azurecontrib Wiki & Documentation Rss Feed

Updated Wiki: Home

NoopMan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:25:15 GMT

Project Description

A contrib project for Microsoft Windows Azure. This project aims to make life as a Cloud Developer easier and provide easily adopted added value to your Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage Applications.

Please note that this is not an official Microsoft release! This is an open source community contribution project to Windows Azure.

Any one who loves...

...may download, enjoy, ammend and even upload to this project either as a contributor or simply by contacting the admins and send their code!

Have fun on Windows Azure!

Newer release

Built on the Windows Azure SDK 1.6 and .NET Framework 3.5 there is now a project called http://nuget.org/packages/WindowsAzure.Storage.Contrib. The code will soon be pushed to this location and the other packages for RunTime, Diagnostics and Drive will follow.

Older release

There is now an older AzureContrib release with a NuGet: AzureContrib NuGet!*

Updated Wiki: Home

NoopMan — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:48:32 GMT

Project Description

Current release

There is now a new AzureContrib project with just a few features. This new project will be a wash of the old project which is still in the source code. More to follow... until then:

There is also a NuGet for this project: AzureContrib NuGet!

Old release

The old release of AzureContrib aims to make your Windows Azure Applications Extensible as well as Persistence Ignorant for Cloud Storage (v2) and Testable (v1). This release uses the CloudStorage.API and Managed Extensibility Framework MEF. Read more on the release page:

Extensible Windows Azure

Previous releases

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure
Testable Windows Azure

Future release

vNext of AzureContrib is slated to include a dashboard app that enables you to modify the work priority order of worker roles at run-time.

Updated Wiki: Home

NoopMan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:12:01 GMT

Project Description

Current release

The current release of AzureContrib aims to make your Windows Azure Applications Extensible as well as Persistence Ignorant for Cloud Storage (v2) and Testable (v1). This release uses the CloudStorage.API and Managed Extensibility Framework MEF. Read more on the release page:

Extensible Windows Azure

Previous releases

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure
Testable Windows Azure

Future release

vNext of AzureContrib is slated to include a dashboard app that enables you to modify the work priority order of worker roles at run-time.

Updated Wiki: Extensible Windows Azure

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:09:31 GMT

Extensible Windows Azure

The main addition in this release compared to previous releases is the addition of Work Services.

Work Services

We have been using Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) throughout this project. Up until now it's mostly been used for Dependency Injection purposes. MEF in itself is not built to be a DI Container but solves the extensibility challenge by way of using this technique. For DI we could have used any of the many DI containers out there. In this release, however, the use of MEF and the rationale behind it becomes more apparent.

The current worker role in Windows Azure works by way of entering a perpetual loop, waiting for more work and executing it as it comes in. This is the canonical example for extensibility!

public override void Start()
{
   while (true)
   {
      // do work here
   }
}

The problem arises when you want to begin adding more than one task to your loop or even N tasks. The main app code references all other code and the maintenance of this little hamster wheel soon becomes a nightmare.

public override void Start()
{
   while (true)
   {
      // do work 1
      // or work 2
      // or work 3
     // [...]
   }
}

Enter the WorkService! ;~)

Work Service

The work service turns the above code mess into pure elegance:

protected override void OnStart()
{
   while (true)
   {
      var work = WorkService.GetWork();
      RoleStatus = work.DoWork();
   }
}

But wait a minute that's just hiding the problem away somewhere else! And what if there is no work?

To answer the question first; there is always work. If there isn't the work is an "idle" work task that puts the worker to sleep for a short while.
And, no, this WorkService does not hide the problem away somewhere else. The WorkService uses MEF to import all the available work and sort it in a good and prioritized order!

