This document provides an overview of the Windows Azure platform, including compute, data, and SQL Azure. It begins with assumptions that most attendees are new to the platform. The agenda includes an overview of the platform and its components like compute, data storage, and SQL Azure. It concludes with a summary and next steps information.

1. Lap around the 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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2. 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
– Including two weeks of free training
• Starting October 11th
– And three track online conference
• October 8th
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3. Agenda Overview of the Windows Azure Platform
• Overview of the platform
• Compute
• Data
• SQL Azure Labs
Summary and Next Steps
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4. Overview
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5. 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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6. Windows Azure Platform
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7. You do most of your development locally
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8. Your code runs in Hosted Services
made up of Roles
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9. Your Roles are code + configuration
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10. You choose which type(s) of Role
to run your code in
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11. At runtime you can have
multiple instances of your Roles
Load
Balancer
http://yourapp.cloudapp.net
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12. You store your data in Windows Azure
Storage
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13. And/or you store your data in SQL Azure
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14. Demo
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15. Bringing it all together
Single Billing
Azure Account
Relationship
Subscription 1 Subscription 2 Subscription 3 …..
Windows
Market
Azure App Fabric
SQL Azure Place
Hosted
Storage
Services
SQL Azure http://yourapp1.clou http://yourapp2.clou
http://yourstorage1.
XXX.core.windows.ne
http://yourstorage2.
XXX.core.windows.ne
Server dapp.net dapp.net t/ t/
DB DB Web Role
Worker
Queue Table Blob Drive
Role
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16. You have many choices for data
Relational Database
Structured Storage
Unstructured Storage
NTFS Drive
Service Communication
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17. Side by Side Evaluation
Single SQL
Single Blob Drive Queue Table Azure
Database
Structured Data Y Y
Relational Database Y
Server Side Processing Y
Direct Access from outside
Y Y Y Y
Azure
Messaging Infrastructure Y
Persistent Storage Y Y 1 week Y Y
200 GB/ 1
Size Limit 1 TB 100 TB 100 TB 50 GB (*)
TB
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18. SQL Azure Labs
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19. Demo
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20. 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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21. NEXT STEPS
For latest slides and all the links http://bit.ly/ericnelson
For more resources and information http://bit.ly/startazure
As an ISV intending to explore/adopt azure, sign up to http://bit.ly/ukmpr
and come along and meet with us http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ukisvdev
Eric Nelson | ISV Application Architect | Microsoft UK
eric.nelson@microsoft.com | http://bit.ly/ericnelson | http://twitter.com/ericnel
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22. Screens
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23. SQL Azure Labs
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24. OData
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25. OData
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26. Data Sync
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27. Data Sync
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28. Data Sync
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29. Data Sync
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30. Houston
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31. Houston
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32. Houston
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33. Appendix
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34. 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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35. Azure Drive - Scenario
• The Application Mounts a Drive
• Mount obtains a Blob Lease
Application
• Mount specifies size of Local Cache
• NTFS Writes update the
Drive – Blob Store & then the Local Cache
X:
• NTFS Reads can be served from
– Local Cache or
– Blob Store (cache miss)
Local Cache Lease
Page Blob
Azure Drive
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36. Azure Table and SQL Azure Table
Feature Azure Table SQL Azure Table
Partitioning Implicit based on Partition Key Explicitly managed by the Application
& Scale (Sharding – future feature)
Table indexed on Partition Key + Row
Index 1 Clustered Index on any column
Key
Capabilities 999 Secondary Indexes
0 Secondary Indexes
Row Size – 1 MB Row Size – 8MB
Table Limits Column Limit – 255 Column Limit – 1024
Table Limit – 100TB Table Limit - ~50GB
Transactions on entities within partition
Fully compatible transactional semantics
No Transactions across tables or
with SQL Server.
Transactions partitions
Up to 100 operations in a Transaction
No cross Database transactions
Payload upto 4MB per Transaction
Consistency
Transactionally Consistent Transactionally Consistent
Model
Full range of isolation and concurrency
Concurrency Single Optimistic Concurrency Strategy
models as supported by RDBMS
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37. Azure Table and SQL Azure Table
Feature Azure Table SQL Azure
Data Standard tools and APIs apply
REST API, ADO .NET, Client Library SDK
Access SSMS, Visual Studio, ADO .NET, ODBC
Column
Basic Types Usual SQL Server Data Types
Types
Data in SQL Azure similar to SQL Server
- Easy migration in and out of the
Data portability coming with Windows Azure
Portability cloud
Appliance
- Use multi stream transfer to
mitigate network latency.
Query capabilities as per standard SQL
Upto 1000 entities [token pagination]
Server database expectations
Beyond 5 sec – return continuation token
Offer Server Side Processing through
Queries Queries by partition & row key are fast
Stored Procedures and Complex
Queries
No Custom Indexes Today
Non key queries are scans
(Aggregation, Joins, Sorts, Filters, etc.)
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