• Windows Azure Learning Path–Level 200

    by  • April 27, 2012 • Windows Azure, Windows Azure Learning Path

    Level 200 – Intermediate

    The intermediate lesson is designed to take you into a learning path that explores Windows Azure capabilities necessary for building cloud solutions. Windows Azure is equipped with rich managed services ecosystem that will speed up your development through pre-built building block services. Access Control Service, Azure Storage, Cache, and Service Bus are a few examples of managed services which accelerate your development of industrial strength cloud applications and services. Exercises to complete for this level: Please read the Overview to find details about Exercise 1 to 3 and download Hands-on Lab source files prerequisite for each of the exercises.

    Exercises to Complete for this Level:

    Getting Started: Provisioning the Cache Service You need to provision Azure Cache service in preparation for Exercise 1, 2 and 3.

    Exercise 1: Using the Windows Azure Caching for Session State

    In this exercise, you will explore the use session state provider for Windows Azure Caching as the mechanism for out-of-process storage of session data to be useable in a web farm. For this purpose, you will use Azure Store – a sample shopping cart application implemented in MVC. Please make sure to Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before start of Exercise 1.

    Exercise 2: Caching Data with Windows Azure Caching

    In this exercise, you will store SQL query results in Azure Caching service for faster access of frequently used SQL data. Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before starting Exercise 2.

    Exercise 3: Creating a Reusable and Extensible Caching Layer

    In this exercise, you will explore building a caching layer on top of your existing data access classes that will allow you to plug in different caching providers, or even remove them altogether, through simple configuration changes. Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before start of Exercise 3.

    Exercise 4: Working with Azure Storage

    Tables Windows Azure Tables is a NoSQL database that is offered as a managed service on Windows Azure. Azure Table storage saves developer from getting into the complex infrastructure scalability activities which often can consume valuable developer time. Azure Table storage runs on a highly scalable elastic infrastructure that scales out keeping pace with the demand of the application throughput. Visit http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/storage/ for details on Azure Table storage. If not already done, setup Azure subscription per the instructions located at: http://walearningpath.cloudapp.net/free and set up Azure Storage account.

    About

    Brian H. Prince is the Chief Technical Cloud Evangelist for Microsoft, based in the US. He gets super excited whenever he talks about technology, especially cloud computing, patterns, and practices. His job is to help customers strategically leverage technology, and help them bring their architecture to a super level. In a past life Brian was a part of super startups, super marketing firms, and super consulting firms. Much of his super architecture background includes building super scalable applications, application integration, and award winning web applications. All of them were super. Further, he is a co-founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org). He speaks at various international technology conferences. He only wishes his job didn’t require him to say ‘super’ so much. Brian is the co-author of “Azure in Action”, published by Manning Press. Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also a zealous gamer. For example, he is a huge fan of Fallout 3, Portal, and pretty much every other game he plays.