Switching on the cloud for Silverlight MSDN Live Meeting Gill Cleeren Microsoft Regional Director – Silverlight MVP Ordina Belgium

About myself... Gill Cleeren Microsoft Regional Director MVP ASP.NET.NET ( Speaker (TechDays, DevDays, NDC Norway, Spring Conference UK, SQL Server Saturday Switzerland, TechEd Berlin, SDC...) Visug user group lead ( Author (Silverlight 4 Data and services cookbook) Blog:

Agenda What is Windows Azure? – Parts of Windows Azure – Why does a Silverlight developer need to care? – Developing for Windows Azure Required tools Emulators (“local cloud”) Azure Portal Moving Silverlight applications to the cloud – Database only – WCF What with REST – Entire Silverlight applications – RIA Services – Azure as intermediate layer for Twitter

Agenda (2) Using blob storage – Accessing files in blob storage – XAP hosted in blob storage (optional) Windows Phone 7 and Azure – Accessing services in the cloud

WHAT IS WINDOWS AZURE?

What is a Cloud Platform ? Jonathan Weber (The Times Online)

So, Windows Azure then? An operating system for the cloud Internet Scale Microsoft data centers Based on internet standards (Interopability) Features – Service Management / Scalability – Compute power – Storage Familiar tools for development

Windows Azure Cloud Operating System: More value than what you think of with the term “OS” however!

Software-as-a-Service “SaaS” Platform-as-a-Service “PaaS” Infrastructure-as-a-Service “IaaS”

Cloud Services Packaged Software Storage Servers Networking O/S Middleware Virtualization Data Applications Runtime You manage Infrastructure (as a Service) Storage Servers Networking O/S Middleware Virtualization Data Applications Runtime Managed by vendor You manage Platform (as a Service) Managed by vendor You manage Storage Servers Networking O/S Middleware Virtualization Applications Runtime Data Software (as a Service) Managed by vendor Storage Servers Networking O/S Middleware Virtualization Applications Runtime Data

Parts of Windows Azure Hosted services – Web role IIS in the cloud For running ASP.NET applications – Worker role Run any executable in the cloud (own database, server...)

Parts of Windows Azure (2) Azure storage – Scalable storage in the cloud – 100TB per storage account – Auto-scale to meet massive volume and throughput – Accessible via RESTful Web Service API Access from Windows Azure Compute Access from anywhere via internet Supporting.NET Client Library

Parts of Windows Azure (3) Azure storage – Blob storage – Table storage – Queue storage

Parts of Windows Azure (4) SQL Azure – Familiar SQL Server relational database model delivered as a service Highly available – Contains: Database Reporting Data sync

Parts of Windows Azure (5) AppFabric – Access control – Service bus – Caching

Why does a Silverlight developer need to care? Azure targets web applications Highly available Easy scaling – May not be important for XAP – Important for services and database

Developing for Windows Azure Required tools – Visual Studio (duh) – Azure SDK – Azure Tools  Installs  Compute emulator  Storage emulator Account on Windows Azure

Management portal

MOVING SILVERLIGHT APPLICATIONS TO THE CLOUD

Let’s move! Silverlight applications can be “moved” to Azure on different levels – Database only – WCF/ASMX/REST services – All-in: Move the hosting site XAP in webrole XAP in blob storage – RIA Services

Hosting site Scenario Silverlight application Service layer (WCF, REST...) Database

CASE 1: DATABASE ONLY

Hosting site Scenario Silverlight application Service layer (WCF, REST...) Database

Database only Case: – A Silverlight business app – WCF services to expose the data – Data in a SQL Server 2008 database Task: move database only to the cloud

Database only Steps: – Create database on SQL Azure – Use Migration wizard to export database to Azure – Change connection strings in service configuration

DEMO Database only

CASE 2: WCF SERVICE

Hosting site Scenario Silverlight application Service layer (WCF, REST...) Database

WCF service Case: – Silverlight business application communicates with WCF service, service exposes data – Data is migrated to SQL Azure Task: move WCF service to Azure

Side information Silverlight can communicate with – ASMX – WCF (using BasicHttpBinding) Both expose a WSDL file – Used by Visual Studio to generate proxy class – Generates config containing service location in Silverlight application  Possible to  move existing service  “use” cloud services inside VS Silverlight project

Silverlight and WCF service Steps: – Create Cloud project – Add webrole to contain service hosting site (ASP or WCF) – Test in compute emulator – Update Silverlight configuration to use new service address – Deploy service package to the cloud – Re-deploy new Silverlight application

