azure

michael.collier@neudesic.com

@MichaelCollier

www.MichaelSCollier.com

What Are We Talking About?

• Meet Windows Azure & TechEd Key Announcements• Windows Azure Web Sites• Windows Azure Virtual Machines• Windows Azure Storage• Visual Studio Tools Updates• Miscellaneous Bits of Awesomesauce

Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS)

Create a Web Site in Seconds

Simple Your Choice FastCreate a web site your self

ASP, ASP.NET PHP, node.js

Deployment in seconds (TFS, Git, FTP, WebDeploy)

Select from a gallery Develop on Windows, OSX, and Linux

Dashboard monitoring

Rapid Scalability

DEMOWindows Azure Web Sites

Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS)

Source: TechEd NA - Windows Azure Web Sites - Under the Hood (AZR305)

Scaling Options with WAWS

• Ability to set app settings via portal– Merges from web.config and that which is stored in DB

• Custom domain name – use Reserved• No SSL support . . . yet

Shared ReservedSingle tenant in a multi-tenant pool

Just you

Scale to handle more requests; not increase performance

Scale to increase performance – can pick more and larger VMs.

Quota limit No quota limit10 for free Pay by hour

Windows Azure Virtual Machines

Easy Options for Getting Started

1. Create new VM from image in VM Image Gallery

2. Customize image and capture for future use (cloud composition)

3. Image Portability

Provision via Image Gallery

• Getting Started– Management Portal– Scripting (PowerShell, CLIs)

• Pick Image and VM Size– XS, Small, Medium, Large or XL– Microsoft

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1• Windows Server 2012 RC• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 w/ SQL Server Evaluation Edition

– Linux• MySuse• CentOS• OpenSUSE• Ubuntu

• Save to Blob Storage

Virtual Machines

• Disk Management– OS Disk– Data Disk

• Store your application data• Max of 1TB in size and 16 disks (varies by VM size)

• SLA– 99.95% for multi-instance roles– 99.9% for single instance (coming soon)

• You manage the system– SCOM– 3rd party mgmt tools like RightScale and OpsCode

• Mixed Mode (PaaS + IaaS == Better Together)

WINDOWS AZURE VIRTUAL MACHINES

Demo

So Many Choices! When do I use what?

Web Sites Web Roles (Cloud Services) Virtual Machines

Modern Web Apps• “Basic” web apps or services• Uses SQL Database• Scale out or up on demand

Multi-tier Applications• Web and worker roles• Scale independently

Server Applications• SQL Server• SharePoint• Active Directory• MySQL• MongoDB

Continuous Deployment• Git• Team Foundation Service

Advanced Administration• Admin access• Remote Desktop• Elevated privileges• Startup tasks/scripts• IIS Configuration

VHD – Image or Gallery• Cloud composition• Upload your own VHD• Select from gallery

Open Source Apps• WordPress, Orchard, Drupal,

DotNetNuke, etc.

Advanced Networking• Windows Azure Connect• Windows Azure Virtual Network• Network Isolation

OS Choice – Windows or Linux• Windows Server versions• Various Linux flavors

MySQL-as-a-Service

WINDOWS AZURE STORAGEWhat’s New in

Improved Pricing and Management

• 10x Price Reduction for Storage Transaction– $0.01 / 100,000 transactions ($1 per 10 million transaction)

• Configuration of Storage Analytics– Configuration via management portal– Detailed and configurable charts

• Monitoring Storage Metrics– Configuration via management portal– Display in management portal

Geo Redundant vs. Locally Redundant Storage

• Geo Redundant– 3 replicas in the location & 3 replicas in secondary location

(region)– Enabled by default– Update before or after account creation

• Locally Redundant– 3 replicas in the location / data center / sub region– Data may be lost in disaster scenario– 23%-34% discount over GRS pricing (dependent on storage

amt.)

