1. Windows Azure Storage
Name
Title
Organization

2. Agenda Windows Azure Storage Blob Storage Drives Tables Queues
Slide Objectives:
Introduce the topics that will be covered in this session
VALUE PROP
Speaking Points:
Notes:

3. Windows Azure Storage Storage in the Cloud
Scalable, durable, and available
Anywhere at anytime access
Only pay for what the service uses
Exposed via RESTful Web Services
Use from Windows Azure Compute
Use from anywhere on the internet
Slide Objectives:
Define the Windows Azure storage and the great benefits this service provides
Speaking Points:
The Windows Azure storage services provide storage for binary and text data, messages, and structured data in Windows Azure
Scalable
Durable
Available
Cost
REST
Geo-redundant storage provides the highest level of storage durability by seamlessly replicating your data to a secondary location within the same region
Locally redundant storage provides highly durable and available storage within a single location.
Microsoft monitors the service, provides patches, handles scaling, and does the other work needed to keep the service available.
Notes:

4. Windows Azure Storage Account User specified globally unique account name
Can choose geo-location to host storage account: US
Europe
Asia
Northern Europe
North Central US
Western Europe
West US
East Asia
East US
Slide Objective
Understand a Windows Azure storage account
Speaking notes
A storage account gives your applications access to Windows Azure Blob, Table, and Queue services located in a geographic region. You need a storage account to use Windows Azure storage.
The storage account represents the highest level of the namespace for accessing the storage services. A storage account can contain up to 100 TB of blob, queue, and table data. You can create up to five storage accounts for your Windows Azure subscription.
A Windows Azure subscription contains storage account
Can explicitly geo-locate to a sub region or set affinity with other services
Can enable CDN at the account level (means that public containers will be retrievable via the CDN URL)
South Central US
South East Asia

5. Windows Azure Storage Account
Can CDN Enable Account
Blobs delivered via 24 global CDN nodes
Can co-locate storage account with compute account
Explicitly or using affinity groups
Accounts have two independent 512 bit shared secret keys
100 TBs per account
Slide Objective
Understand a Windows Azure storage account
VALUE PROP
Speaking notes
The Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content by caching blobs and static content of compute instances at physical nodes in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
A Windows Azure subscription contains storage accounts
Can explicitly geo-locate to a sub region or set affinity with other services
Can enable CDN at the account level (means that public containers will be retrievable via the CDN URL)
100 TBs per account means a lot of storage for very little cost
Notes
You should change the access keys to your storage account periodically to help keep your storage connections more secure. Two access keys are assigned to enable you to maintain connections to the storage account using one access key while you regenerate the other access key.

6. New Features Geo-Replication Storage Analytics
Logs: Provide trace of executed requests for your storage accounts
Metrics: Provide summary of key capacity and request statistics for Blobs, Tables, and Queues
Improved HTTP headers for Blobs
Slide Objectives:
Explain the new features recently added to Windows Azure storage.
VALUE PROP
Recently added features provide increased functionality and value to Azure storage.
Speaking Points:
Shared Access Signatures (Signed URLs) for Tables and Queues – similar to the Shared Access Signature feature previously available for Blobs, this allows account owners to issue URL access to specific resources such as tables, table ranges, queues, blobs and containers while specifying granular sets of permissions. In addition, there are some smaller improvements to Shared Access Signatures for Blobs
Expanded Blob Copy – For Blobs, we now support copying blobs between storage accounts and copy blob (even within accounts) is performed as an asynchronous operation. This is available in the new version, but will only work if the destination storage account was created on or after June 7, Of course, Copy Blob operations within the same account will continue to work for all accounts
Improved Blob Leasing – Leasing is now available for blob containers, and allows infinite lease duration. In addition, lease durations between seconds are also supported. Changing the lease id (in order to rotate the lease-id across your components) is now supported
Introducing Locally Redundant Storage - Storage users are now able turn off geo-replication by choosing Locally Redundant Storage (LRS). LRS provides highly durable and available storage within a single location (sub region).
Choosing Geo Redundant Storage or Locally Redundant Storage – By default storage accounts are configured for Geo Redundant Storage (GRS), meaning that Table and Blob data is replicated both within the primary location and also to a location hundreds of miles away (geo-replication). As detailed in this blog post, using LRS may be preferable in certain scenarios, and is available at a 23-34% discount compared to GRS. The price of GRS remains unchanged. Please note that a one-time bandwidth charge will apply if you choose to re-enable GRS after switching to LRS.
Configuration of Storage Analytics – While our analytics features (metrics and logging) have been available since last summer, configuring them required the user to call the REST API. In the new management portal, users can easily configure these features.
Monitoring Storage Metrics – Storage users can now also monitor any desired set of metrics tracked in your account via the management portal
Notes:

