Moving Applications to the Cloud on Windows Azure

How do you build and deploy applications to be scalable and have high availability? Along with developing the applications, you must also have an infrastructure that can support them. You may need to scale up or add servers, have redundant hardware, and add logic to the application to handle distributed computing and failovers—even if an application is in high demand for only short periods of time. The cloud offers a solution. It is made up of interconnected servers located in various data centers, but you see what appears to be a centralized location that someone else hosts and manages. By removing the responsibility for maintaining an infrastructure, you’re free to concentrate on what matters most: the application. This guide is the third edition of the first volume in a series about Windows Azure. It demonstrates how you can adapt an existing on-premises ASP.NET application to one that operates in the cloud by introducing a fictitious company named Adatum that modifies its expense tracking and reimbursement system, aExpense, so that it can be deployed to Windows Azure. To illustrate the wide range of options and features in Windows Azure, this guide and the code examples available for it show a step-by-step migration process that includes using Windows Azure Web Sites, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, and SQL Database. Together with useful information on developing, deploying, managing, and costing cloud-hosted applications, this guide provides you with a comprehensive resource for moving your applications to Window Azure. This book is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services that are appropriate for the cloud. Although applications do not need to be based on the Microsoft Windows operating system to work in Windows Azure or written using a .NET language, this book is written for people who work with Windows-based systems. You should be familiar with the.NET Framework, Visual Studio, ASP.NET, and Visual C#.

Dominic Betts is a principal technologist at Content Master, part of CM Group Ltd, a technical authoring and consulting company. An expert on developing applications with the Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Azure, Dominic has produced numerous training courses, white papers, and other technical material on .NET, Windows Azure, and Microsoft BizTalk.

Alex Homer is a technical writer for the Microsoft patterns & practices team. Following a career within and outside of the IT world, including an eclectic range of jobs from tractor driver to double-glazing salesman, he spent many years as a software and training specialist before tiring of the conference circuit and joining Microsoft. He spends his days knee-deep in design patterns and architectural literature; writing books, documentation, sample code, and producing technical guidance in its myriad other forms. His weekly ramblings on the IT industry, and life in general, can be found at http: //blogs.msdn.com/alexhomer/.

Alejandro Jezierski is a senior software developer at Southworks. His primary focus is building applications for the Cloud together with Microsoft's patterns & practices team. In the past he's been involved in the Healthcare, Automotive and Intellectual Property Industries building LOB applications.

Masashi Narumoto is passionate about the idea of the Internet as a knowledgebase. The Internet has significantly changed our lives and there's no doubt that there are still huge changes to come. During his time on the patterns & practices team, he has worked on a series of Windows Azure Guides as a program manager, and is currently focused on Big Data. Previously, he spent 20+ years developing and consulting on a variety of solutions especially in the retail and manufacturing industry. You can find Masashi at http: //blogs.msdn.com/masashi_narumoto or on Twitter @dragon119.

Hanzhong (Hanz) Zhang is a senior software development engineer in test with the Microsoft patterns & practices team, primarily working on Windows Azure, SharePoint, and Enterprise Library. Before joining Microsoft, he focused on the document management system as Senior Software Engineer with Sharp Laboratories of America at Huntington Beach, California. Hanz has more than 15 years of experience with software development, architecture and testing.