Reading Notes #9 (Lecture de la semaine)

Back from vacation, a lot of reading to catch-up.

• A cloud batch execution tool - Very interesting. In some of my past lives this could saved me hours of pain. Here's the documentation and here a video demo.
• Four 4 tips for developing Windows Services more efficiently  - Good simple tips to be more efficient developing services... and it can be applicable to all dev.
• When It Comes to Cloud, First Things First – Strategy and Training – Nice post published during the last #AzureWednesday…  Also Don’t mist the next episode of Manager Tech Talk, September 8, 2011.
• Various Options to Manage Session State in Windows Azure – Describe the different way to maintain session in the cloud. Also you can try the  Universal Providers presented in a previous post: The Magic Provider (also call Universal Providers)
• Welcome to Windows Azure’s Silver Lining – The first post of a new blog that need to be follow, especially if you’re not .net developer.
• Windows Azure Web Role and ACSv2 Application Exception - New version mean sometime new "features" (read bug). To understand one of them read this post. A workaround are also presented.
• Interface Attributes != Class Attributes – Nice and clear explanation of some difference between interface and class; or should i say base class.
• The Power of the Default (MSDN Mag) - You thick you know what should be a default value on an application... This post is for you.
• Hire and Pay a Designer and Be Happy - A short story... and a great new look.
• How to Speed up Windows Azure Deployments - Quick tips to make more enjoyable your dev. time with azure.
• Using ELMAH in Windows Azure with Table Storage – Show a simple way to use a great tool. With a Nuget implementation.
• Searching Windows Azure Storage with Lucene.Net (MSDN Mag) – Great article, this will be useful someday.

- A nice .NET version of the open source Lucene search and indexing library, which you’ll find at incubator.apache.org/lucene.net

- Tom Laird-McConnell created a fantastic library for using Windows Azure Storage with Lucene.Net; you’ll find it at code.msdn.microsoft.com/AzureDirectory.

• Playing with the new Windows Azure Storage Analytics Features - Great intro to the tool. The azure analytics feature is really nice. I will come back on this one for sure.

The analytics documentation as well as the storage team’s blog posts on logging and metrics have more details

• Announcing Windows Azure Storage Analytics - Another good post about the azure storage analytics.
• Deploying the Windows Azure ASP.NET MVC 3 Web Role – A lot of goods links and good advices. Watch the cloud cover episode 54 show for other detail.
• Announcing the August 2011 Release of the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 - Great new I was waiting for that one!
• 7 Chrome Tips Developers & Designers May Not Know - Wow I think I was knowing my chrome browser. How could I be that foolish? I really like the un-minify feature...  Web developer be aware you MUST read this post. Also a cheatsheet link is available.

~Franky

The Magic Provider (also call Universal Providers)

My first Azure project was the migration of an existing web site in the cloud.  “Piece of cake”, I think. I was not so far, but I got one little issue why the membership and the session state.
Back then the best solution was to use the AspProviders, a project in Microsoft Azure Samples.  The projet need to add to the solution and special SQL script, done by the Azure Team, need to be run to modify the AzureSQL database.  Once some tweaks to the config files were done, it was working.  Not bad, but it could be easier.
Today, thanks to the NuGet magic, we have the ASP.NET Universal Providers! With this package we only need to execute one command: Install-Package System.Web.Providers, and voilà! No more config files manipulations, no more SQL script to run, no more nothing.   Just install and run it.
It really works! 

Of course it’s still in alpha (version 0.1) but it’s all ready working nice.  For a more complete introduction I suggest you to read the great post that Scott Handselman wrote on is blog: Introducing System.Web.Providers - ASP.NET Universal Providers for Session, Membership, Roles and User Profile on SQL Compact and SQL Azure.

~ Franky

References:

• Asp.Net Universal Provider - http://nuget.org/List/Packages/System.Web.Providers
• Scott Handselman Bog - http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MakingAwesomeWeddingDocumentsUsingOpenTypeLigaturesAndStylisticSetsInMicrosoftWord2010AndGabriola.aspx
• Microsoft Azure Samples - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/