Patterns and Practices guide: Developing Applications for the Cloud
The MSFT P&P folks have come up with some great stuff over the years – I have a particular fondness for the original .NET Framework Application Blocks, which made life so much easier, what with the database access and the event logging. So nice.
Now they’ve published a new tome, Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform , comprising full example applications and sample code.
It’s the followup volume to Moving Applications to the Cloud on the Windows Azure Platform , and provides best-practices guidance for building cloud apps on Azure.
(If you’re interested in cloud development for Windows Phone, check out Cloud Services and Windows Phone and the Cloud--an Introduction.)
Here’s what you’ll get:
"The Tailspin Scenario" introduces you to the Tailspin company and the Surveys application. It provides an architectural overview of the Surveys application; the following chapters provide more information about how Tailspin designed and implemented the Surveys application for the cloud. Reading this chapter will help you understand Tailspin's business model, its strategy for adopting the cloud platform, and some of its concerns.
"Hosting a Multi-Tenant Application on Windows Azure" discusses some of the issues that surround architecting and building multi-tenant applications to run on Windows Azure. It describes the benefits of a multi-tenant architecture and the trade-offs that you must consider. This chapter provides a conceptual framework that helps the reader understand some of the topics discussed in more detail in the subsequent chapters.
"Accessing the Surveys Application" describes some of the challenges that the developers at Tailspin faced when they designed and implemented some of the customer-facing components of the application. Topics include the choice of URLs for accessing the surveys application, security, hosting the application in multiple geographic locations, and using the Content Delivery Network to cache content.
"Building a Scalable, Multi-Tenant Application for Windows Azure" examines how Tailspin ensured the scalability of the multi-tenant Surveys application. It describes how the application is partitioned, how the application uses worker roles, and how the application supports on-boarding, customization, and billing for customers.
"Working with Data in the Surveys Application" describes how the application uses data. It begins by describing how the Surveys application stores data in both Windows Azure tables and blobs, and how the developers at Tailspin designed their storage classes to be testable. The chapter also describes how Tailspin solved some specific problems related to data, including paging through data, and implementing session state. Finally, this chapter describes the role that SQL Azure™ technology platform plays in the Surveys application.
"Updating a Windows Azure Service" describes the options for updating a Windows Azure application and how you can update an application with no interruption in service.
"Debugging and Troubleshooting Windows Azure Applications" describes some of the techniques specific to Windows Azure applications that will help you to detect and resolve issues when building, deploying, and running Windows Azure applications. It includes descriptions of how to use Windows Azure Diagnostics and how to use Microsoft IntelliTrace™ with applications deployed to Windows Azure.
Visit MSDN to read Developing Applications for the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure™ Platform . Download the code samples from here. And drop in to visit the P&P folks on Codeplex.
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