New Storage Service Features

• “2012-02-12” version of REST API– SDK 1.7.1– https://

github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-net/tree/sdk_1.7.1

• SAS for Tables and Queues• Cross-Account Copying of Blobs• Improved Blob Leasing

Shared Access Signature Updates

• Blobs– Unbounded access time (previously 1 hour)

• Tables– Grant access to entire table (“tn”)– Grant access to partition key range (“startpk/endpk”) and row

key (“startrk/endrk”) (startpk, startrk), (endpk, endrk)– Permissions: Query (“r”), Add (“a”), Update (“u”), Delete (“d”)– Time Range: Unbounded (expiry time must be set)

• Queues– Permissions: Read or Peak (“r”), Add (“a”), Update (“u”), Process

(“p”)*

Expanded Blob Copy

• Copying between storage accounts and within accounts is async

• Only for destination accounts >= June 7, 2012• Copy source is a URL

– Versioned change (use URL with 2012-02-12 version)– Publically accessible or pre-authenticated via a SAS– Can be a blob outside of Windows Azure!

• Asynchronous Copy– Copy Blob returns 202 (Accepted) instead of 201 (Created)– Copy operation is scheduled to run in background using spare

bandwidth (no SLA on how fast operation will complete)– Poll to check on copy progress (number of bytes copied / total)– May acquire infinite lease on source & destination

Improved Blob Leasing

• Control over blob lease time– 15 seconds up to 60 seconds– Infinite

• Changing of the lease ID– Pass the lease ID to another process, preventing original

process from changing the blob

• Ability to provide a time to keep lease when breaking it– Shorten time remaining on the lease when breaking

• Lease on the container– Prevent something from deleting the container– No impact on blobs in the container

THERE’S MORE!But Wait . . .

Caching (Preview)

• In addition to Shared Caching• Role-Based Caching

– Available memory on existing web or worker role (co-located)– Dedicated worker role (dedicated)– No premium charge – just the cost of the roles– Additional features

• High availability• Notifications• Multiple named caches• Memcached wire protocol

Custom Health Probes (Pages)

• Fabric Controller pings the Guest Agent– Checks if the instance is alive– Can’t determine if app can service requests

• Create a custom page to verify service logic– Used by FC to check if service is “healthy”

Service Bus Explorer (Visual Studio)

• New to June 2012 tools• Queues & Topics• Send/Receive test msgs• Queue Properties

• Not as robust as Service

Bus Explorer

(http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/Service-Bus-Explorer-f2abca5a)

New Role Templates

• New Visual Studio templates for common scenarios• Cache Worker Role• Worker Role with Service Bus Queue

Emulator Updates

• Using IIS Express– Full IIS available if/when needed

• SQL Server Express 2012 LocalDB

Side-by-Side SDK Support

• SDK 1.6 and SDK 1.7 live together• No need to uninstall previous version• Change in .csproj file• Easy upgrade from SDK 1.6 TO 1.7

NuGet Packages

• Visual Studio uses latest version from NuGet– Easier to keep current (if you want)

• Assemblies:– WindowsAzure.Storage– WindowsAzure.ServiceBus– Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ConfigurationManager

Cloud Configuration

• CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting(“MySetting”);

Quick Hits

• Windows Azure Active Directory– Includes Access Control Services (ACS)– Incorporates AD features in O365– Graph API

• Windows Azure Virtual Network– Hardware based networking– Configuration script for your hardware– Control IP addresses and machine names– Control VNet

• Windows Azure Media Services– Ingest, encode, transform, and distribute– SmoothStreaming– PowerShell based configuration (currently)– Powering London 2012 Olympics

Let’s Wrap It Up!

• Get started quickly with Web Sites• Do what you want with Virtual Machines• Helpful & powerful updates to Storage Services• SDK updates• Enhancements to Visual Studio tooling

Resources

• Windows Azure Web Sites, Web Roles, and VMs: When to use which?– http://

blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlining/archive/2012/06/27/windows-azure-websites-web-roles-and-vms-when-to-use-which.aspx

• Windows Azure Web Sites - Under the Hood (AZR305), Yochay Kiriaty & Craig Kitterman– http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/AZR305

• New Windows Azure Storage Features, Improved Manageability, and Lower Prices– http://

blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2012/06/12/teched-2012-new-windows-azure-storage-features-improved-manageability-and-lower-prices.aspx

• Windows Azure Virtual Machines– https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/virtual-machines/

• Deep Dive Into Windows Azure Virtual Machines – From the Cloud Vendor and Enterprise Perspective (AZR313)– http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/AZR313

Q &

A

Ask your questions