Windows Azure Software Development Kit (November 2009)

Brief Description

The Windows® Azure™ SDK provides developers with the APIs, tools, documentation, and samples needed to develop Internet-scale applications that run on Windows Azure.

Overview

The Windows Azure platform is an internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers. The Windows Azure platform, which provides a range of functionality to build applications that span from consumer Web to enterprise scenarios, includes a cloud services operating system and a set of developer services. Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure and Microsoft .NET Services are the key components of the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers on-demand compute and storage capabilities to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft data centers.

Windows Azure is elastic, flexible, and interoperable. With Windows Azure developers can achieve high levels of service availability and application interoperability while maintaining freedom of choice.

The Windows Azure SDK provides developers with the tools and APIs needed to develop, deploy, and manage scalable services in Windows Azure.

New in the November 2009 SDK

Windows Azure Service Runtime managed library: The latest version of the Service Hosting Runtime API includes support for enhanced communication between roles and for runtime notification of service configuration changes. Direct communication between role instances enables new application development scenarios, including applications that distribute state across role instances. Service configuration changes include an increase or decrease in the number of request role instances and changes to the values of configuration settings.
Windows Azure Diagnostics managed library: The new Diagnostics API enables logging using standard .NET APIs. The Diagnostics API provides built-in support for collecting standard logs and diagnostic information, including the Windows Azure logs, IIS 7.0 logs, Failed Request logs, crash dumps, Windows Event logs, performance counters, and custom logs.
Certificate Management: Enhanced support for SSL certificates in Windows Azure and in the Windows Azure SDK enables the secure automated deployment of certificates to services hosted on Windows Azure.
Variable-size Virtual Machines : Developers may now specify the size of the virtual machine to which they wish to deploy a role instance, based on the role's resource requirements. The size of the VM determines the number of CPU cores, the memory capacity, and the local file system size allocated to a running instance.
External endpoints for worker roles. A worker role may now define any number of external endpoints for HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP, and specify the desired port number for any external endpoint.
Persistent local resource storage: Developers can now choose to persist data written to a local storage resource at runtime when the role is recycled.
Windows Azure Storage Client managed library: The Storage Client library provides a .NET API for accessing the Windows Azure storage services.
Improved Development Storage: Development storage provides a high-fidelity simulation of the Windows Azure storage services in the cloud. Tables can now be created dynamically in the development storage Table service and are no longer required to be generated in advance.
Updated samples: The samples included with the Windows Azure SDK have been updated to demonstrate new features. The samples now include both C# and Visual Basic versions.

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System Requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 Enterprise; Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2008 Standard; Windows Vista; Windows Vista 64-bit Editions Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Home Premium; Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition

Required Software

Windows Vista SP1

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1

IIS 7.0 (with ASP.NET, WCF HTTP Activation and optionally CGI)

Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 or Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Hotfix: Correct WCF metadata when hosting behind a load balancer

Hotfix: Support for FastCGI on Development Fabric (not required for Windows 7)

Recommended Software

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (includes both the Windows Azure SDK and the Visual Studio Tools)

IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module

Windows PowerShell

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Instructions

Important: Make sure you have the latest service pack and critical updates for the version of Windows that you are running. To find recent security updates, use Windows Update.
Before installing the SDK, you must first install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and enable IIS 7.0. For more information, please download and read the Windows Azure SDK release notes, available on this page.

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