Archive for May, 2009

May CTP of the Windows Azure Tools & SDK

The Windows Azure and Visual Studio teams have just released the new version of the Windows Azure SDK and the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio.

New for May 2009:

  • Support for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1
  • Update for Visual Studio 2008
  • Improved integration with the Development Fabric and Storage services to improve the reliability of debug and run of Cloud Services from Visual Studio
  • Enhanced robustness and stability

Release notes/Known issues are available here

Visual Studio 2010 compatible samples are available here

The Azure Services Training Kit is here.

There is also a training kit on Visual Studio 2010 here, and some great content on Visual Studio 2010 & .Net Framework 4.0 on the 10-4 show.

Note, .Net Framework 4.0 is not yet supported in the Windows Azure Cloud. Please see this post for more information.

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More Azure Samples

The team have been busy over the last few weeks getting some more samples out for Azure. Here is a quick run down:

Bid Now Sample

Bid Now is an online auction site designed to demonstrate how you can build highly scalable consumer applications.

This sample is built using Windows Azure and uses Windows Azure Storage. Auctions are processed using Windows Azure Queues and Worker Roles. Authentication is provided via Live Id. One of the cool things that Bid Now demonstrates is how you can de-normalize data in Windows Azure Table Storage, to build a very scalable application. Check out Bid Now at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/bidnowsample.

Windows Azure Management Tool (MMC)

The Windows Azure Management Tool was created to manage your storage accounts in Windows Azure. Developed as a managed MMC, the tool allows you to create and manage both blobs and queues. Easily create and manage containers, blobs, and permissions. Add and remove queues, inspect or add messages or empty queues as well. You can find out more about the MMC at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazuremmc.

Contoso Cycles

Contoso Cycles shows how the Azure Services Platform can be used to build a supply chain application. .NET Services allows messages to flow between companies across firewalls, NATs and routers. You can download Contoso Cycles from http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/contosocycles.

Please feel free to feedback on this samples in the discussions on each site.

THIS POSTING IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH NO WARRANTIES, AND CONFERS NO RIGHTS