7. Storage in the Development Fabric
Provides a local “Mock” storage
Emulates storage in cloud
Allows offline development
Requires SQL Express 2005/ or above
There are some differences between Cloud and Dev Storage:
A good approach for developers:
To test pre-deployment, push storage to the cloud first
Use Dev Fabric for compute connect to cloud hosted storage Finally, move compute to the cloud
Slide Objective
Understand the Development Storage Service
VALUE PROP
Speaking notes
Client side simulator of storage in the cloud.
Allows completely disconnected (e.g. while travelling on a plane) development of Windows Azure apps
Can consume just like Cloud storage- from Development Fabric, from another application running locally
Is locked down so that it cannot be called from off the box
If you need this capability run a reverse proxy on the dev machine
Can use CSRun to start and stop service
More on this in Day 3
Uses a single fixed account. The account name and key are always the same
Anyone memorized the Account key yet? Eby8vd…..
Notes
The Windows® Azure™ SDK development environment includes development storage, a utility that simulates the Blob, Queue, and Table services available in the cloud. If you are building a hosted service that employs storage services or writing any external application that calls storage services, you can test locally against development storage.
The development storage utility provides a user interface to view the status of the local storage services and to start, stop, and reset them.
This topic contains the following subtopics:

8. The Storage Client API
In this presentation we’ll cover the underlying RESTful API
Can call these from any HTTP client e.g. Flash, Silverlight, etc…
Client API from SDK Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient
Provides a strongly typed wrapper around REST services
Slide Objective
Discuss the underlying REST API
Discuss the Client API in the SDK- that provides convenient way to call REST service
Speaking notes
Windows Azure Storage is exposed as RESTdful web service
Can be called from any HTTP client
For .NET developers Microsoft ships a client SDK
Managed code library for calling the RESTful services
Hides many of the complexities of the service
Auto retries
Also provide a lower level Protocol library with useful helper tools
Important to understand the fundamentals of the REST APIs.
This deck discusses the REST APIs
Hands on lab demonstrates the SDK

9. Storage Libraries in Many Languages
C#/.NET
Python
Ruby
Perl
JavaScript (Node)
Java
PHP
Erlang
Common LISP
Objective-C
C#/VB on Windows Phone 7
Slide Objectives:
Explain the different Storage Libraries and languages that can be used to work with Windows Azure Storage.
VALUE PROP
Programmatic access to the Blob, Queue, and Table services is available via the Windows Azure client libraries and the Windows Azure storage services REST API.
Speaking Points:
Windows Azure is an open cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.You can build applications using any language, tool or framework.
Notes:

10. Storage Security
Windows Azure Storage provides simple security for calls to storage service
HTTPS endpoint
Digitally sign requests for privileged operations
Two 512bit symmetric keys per storage account
Can be regenerated independently
More granular security via Shared Access Signatures
Slide Objective
Describe security principles
Speaking notes
Simple shared secret security
Can use HTTP or HTTPS to access
Use HTTP for public content
Use HTTPS for secure content (i.e. where using es or Shared Access Signatures)
Two 512bit keys
Keys used to sign priv requests
Two keys supports rolling of keys
E.g. if one key is compromised can use the second key while first is regenerated
More on SAS’s soon
Notes
More on Security on Day 3

11. Windows Azure Storage Abstractions
Blobs
Simple named files along with metadata for the file.
Drives
Durable NTFS volumes for Windows Azure applications to use. Based on Blobs.
Tables
Structured storage. A table is a set of entities; an entity is a set of properties.
Queues
Reliable storage and delivery of messages for an application.
Slide Objectives
Understand each of the storage types at a high level
Speaker Notes
The Windows Azure storage services provide storage for binary and text data, messages, and structured data in Windows Azure. The storage services include:
The Blob service, for storing binary and text data
The Queue service, for storing messages that may be accessed by a client
The Table service, for structured storage for non-relational data
Windows Azure drives, for mounting an NTFS volume accessible to code running in your Windows Azure service
Programmatic access to the Blob, Queue, and Table services is available via the Windows Azure Managed Library and the Windows Azure storage services REST API
Notes