Inside the work service the main .GetWork() method looks something like this:

[Import]
public IWorkSchedulerProvider WorkSchedulerProvider { get; set; }

[Import]
public IRoleManager RoleManager { get; set; }

[ImportMany]
public IEnumerable<Lazy<IWork, IWorkMetadata>> Works { get; set; }

public IWork GetWork()
{
	var workScheduler = WorkSchedulerProvider.GetCurrentWorkScheduler();
	var orderedWorks = workScheduler.ScheduleWork(Works);

	foreach (var lazyWork in orderedWorks)
	{
		if (lazyWork.Value.HasWork)
		{
			return new WorkTemplate(lazyWork, RoleManager);
		}
	}
	return new IdleWork(RoleManager);
}

There is a blog post here that explains this code snippet further: Extensible Windows Azure projects using MEF

One-Time Work Service

The One-Time Work Serivce is a staeful work service that will execute a specific set of IOneTimeWork tasks once (per Windows Azure Role instance).

Sample

The release also comes with a small sample (default.aspx). This consists of a page that can add (fake) work to two different work queues and a worker role that picks up work tasks to run. The tasks are all sleep tasks. The interesting thing to check out in the sample apart from the code is the usage of logging that shows the roles staring up and logging IOneTimeWork and also shows each IWork task created and executed. The sample has two work tasks “A” and “B” where the first one is more prioritized in the worker.

Download this release

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:30:11 GMT

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure

This release aims to add the ability to work with Windows Azure Applications that leverage Cloud Storage to remain testable. It uses the CloudStorage.API and Managed Extensibility Framework MEF to achieve this end.

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime: This part of the project contains additions to the Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime Namespace.
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the project implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Download this release (however there is a newer release that also includes this)

Updated Wiki: Extensible Windows Azure

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:28:42 GMT

Extensible Windows Azure

The main addition in this release compared to previous releases is the addition of Work Services.

Work Services

public override void Start()
{
   while (true)
   {
      // do work here
   }
}

public override void Start()
{
   while (true)
   {
      // do work 1
      // or work 2
      // or work 3
     // [...]
   }
}

Enter the WorkService! ;~)

Work Service

The work service turns the above code mess into pure elegance:

protected override void OnStart()
{
   while (true)
   {
      var work = WorkService.GetWork();
      RoleStatus = work.DoWork();
   }
}

[Import]
public IWorkSchedulerProvider WorkSchedulerProvider { get; set; }

[Import]
public IRoleManager RoleManager { get; set; }

[ImportMany]
public IEnumerable<Lazy<IWork, IWorkMetadata>> Works { get; set; }

public IWork GetWork()
{
	var workScheduler = WorkSchedulerProvider.GetCurrentWorkScheduler();
	var orderedWorks = workScheduler.ScheduleWork(Works);

	foreach (var lazyWork in orderedWorks)
	{
		if (lazyWork.Value.HasWork)
		{
			return new WorkTemplate(lazyWork, RoleManager);
		}
	}
	return new IdleWork(RoleManager);
}

There is a blog post here that explains this code snippet further:

One-Time Work Service

The One-Time Work Serivce is a staeful work service that will execute a specific set of IOneTimeWork tasks once (per Windows Azure Role instance).

Sample

Sample description to come.

Download this release

Updated Wiki: Testable Windows Azure

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:20:07 GMT

Testable Windows Azure

This project aims to make the Windows Azure SDK more testable by enhancing The Windows Azure Project Template with Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF).

The goal is to 1) Enable testability of Windows Azure using MEF, 2) Use the same technology to enable persistence ignorance and again using the same technology 3) make Windows Azure extensible.

The following blog post goes through everything in detail: Windows Azure + Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) = true

MEF

In order to run this code you also need to download Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Preview 5 from the MEF site. Since MEF is under MSPL license and this project is under a different license you have to compose these things your self locally on your machine. Furthermore it makes no sense to upload code in duplicate.

The Project Release

The release is not very big. It contains one main contract IRoleManager, one supporting class EventLogName and a contract implementation RoleManagerService. Also it contains two base classes to use in the Windows Azure Web and Worker Roles; one that derives from System.Web.UI.Page and one that defives from Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime.RoleEntryPoint. Naturally there is a suite of tests to support the implementation. All of this is downloadable in the source code section or as a separate release.

