Windows Azure programming patterns for Start-ups

A step-by-step guide to create easy solutions to build your business using Windows Azure services

• Explore the different features of Windows Azure and its unique concepts.
• Get to know the Windows Azure platform by code snippets and samples by a single start-up scenario throughout the whole book.
• A clean example scenario demonstrates the different Windows Azure features.

In Detail

Leverage different Windows Azure components together with your existing Microsoft .NET skills to fully take advantage of the power of Windows Azure. Use this book to start small and end big by creating and using storage, cloud services, sql databases, networking, caching and other innovative technology to realize your first top-class Windows Azure service!.

"Windows Azure for Start-ups" is an incremental guide that will take you from the essentials of the Windows Azure platform up to the realization of your own cloud services running on the platform. You will learn how to apply different technologies of the Windows Azure platform with the help of examples all focusing on one single fictitious start-up scenario.

This book is centred around a fictitious company called Geotopia that wants to build a brand new social network by using the Windows Azure platform. It will take the reader from the theory and rationale behind Windows Azure right to building services and coding C#.

The books starts by outlining the concepts of Windows Azure. It then demonstrates how to set up a development environment and how to build your application by using different storage mechanisms, applying different features from the Windows Azure platform and ending with the newest features explained from the latest release.

Windows Azure for Startups will help you take full advantage of the Windows Azure platform and bring your new service online as quickly as possible.

What you will learn from this book

• Understand all the concepts and features of Windows Azure
• Prepare your Visual Studio environment for building Windows Azure services
• Learn to use Windows Azure storage like Blobs, Tables and Queues
• Integrate your services with popular identity providers like Facebook
• Leverage the power of Service Bus technology into your own service
• Implement common scenarios such as supporting existing user stores, user sign up, and supporting AJAX requests
• Learn the billing principles behind the different features of Windows Azure and how to keep track of the bill
• Understand SQL Database and bring the power of a relational database to the cloud

Approach

This book follows a step-by-step approach with clear transparent instructions, screenshots and code samples.

Who this book is written for

This book is intended for Microsoft .NET developers who want to leverage the power of cloud and build a brand new service from scratch; it assumes a basic understanding of the .NET framework and C#.

Riccardo Becker

Riccardo Becker works full-time as a Principal IT Architect for Logica, in the Netherlands. He holds several certifications, and his background in computing goes way back to 1998, when he started working with good old' Visual Basic 5.0 (or was it 6.0?). Ever since, he fulfilled several roles, such as Developer, Lead Developer, Architect, Project Leader, Practice Manager, and recently, he decided to accept the role of Principal IT Architect, in which he focuses on innovation, cutting-edge technology, and specifically on Windows Azure and cloud computing in general.

In 2007, he joined the Microsoft LEAP program, where he got a peek at the move Microsoft was about to make on their road to the cloud. Pat Helland gave him that insight, and since the first release of Windows Azure on PDC 2008, he started to focus on it, keeping track of the progress and the maturity of the platform. In the past few years, he has also done a lot of work on incubation with his employer, raising awareness on cloud computing in general and Windows Azure.