DEMO Silverlight and WCF service

REST service Case: – Silverlight business application communicates with REST service, service exposes data A WCF service can be configured to work as a REST service – Data is migrated to SQL Azure Task: move REST service to Azure

Side information REST (REpresentational State Transfer) – Protocol based on web standards (GET, PUT...) – All information is a resource – Information exchanged over XML or JSON Using WCF, we can create REST services – Silverlight sends request to URL – Service responds with XML – Silverlight can parse the XML  Possible to move the REST service to Azure

Silverlight and REST service Steps: – Create Cloud solution – Move service hosting site to webrole (ASP or WCF) – Test in compute emulator – Update Silverlight configuration to use new service address – Deploy service package to the cloud – Re-deploy new Silverlight application (Yes, this is identical!)

DEMO REST service

CASE 3: MOVE SILVERLIGHT TO THE CLOUD

Hosting site Scenario Silverlight application Service layer (WCF, REST...) Database

Move Silverlight to the cloud Case: – Database hosted in SQL Azure – WCF Service hosted in Windows Azure (web role) – Silverlight application and hosting website need to move to the cloud Task: – Move Silverlight hosting site to (other) web role

Side information Silverlight is just a XAP file, hosted inside an HTML, ASPX, PHP... page XAP file is downloaded from – Azure Hosted service – Azure Storage Site can be a web role

Move Silverlight to the cloud Steps: – Add second web role to cloud project OR second cloud project (accessible via port number) – (optional) Create a new hosted service for this role

DEMO Move Silverlight to the cloud

CASE 4: RIA SERVICES IN THE CLOUD

RIA Services in the cloud Case – Silverlight application that uses RIA Services – Server-side use of Entity Framework – Database is moved to SQL Azure Task: – All-in approach: move everything to the cloud

Side information RIA Services create a link between server- side and client-side project Hosting site requires configuration changes and assembly references – RIA Services is not installed on your Azure VM! Specific template exists if starting from scratch

RIA Services in the cloud Steps: – Add new web role to cloud project – Move service hosting site to webrole – Change configuration – Set Copy local to true for RIA Services assemblies – Deploy Silverlight XAP along with services Services can be in a different assembly, will be hosted alongside

DEMO RIA Services in the cloud

CASE 5: USE AZURE AS TWITTER INTERMEDIATE

Scenario Silverlight Twitter SERVICESERVICE SERVICESERVICE

Use Azure as Twitter intermediate Case – We want to use Twitter API in in-browser Silverlight apps Need to build intermediate service layer Task: – Use Windows Azure for this purpose

Side information Twitter doesn’t expose a policy file In-browser Silverlight apps need this file to access the service  Intermediate service layer is required

DEMO Use Azure as Twitter intermediate

USING BLOB STORAGE

Blob storage Blobs can be used to – Store images and videos used in Silverlight application Possible to generate build a service that allows access for a limited time to a resource (Shared Access Signatures)

Blob storage Blobs can be used to Store XAP of Silverlight application  Why? – Azure does not support updating just the XAP file (you can work around it using the VM Role) – Easy versioning of just the Silverlight application  Things to keep in mind – The MIME type needs to be set to application/x-silverlight- app – Cross-domain issues in 2 ways! » XAP hosted in blob storage, service on your domain » “Regular” cross-domain issues

DEMO Using Blog Storage

DEMO The XAP in blob storage

WINDOWS PHONE AND AZURE

Hello? Windows Phone Windows Phone == Silverlight API  Most things we looked at work for WP7 as well Different models meet – Phone = not always connected – Cloud = there when you need it 2 options – Phone “calls” cloud – Cloud “calls” phone Push notifications

Phone “calls” cloud These things just work – WCF/ASMX/REST service hosted in Azure HTTP-based communication – Database behind service in SQL Azure – WCF Data Services (oData) – XML/JSON/SOAP Remember: the smaller the data, the better! Note: No cross-domain policy file required!

Phone “calls” cloud WP7 can not work with – RIA Services – Sockets – Duplex bindings

DEMO WP7 and WCF Data Services in the cloud

Summary Silverlight apps work in harmony with Azure – Database – Service layer – Silverlight app Blob storage is useful – For resources – For XAP hosting

Q&A

THANK YOU

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Switching on the cloud for Silverlight MSDN Live Meeting Gill Cleeren Microsoft Regional Director – Silverlight MVP Ordina Belgium