There is some rumors that the Orleans software platform will actually be a product coming out from Microsoft that will empower the Windows Azure platform and make it more easy to architecture and manage. This is just a research project but I for one am liking the hopeful outlook on life. ;~) Somewhere among the few references out there on the web I am grasping for an explanation on what this will be. How about this: Orleans is to Azure as the CLR is to Windows It appears Orleans is designed to create...

The main points of our Effective and Infinite Storage in the Cloud session at TechDays 2010 in Sweden are listed below as well as links to all of our related material and the zip with our demos. The slides are here too but they are in Swedish only. Our session at TechDays 2010 gave an overview of what storage in the Cloud is, according to Microsoft at present date, and some of the goals for the future in this area. We intended our session to provide the basis for companies to be able to evaluate if and how moving...

There is a new release for Windows Azure today with a refresh of the Windows Azure SDK (1.1, February 2010) and the Windows Azure Visual Studio Tools (1.1, February 2010). If you want code samples, as usual, go to Windows Azure Code Samples on Code Gallery. UPDATE: So as not to mislead; If you are using Visual Studio 2010 only on your system the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio requires Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 RC which is not yet released. But with Visual Studio 2008 you are safe. The biggest news in there is that you can...

The enhanced (intelligent) Windows Azure Project template @ AzureContrib.codeplex.com is now updated to run on Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (November 2009). There is a new piece of code for managing logging (tracing) with the new Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics functionality. The Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime has been updated to reflect the recent changes to the Azure runtime including support for the new Windows Azure Role Lifecycle. The new Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient release is pending but that takes a bit of more work. The goal @ AzureContrib where Cloud Storage is concerned is to enable so called Persistence Ignorance (PI). The PI thing is...

Tech-Talks recorded today. One on an Open Source and very much enhanced Windows Azure Project Template and another one that turned out to be a lot more “what is MEF” than I initially anticipated? And at the event at large people are looking focused on learning just as we do at the beginning of a week. I am anticipating less and less strength for focus as the week progresses. So this week I am at Tech-Ed Europe attending as a speaker on the Architecture track. Here is a brief account of the first day so far. Today anyway, apart...

Here is how to enable a rich extensibility model for Windows Azure projects and how to run create jobs on Windows Azure Storage only once in your Windows Azure Projects. This sample and related AzureContrib release leverages Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) – an upcoming .NET Framework component in .NET Framework 4.0. We have made a small project at Dotway where I work on making the basic Windows Azure project template a bit more rich and intelligent. This has lead to three releases in the AzureContrib project, each one building on the last to make the functionality one more step...

The error is from the RDRuntimeLoader.exe and says that ”Windows i trying to identify the problem…”. Is your Windows Azure Application crashing when you hit F5? This is the reason: Dramatic title and intro huh? ;~) I just wanted to get your attention on this completely understandable but yet annoying error you get when you try to launch an Azure App in the Development Fabric. Symptoms: This is what the error looks like.   All the while your Visual Studio completely hangs and nothing responds. After the time out time which is about 30 seconds...

The third and final post in our blog series on basic usage of the Cloud Storage API (CloudStorage.API). This time we will show how to interact with the Cloud Entity Storage. The implementation we use for the API is developed against Azure but the API should be reusable for any type of Cloud Storage. While doing this our main goals are to: Enable testability Abstract away storage Create an extensible and easy to evolve application that supports good developments practices Here are other posts...

We continue our blog series on using the Cloud Storage API (CloudStorage.API) by showing how it interacts with Cloud Blob Storage. As in the previous post we will use a short example focusing on basic usage. The implementation we use for the API is developed against Azure but the API should be reusable for any type of Cloud Storage. While doing this our main goals are to: Enable testability Abstract away storage Create an extensible and easy to evolve application that supports good developments practices ...

Today I did a seminar with msdn.se. I was on stage with Johan Lindfors and Robert Folkesson talking about Windows Azure devlopment. I was asked to produce my slides so in an effort to please the crowd here they are. Several of them are copies of slides from Steve Marx, Manuvir Das and Brad Calder. This is my angle on their work so to say, thanks guys. DevelopmentOnWindowsAzure.pdf (First three slides are in Swedish but not the rest.) Cheers, M. Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows Azure,Software Architecture,Cloud Computing,Cloud Storage

Now that you have an understanding of the idea behind the Cloud Storage API it’s time to show it in action. We will start by writing a simple application accessing the Message Queue using the API. Note: Premier time for a guest blogger at Techie.notepad! WooHoo! Peter von Lochow is the man behind this post. The implementation we use for the API is developed against Azure but the API should be reusable for any type of Cloud. While doing this our main goals (just to reiterate) are: Enable testability Abstract...

The ultimate goal for this API is to enable Cloud Storage Persistence Ignorance. A secondary, and almost equally important, objective for creating this API is to enable testability and thus enhance the over all maintainability of Cloud Applications that make use of Cloud Storage also generally thought of as “shared state”. We have been doing this work on the Windows Azure cloud but in theory this API may be used on any Cloud Storage. Note: We have created a Cloud Storage API at the consultancy where I work, Dotway. Me and a great colleague Peter von Lochow have been...

On the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last week the business and partner model for Windows Azure got announced. (Daddy goes on vacation for two weeks and THIS happens. Man you can’t turn your back for a moment. ;~) ) Windows Azure: Compute @ $0.12 / hour Storage @ $0.15 / GB / month stored Storage Transactions @ $0.01 / 10K SQL Azure: Web Edition – Up to 1 GB relational database @ $9.99 Business Edition – Up to...

I will show in this post how to extend the basic Windows Azure Project Template and make the solution a bit more intelligent. I will do this using a new and upcoming .NET Framework 4 technology; Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF). MEF Preview 5 is targeting .NET Framework 3.5 and is even developed under MSPL license and so fits like a glove into Windows Azure. Intro My overall goal is to create a Windows Azure project template that: enables testability abstracts away storage is extensible and easy...

If you create a class library and add a reference to it from an Azure Web Role or Azure Worker Role you get an error. Here’s how to get around it. The problem is that the class library template for Visual Studio 2010 creates a .csproj file with too few configuration settings. In Visual Studio 2008 the default target platform is AnyCPU. In Visual Studio 2010 it’s x86 and the configuration for AnyCPU is not included. It seems to me this is an error in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1. This is what a standard .csproj file excerpt...