12. Blob Storage

13. Blob Storage Concepts Account Container Blob Pages/ Blocks
Account
Container
Blob
Pages/ Blocks
PIC01.JPG
images
Block/Page
PIC02.JPG
contoso
Slide Objectives
Understand the hierarchy of Blob storage
Speaker Notes
The Blob service provides storage for entities, such as binary files and text files.
The REST API for the Blob service exposes two resources:
Containers
Blobs.
A container is a set of blobs; every blob must belong to a container.
The Blob service defines two types of blobs:
Block blobs, which are optimized for streaming.
Page blobs, which are optimized for random read/write operations and which provide the ability to write to a range of bytes in a blob.
Blobs can be read by calling the Get Blob operation. A client may read the entire blob, or an arbitrary range of bytes.
Block blobs less than or equal to 64 MB in size can be uploaded by calling the Put Blob operation.
Block blobs larger than 64 MB must be uploaded as a set of blocks, each of which must be less than or equal to 4 MB in size.
Page blobs are created and initialized with a maximum size with a call to Put Blob.
To write content to a page blob, you call the Put Page operation. The maximum size currently supported for a page blob is 1 TB.
Notes
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system. Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs. The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group. For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
Block/Page
videos
VID1.AVI

14. Blob Details Main Web Service Operations PutBlob GetBlob DeleteBlob
CopyBlob
SnapshotBlob
LeaseBlob
Main Web Service Operations
Slide Objectives
Understand the hierarchy of Blob storage
Speaker Notes
Put Blob - Creates a new blob or replaces an existing blob within a container.
Get Blob - Reads or downloads a blob from the system, including its metadata and properties.
Delete Blob - Deletes a blob
Copy Blob - Copies a source blob to a destination blob within the same storage account.
SnapShot Blob - The Snapshot Blob operation creates a read-only snapshot of a blob.
Lease Blob - Establishes an exclusive one-minute write lock on a blob. To write to a locked blob, a client must provide a lease ID.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system.
Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs.
The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group.
For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
Notes
The Blob service provides storage for entities, such as binary files and text files. The REST API for the Blob service exposes two resources: containers and blobs. A container is a set of blobs; every blob must belong to a container. The Blob service defines two types of blobs:
Block blobs, which are optimized for streaming. This type of blob is the only blob type available with versions prior to
Page blobs, which are optimized for random read/write operations and which provide the ability to write to a range of bytes in a blob. Page blobs are available only with version
Containers and blobs support user-defined metadata in the form of name-value pairs specified as headers on a request operation.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system. Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs. The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group. For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
A block blob may be created in one of two ways. Block blobs less than or equal to 64 MB in size can be uploaded by calling the Put Blob operation. Block blobs larger than 64 MB must be uploaded as a set of blocks, each of which must be less than or equal to 4 MB in size. A set of successfully uploaded blocks can be assembled in a specified order into a single contiguous blob by calling Put Block List. The maximum size currently supported for a block blob is 200 GB.
Page blobs are created and initialized with a maximum size with a call to Put Blob. To write content to a page blob, you call the Put Page operation. The maximum size currently supported for a page blob is 1 TB.
Blobs support conditional update operations that may be useful for concurrency control and efficient uploading.
Blobs can be read by calling the Get Blob operation. A client may read the entire blob, or an arbitrary range of bytes.
For the Blob service API reference, see Blob Service API.

