This document provides an overview of the Windows Azure platform. It discusses how developers can build applications that run code inside hosted services made up of roles. Developers can store data using Windows Azure storage options like SQL Azure, blobs, queues and tables. The document also provides a demo and recommends next steps for learning more about the Windows Azure platform.

1. Technology Drill Down:
Windows Azure Platform
Eric Nelson | ISV Application Architect | Microsoft UK
eric.nelson@microsoft.com | http://bit.ly/ericnelson | http://twitter.com/ericnel

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Assumption
• Most of you are pretty new to the Windows
Azure Platform
• If you are not, check out:
– http://bit.ly/azuretrenchesbookvol1
– http://ukazure.ning.com/events

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Agenda Overview of the Windows Azure Platform
• Overview of the platform
• Compute
• Data
Summary and Next Steps

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Overview

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Windows Azure Platform
makes it easy and cost effective
to run your applications
and store your data
inside Microsoft Data Centres
using existing skills
and integrate with
your existing on-premise applications

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Windows Azure Platform

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You do most of your development locally

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Your code runs in Hosted Services
made up of Roles

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Your Roles are code + configuration

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You choose which type(s) of Role
to run your code in

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Load
Balancer
At runtime you can have
multiple instances of your Roles
http://yourapp.cloudapp.nethttp://yourapp.cloudapp.net

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You store your data in Windows Azure
Storage

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And/or you store your data in SQL Azure

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Demo

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You have many choices for data
Relational Database
Structured Storage
Unstructured Storage
NTFS Drive
Service Communication

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Side by Side Evaluation
Single Blob Drive Queue Table
Single SQL
Azure
Database
Structured Data Y Y
Relational Database Y
Server Side Processing Y
Direct Access from outside
Azure
Y Y Y Y
Messaging Infrastructure Y
Persistent Storage Y Y 1 week Y Y
Size Limit
200 GB/ 1
TB
1 TB 100 TB 100 TB 50 GB (*)

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Demo

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Summary
• Very easy to get going… but lots to learn
• Plenty of early adopters, therefore
– Good best practice are now appearing
– Plenty of detail to dig into
• Lots more coming

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NEXT STEPS
For latest slides and all the links http://blogs.msdn.com/ukisvdev
For more resources and information http://bit.ly/startazure
Eric Nelson | ISV Application Architect | Microsoft UK
eric.nelson@microsoft.com | http://bit.ly/ericnelson | http://twitter.com/ericnel

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Appendix

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Azure Drive (X-Drive)
• Access to a Local Drive in Azure
• Enables existing applications using NTFS to easily migrate to the
cloud
• Essentially a Page Blob formatted as NTFS
– Remote Access via Page Blob Interface
• Durable NTFS volume [upto 1TB] for Windows Azure Applications
• Drives in the Cloud are only mountable by VMs within Cloud
– Mounted by one VM at a time for read/write
– A VM can dynamically mount up to 16 drives

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Page Blob
Azure
Drive
Local Cache
Application
Drive
X:
Azure Drive - Scenario
• The Application Mounts a Drive
• Mount obtains a Blob Lease
• Mount specifies size of Local Cache
• NTFS Writes update the
– Blob Store & then the Local Cache
• NTFS Reads can be served from
– Local Cache or
– Blob Store (cache miss)Lease

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Azure Table and SQL Azure Table
Feature Azure Table SQL Azure Table
Partitioning
& Scale
Implicit based on Partition Key Explicitly managed by the Application
(Sharding – future feature)
Index
Capabilities
Table indexed on Partition Key + Row
Key
0 Secondary Indexes
1 Clustered Index on any column
999 Secondary Indexes
Table Limits
Row Size – 1 MB
Column Limit – 255
Table Limit – 100TB
Row Size – 8MB
Column Limit – 1024
Table Limit - ~50GB
Transactions
Transactions on entities within partition
No Transactions across tables or
partitions
Up to 100 operations in a Transaction
Payload upto 4MB per Transaction
Fully compatible transactional semantics
with SQL Server.
No cross Database transactions
Consistency
Model
Transactionally Consistent Transactionally Consistent
Concurrency Single Optimistic Concurrency Strategy
Full range of isolation and concurrency
models as supported by RDBMS

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Azure Table and SQL Azure Table
Feature Azure Table SQL Azure
Data
Access
REST API, ADO .NET, Client Library SDK
Standard tools and APIs apply
SSMS, Visual Studio, ADO .NET, ODBC
Column
Types
Basic Types Usual SQL Server Data Types
Portability
Data portability coming with Windows Azure
Appliance
Data in SQL Azure similar to SQL Server
-Easy migration in and out of the cloud
-Use multi stream transfer to mitigate
network latency.
Queries
Upto 1000 entities [token pagination]
Beyond 5 sec – return continuation token
Queries by partition & row key are fast
No Custom Indexes Today
Non key queries are scans
Query capabilities as per standard SQL
Server database expectations
Offer Server Side Processing through
Stored Procedures and Complex
Queries
(Aggregation, Joins, Sorts, Filters, etc.)

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Bringing it all together
Azure AccountAzure Account
Subscription 1 Subscription 2
SQL Azure
App Fabric
Subscription 3
Market
Place
Windows
Azure
SQL Azure
Server
Storage
Hosted
Services
DB DB
http://yourstorage1.X
XX.core.windows.net/
http://yourstorage2.X
XX.core.windows.net/
BlobQueue Table Drive
…..
Single Billing
Relationship
http://yourapp1.clou
dapp.net
http://yourapp2.clou
dapp.net
Worker
Role
Web Role