Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook

About This Book

• Understand, create, and use the hosting services of Azure for processing and storage
• Explore different approaches to implement scalable systems by using Azure services
• Pick the appropriate automation strategy and minimize management efforts

Who This Book Is For

If you are an architect, this book will help you make the correct decisions about which Azure building blocks to use. If you are a developer, this book will help you understand how to use them appropriately, and if you are a .NET developer, this book is a pure delight.

What You Will Learn

• Deploy a web application and worker processes to a scalable infrastructure
• Accelerate the life cycle of a web application without lock-in
• Implement scalable solutions for storage data with Blobs
• Develop a solution with a relational backend with SQL Database
• Evaluate NoSQL alternatives with Azure Table Service
• Implement messaging solutions with Queues, scaling, and decoupling systems
• Automate management operations by developing components for the Azure Management API
• Power up the existing infrastructure with in-memory storage with Azure Cache

In Detail

Beginning with the development of cloud services for Microsoft Azure, this practical Cookbook will show you the building blocks of Azure, focusing on why we should use one or the other, and when to use them appropriately. Even though reading the entire book will give you an advanced overview of the main blocks of the Azure platform, each chapter is self-contained. So, even an inexperienced reader could jump from one chapter to another without reading the entire book. Each chapter is organized into recipes—standalone units of practical tasks to complete that involve a specific feature/service of the platform.

This book tries to provide a comprehensive overview of the main aspects of the Azure platform from the point of view of a developer. Some building blocks such as virtual machines are deliberately avoided to focus on development tools, development libraries, and development strategies. This is a recipe-based book; expect to dirty your hands with code that is also outside the boundaries of the recipe, as you would do with food in a real recipe!