15. Blob Details Associate Metadata with Blob
Standard HTTP metadata/headers (Cache-Control, Content-Encoding, Content-Type, etc)
Metadata is <name, value> pairs, up to 8KB per blob
Either as part of PutBlob or independently
Associate Metadata with Blob
Slide Objectives
Understand the hierarchy of Blob storage
Speaker Notes
Put Blob - Creates a new blob or replaces an existing blob within a container.
Get Blob - Reads or downloads a blob from the system, including its metadata and properties.
Delete Blob - Deletes a blob
Copy Blob - Copies a source blob to a destination blob within the same storage account.
SnapShot Blob - The Snapshot Blob operation creates a read-only snapshot of a blob.
Lease Blob - Establishes an exclusive one-minute write lock on a blob. To write to a locked blob, a client must provide a lease ID.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system.
Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs.
The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group.
For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
Notes
The Blob service provides storage for entities, such as binary files and text files. The REST API for the Blob service exposes two resources: containers and blobs. A container is a set of blobs; every blob must belong to a container. The Blob service defines two types of blobs:
Block blobs, which are optimized for streaming. This type of blob is the only blob type available with versions prior to
Page blobs, which are optimized for random read/write operations and which provide the ability to write to a range of bytes in a blob. Page blobs are available only with version
Containers and blobs support user-defined metadata in the form of name-value pairs specified as headers on a request operation.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system. Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs. The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group. For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
A block blob may be created in one of two ways. Block blobs less than or equal to 64 MB in size can be uploaded by calling the Put Blob operation. Block blobs larger than 64 MB must be uploaded as a set of blocks, each of which must be less than or equal to 4 MB in size. A set of successfully uploaded blocks can be assembled in a specified order into a single contiguous blob by calling Put Block List. The maximum size currently supported for a block blob is 200 GB.
Page blobs are created and initialized with a maximum size with a call to Put Blob. To write content to a page blob, you call the Put Page operation. The maximum size currently supported for a page blob is 1 TB.
Blobs support conditional update operations that may be useful for concurrency control and efficient uploading.
Blobs can be read by calling the Get Blob operation. A client may read the entire blob, or an arbitrary range of bytes.
For the Blob service API reference, see Blob Service API.

16. Blob Details Blob always accessed by name
Can include ‘/‘ or other delimeter in name e.g. /<container>/myblobs/blob.jpg
Blob always accessed by name
Slide Objectives
Understand the hierarchy of Blob storage
Speaker Notes
Put Blob - Creates a new blob or replaces an existing blob within a container.
Get Blob - Reads or downloads a blob from the system, including its metadata and properties.
Delete Blob - Deletes a blob
Copy Blob - Copies a source blob to a destination blob within the same storage account.
SnapShot Blob - The Snapshot Blob operation creates a read-only snapshot of a blob.
Lease Blob - Establishes an exclusive one-minute write lock on a blob. To write to a locked blob, a client must provide a lease ID.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system.
Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs.
The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group.
For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
Notes
The Blob service provides storage for entities, such as binary files and text files. The REST API for the Blob service exposes two resources: containers and blobs. A container is a set of blobs; every blob must belong to a container. The Blob service defines two types of blobs:
Block blobs, which are optimized for streaming. This type of blob is the only blob type available with versions prior to
Page blobs, which are optimized for random read/write operations and which provide the ability to write to a range of bytes in a blob. Page blobs are available only with version
Containers and blobs support user-defined metadata in the form of name-value pairs specified as headers on a request operation.
Using the REST API for the Blob service, developers can create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system. Blob names may encode a hierarchy by using a configurable path separator. For example, the blob names MyGroup/MyBlob1 and MyGroup/MyBlob2 imply a virtual level of organization for blobs. The enumeration operation for blobs supports traversing the virtual hierarchy in a manner similar to that of a file system, so that you can return a set of blobs that are organized beneath a group. For example, you can enumerate all blobs organized under MyGroup/.
A block blob may be created in one of two ways. Block blobs less than or equal to 64 MB in size can be uploaded by calling the Put Blob operation. Block blobs larger than 64 MB must be uploaded as a set of blocks, each of which must be less than or equal to 4 MB in size. A set of successfully uploaded blocks can be assembled in a specified order into a single contiguous blob by calling Put Block List. The maximum size currently supported for a block blob is 200 GB.
Page blobs are created and initialized with a maximum size with a call to Put Blob. To write content to a page blob, you call the Put Page operation. The maximum size currently supported for a page blob is 1 TB.
Blobs support conditional update operations that may be useful for concurrency control and efficient uploading.
Blobs can be read by calling the Get Blob operation. A client may read the entire blob, or an arbitrary range of bytes.
For the Blob service API reference, see Blob Service API.