Here is the IRoleManager contract and it's supporting class EventLogName

Download this release (however there is a newer release that also includes this)

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:19:49 GMT

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime: This part of the project contains additions to the Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime Namespace.
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the project implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Download this release (however there is a newer release that also includes this)

Updated Wiki: Home

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:16:31 GMT

Project Description

Current release

Previous releases

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure
Testable Windows Azure

Future release

vNext of AzureContrib is slated to include a dashboard app that enables you to modify the work priority order of worker roles at run-time.

Updated Wiki: Home

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:12:09 GMT

Project Description

Current release

Future release

vNext of AzureContrib is slated to include a dashboard app that enables you to modify the work priority order of worker roles at run-time.

(Se also Previous Releases)

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:09:34 GMT

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime: This part of the project contains additions to the Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime Namespace.
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the project implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Download this release

Updated Wiki: Previous Releases

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:09:01 GMT

Persistence Ignorant Windows Azure - AzureContrib V2
Testable Windows Azure - AzureContrib V1

Updated Wiki: Testable Windows Azure

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:47:10 GMT

Testable Windows Azure

MEF

The Project Release

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:46:14 GMT

Azure Contrib Version 2

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime: This part of the project contains additions to the Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime Namespace.
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the project implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Download this release

Updated Wiki: Samples

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:31:13 GMT

Samples

The project contains a sample site called SampleService that shows off some of the features of this project. A couple of Blog Posts outline the samples and here are a few more comments:

One main purpose of this project is to enable testability for Windows Azure Applications. This also means you separate Web front-end logic from the data access logic. Commonly this is done using an MVP or MVC pattern. We could have used an ASP.NET MVC application for these samples but we opted not to. The reason is that we want to keep these samples very brief and not to require any other knowledge. a simplified version of MVP is used

Using Message Queue

The Message Queue sample puts messages from a textbox on a Message Queue at the click of a button. It then and retrieves the messages again at the click of another button.

The sample page is QueueSample.aspx and the Controller it uses is SampleService_WebRole.Controllers.QueueSampleController.

Using Blob Storage

You can upload a blob file to the site and have it listed in a list of available blobs.

The sample page is BlobSample.aspx and the Controller it uses is SampleService_WebRole.Controllers.BlobSampleController.

Using Entity Storage

There is a sample entity that will be stored in a Cloud Storage table. The entity is the PersonEntity Entity. For this sample to run in the Development Fabric you have to create a local table in your Development Storage. This is done by right klicking your SampleService project and selecting "Create Test Storage Tables".

The sample page is EntitySample.aspx and the Controller it uses is SampleServiceWebRole.Controllers.EntitySampleController. This sample also uses an Entity Sample SampleServiceWebRole.Entities.PersonEntity and an Entity Data Context SampleService_WebRole.Entities.PersonEntityDataContext.

Updated Wiki: Samples

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:10:56 GMT

Samples

The project contains a sample site called SampleService that shows off some of the features of this project. A couple of Blog Posts outline the samples and here are a few more comments:

Using Message Queue

The Message Queue sample puts messages on a Message Queue and retrieves them

Using Blob Storage

Using Entity Storage

Updated Wiki: Samples

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:10:28 GMT

Samples

The project contains a sample site called SampleService that shows off some of the features of this project. A couple of Blog Posts outline the samples and here are a few more comments:

Using Message Queue

The Message Queue sample puts messages on a Message Queue and retrieves them

Using Blob Storage

Using Entity Storage

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:04:56 GMT

Azure Contrib Version 2

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime: This part of the project contains additions to the Microsoft.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime Namespace.
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the project implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Updated Wiki: Azure Contrib Version 2

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:04:07 GMT

Azure Contrib Version 2

AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.ServiceRuntime
AzureContrib.ServiceHosting.StorageClient: This part of the release implements the CloudStorage.API on Windows Azure.
Samples
Blog posts
References/Dependencies

Updated Wiki: Blog posts

NoopMan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:03:46 GMT

Blog Posts

There are a bunch of blog posts that cover the usage of this contrib code. Have you written one and want to be on this page? Contact project coordinator noopman!