Use Windows Azure SDK to deploy your Azure Project to Development Fabric ...

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Today we will learn how to deploy our Azure Project to our local Azure Development Fabric using Windows Azure SDK. This method helps deploying the application onto the computer which doesn't have Visual Studio installed in it.

Lets start off with it. You need to have Windows Azure SDK installed onto your computer to start working with following.

1. Start the instance of Development Fabric and the Development Storage as shown in following figure .......

2. Start the Windows Azure SDK (with elevated admin privilege; right click and select Run as Admin). Navigate to the directory ..\Windows Azure SDk\v1.0\bin\

find two file cspack.exe and csrun.exe in this folder. these are the files needed to pack and deploy the project.

3. At the Azure SDK Prompt, type cspack/? This would provide the information about the cspack command. it provides few examples at the end.

As we can see in the help, we need to provide the Service Definition file (.csdef) as a parameter to the cspack command.

There are some other options also we can pass along with cspack command.

a. If we want to deploy our project locally, then we should provide the /copyOnly option. This option provides us with a folder named .csx containing the roles and the csdef file.

b. If we execute without "copyOnly" parameter, we get the Package File (.cspkg) file. this Package file and the Configuration file (.cscfg) can be uploaded to Azure Portal and the project can be deployed online.

c. if we are using the Worker Roles in the project, we should specify the workerroles as well as the workerrole-entrypoint-dll for the Worker Role.

Now after we run the cspack command (in this case with /copyOnly option) , we get following output ...

*** In this example I am using the HelloWorld azure project that is included in the Azure SDK Samples ...

Now after we have packed our application, its time to deploy it or run it to see it working.

For deploying the project we would use teh csrun.exe.

To get overview of csrun command type csrun/? in the SDK.

Get to the folder that contains the *.csx folder and then execute the following command as shown in figure ....

csrun /run:ServiceDefinition.csx;ServiceConfiguration.cscfg /launchBrowser

thus we need to provide the *.csx folder and the Configuration file.

/launchBrowser options starts the Browser with your Web Role running ....

You can open up the Azure Development Fabric to view the Deployment Information .....

Please post comments ........

Aashish Singh Negi

Twitter @aashishnegi

A package of NEW TECHNOGIES ........

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I haven't blogged from a long time ........

Now after attending the PUG DevCon on 8-9 th August, I cant wait about writing what i learnt there.

A whole set of new technologies .....

DevCon (Developer Conference) was organised by PUG (Pune User Group) sponsered by Infragistics and INETA. It was an awesome event.

There were variuos sessions on various technologies by Professionals.

Let me open the PACKAGE for U all and tell U what I learnt ......

• AZURE CLOUD COMPUTING
• SILVERLIGHT 3
• RIA Business Application
• ASP .NET MVC
• JQuery

AZURE CLOUD CPMPUTING :

This is a nice technology from Microsoft to support the concept of cloud computing, The sessions were taken by Abhishek Kant (MVP Lead), Vikram RajKondawar and Monish Darda.

All of them cleared the concept about AZURE. All the doubts inmind about AZURE and CLOUD COMPUTING were cleared.

there is a lot of theorotical concept involved but seeing it practically or working on it LIVE is very nice experience.

U all can also visit Azure's WebSite and register for an account so that U can access the features of AZURE PORTAL.

I have also created a HELLO WORLD AZURE APPLICATION. U can visit it at http://aashishsinghnegi.cloudapp.net/

SILVERLIGHT 3 + SKETCHFLOW + RIA :

This is another latest technology from Microsoft. It all started with Silverlight 1.0 (XAML), then Silverlight 2.0 (XAML + C#) and now SILVERLIGHT 3.

Silverlight 3 can be said as a package of new features over the old Silverlight. You can download the latest Silverlight 3 Tools and Expression Studio 3 to make use of new features.

Expression Blend 3 + Sketchflow (Included In Expression Studio 3) comes with a new feature of SketchFlow.

Using Sketflow U can create a rough sketch of your application. U can manage the flow between the XAML pages. The rough SKETCH can be presented to the user and the suggestions of user can be saved and reviewed by the Developer.

Using RIA Services in the Silverlight 3 Application, we can create a business application very fast. It takes only 15minutes to create a database business application with built-in user management support.

Use of Domain Service makes it easy and fast to create a database rich application.

Vic Parmar (from Infragistics) showcased all new set of Silverlight UI tools. It was awesome.

ASP .NET MVC :

We all have been creating ASP .NET Web Applications and Web Sites. But now here we get a new feature MVC ( Model View Control ). Rahul Rajadhyaksha was the great mind to tell us about this. That was a little HiFi session for me but afterwards when i worked on it and created some Projects on it, it was very easy to understand.

I will blog about ASP .NET MVC sometime later when i get better hold of it.

JQuery :

This was also a HiFi session by Dhaval Faria. You can refer JQuery site to know more about it. I cannot blog about it right now as i haven't gone through it till now. What i think is that it will be nice using JQuery in our application to make it faster.


Thats al for now guys. I will be back blogging more on SILVERLIGHT 3.

Vikram Rajkondawar had one nice SILDE with him ...... WORDS OF WISDOM ...


" TECHNOLOGY has the POWER to ALTER REALITY !!! "