17. Blob Containers Multiple Containers per Account Blob Container
Special $root container
Blob Container
A container holds a set of blobs
Set access policies at the container level
Associate Metadata with Container
List the blobs in a container
Including Blob Metadata and MD5
NO search/query. i.e. no WHERE MetadataValue = ?
Blobs Throughput
Effectively in Partition of 1
Target of 60MB/s per Blob
Slide Objective
Understand containers
Speaker Notes
Account can contain unlimited number of containers
Root container useful when serving Silverlight and flash out of Blob storage. May need to store Cross domain access policy files in root of the domain
Metadata is up to 8KB of name value pairs per container
Notes
A root container serves as a default container for your storage account. A storage account may have one root container. The root container must be explicitly created and must be named $root.
A blob stored in the root container may be addressed without referencing the root container name, so that a blob can be addressed at the top level of the storage account hierarchy. For example, you can now reference a blob that resides in the root container in the following manner:

18. Enumerating Blobs GET Blob operation takes parameters Prefix Delimiter
Include= (snapshots, metadata etc…)
Products/Bikes/SuperDuperCycle.jpg
Products/Bikes/FastBike.jpg
Products/Canoes/Whitewater.jpg
Products/Canoes/Flatwater.jpg
Products/Canoes/Hybrid.jpg
Products/Tents/PalaceTent.jpg
Products/Tents/ShedTent.jpg
GET
<Blob>Tents/PalaceTent.wmv</Blob>
<Blob>Tents/ShedTent.wmv</Blob>
Slide Objective
Understand basics of listing blobs in a container
Speaker Notes
The List Blobs operation enumerates the list of blobs under the specified container.
Can include uncommitted Blobs- see discussion on Blocks and Block Lists
Can include snapshots
Notes

19. Pagination Large lists of Blobs can be paginated
Either set maxresults or;
Exceed default value for maxresults (5000)
<Blob>Canoes/Whitewater.jpg</Blob>
<Blob>Canoes/Flatwater.jpg</Blob>
<NextMarker>MarkerValue</NextMarker>
&marker=MarkerValue
<Blob>Canoes/Hybrid.jpg</Blob>
Slide Objective
Understand pagination when listing blobs
Speaker Notes
Reponses over multiple pages return a marker value
This marker is sent to get subsequent page
Notes

20. Tour of the Blob Service
demo
No specific demo identified. Use the MMC or MyAzureStorage.com or Visual Studio to interact with blob storage.

21. Two Types of Blobs Under the Hood
Block Blob
Targeted at streaming workloads
Each blob consists of a sequence of blocks
Each block is identified by a Block ID
Size limit 200GB per blob
Optimistic Concurrency via Etags
Page Blob
Targeted at random read/write workloads
Each blob consists of an array of pages
Each page is identified by its offset from the start of the blob
Size limit 1TB per blob
Optimistic or Pessimistic (locking) concurrency via leases
Slide Objective
Understand different blob types
Speaker Notes
Block blobs are comprised of blocks, each of which is identified by a block ID.
You create or modify a block blob by uploading a set of blocks and committing them by their block IDs.
If you are uploading a block blob that is no more than 64 MB in size, you can also upload it in its entirety with a single Put Blob operation.
When you upload a block to Windows Azure using the Put Block operation, it is associated with the specified block blob, but it does not become part of the blob until you call the Put Block List operation and include the block's ID.
The block remains in an uncommitted state until it is specifically committed. Writing to a block blob is thus always a two-step process.
Each block can be a maximum of 4 MB in size. The maximum size for a block blob in version is 200 GB, or up to 50,000 blocks.
Page blobs are a collection of pages.
A page is a range of data that is identified by its offset from the start of the blob.
To create a page blob, you initialize the page blob by calling Put Blob and specifying its maximum size.
To add content to or update a page blob, you call the Put Page operation to modify a page or range of pages by specifying an offset and range. All pages must align 512-byte page boundaries.
Unlike writes to block blobs, writes to page blobs happen in-place and are immediately committed to the blob.
The maximum size for a page blob is 1 TB.
A page written to a page blob may be up to 1 TB in size but will typically be much smaller
Notes

22. Uploading a Block Blob Uploading a large blob THE BLOB Benefit
blobName = “TheBlob.wmv”;
PutBlock(blobName, blockId1, block1Bits);
PutBlock(blobName, blockId2, block2Bits);
…………
PutBlock(blobName, blockIdN, blockNBits);
PutBlockList(blobName,
blockId1,…,blockIdN);
THE BLOB
10 GB Movie
Block Id 1
Block Id 2
Block Id 3
Block Id N
Benefit
Efficient continuation and retry
Parallel and out of order upload of blocks
Slide Objective
Understand uploading a block blob
VALUE PROP
Block blobs let you upload large blobs efficiently. Block blobs are comprised of blocks, each of which is identified by a block ID.
Speaking notes
When you upload a block to a blob in your storage account, it is associated with the specified block blob, but it does not become part of the blob until you commit a list of blocks that includes the new block's ID.
New blocks remain in an uncommitted state until they are specifically committed or discarded.
Writing a block does not update the last modified time of an existing blob.
With a block blob, you can upload multiple blocks in parallel to decrease upload time.
Each block can include an MD5 hash to verify the transfer, so you can track upload progress and re-send blocks as needed.
You can upload blocks in any order, and determine their sequence in the final block list commitment step.
Notes
TheBlob.wmv
TheBlob.wmv
Windows Azure Storage

23. Page Blob – Random Read/Write
Create MyBlob
Specify Blob Size = 10 Gbytes
Sparse storage - Only charged for pages with data stored in them
Fixed Page Size = 512 bytes
Random Access Operations
PutPage[512, 2048)
PutPage[0, 1024)
ClearPage[512, 1536)
PutPage[2048,2560)
GetPageRange[0, 4096) returns valid data ranges:
[0,512) , [1536,2560)
GetBlob[1000, 2048) returns
All 0 for first 536 bytes
Next 512 bytes are data stored in [1536,2048)
512
1024
1536
2048
2560
10 GB Address Space
Slide Objective
Understand page blob
VALUE PROP
Page blobs are a collection of 512-byte pages optimized for random read and write operations.
Speaking notes
The maximum size for a page blob is 1 TB.
To create a page blob, you initialize the page blob and specify the maximum size the page blob will grow.
To add or update the contents of a page blob, you write a page or pages by specifying an offset and a range that align to 512-byte page boundaries.
A write to a page blob can overwrite just one page, some pages, or up to 4 MB of the page blob.
Writes to page blobs happen in-place and are immediately committed to the blob.
Notes
10 GB

24. Shared Access Signatures
Fine grain access rights to blobs and containers
Sign URL with storage key – permit elevated rights
Revocation
Use short time periods and re-issue
Use container level policy that can be deleted
Two broad approaches
Ad-hoc
Policy based
Slide Objective
Introduce Shared Access Signatures
Speaker Notes
Shared Access Signatures provide access rights to containers and blobs at a more granular level than by simply setting a container’s permissions
Grant users access to a specific blob or to any blob within a specified container for a specified period of time.
Specify what operations a user may perform on a blob that's accessible via a Shared Access Signature.
Use HTTPS to protect the signature (it is like a short dated password)
Two approaches
Ad-hoc Use for very short dated single use scenarios
Policy based Use for longer dated revocable permission sets
Always endeavour to use Least Permission set possible
Notes

25. Ad Hoc Signatures Create Short Dated Shared Access Signature Use case
Signedresource Blob or Container
AccessPolicy Start, Expiry and Permissions
Signature HMAC-SHA256 of above fields
Use case
Single use URLs
E.g. Provide URL to Silverlight client to upload to container
Slide Objective
Understand Ad-Hoc Shared Access signatures
Speaker Notes
Ad-hoc Use for very short dated single use scenarios
Include all permissions and expiry in the signed URL
Can only revoke by deleting the blob or waiting for expiry
Use very short dated URLs
Notes
sr=c&st= T08:20Z&se= T08:30Z&sp=w &sig= dD80ihBh5jfNpymO5Hg1IdiJIEvHcJpCMiCMnN%2fRnbI%3d

26. Policy Based Signatures
Create Container Level Policy
Specify StartTime, ExpiryTime, Permissions
Create Shared Access Signature URL
Signedresource Blob or Container
Signedidentifier Optional pointer to container policy
Signature HMAC-SHA256 of above fields
Use case
Providing revocable permissions to certain users/groups
To revoke: Delete or update container policy
sr=c&si=MyUploadPolicyForUserID12345 &sig=dD80ihBh5jfNpymO5Hg1IdiJIEvHcJpCMiCMnN%2fRnbI%3d
Slide Objective
Understand Ad-Hoc Shared Access signatures
Speaker Notes
Policy Based
Points to a Container level policy
User where want a longer dated permission with ability to revoke
Include all permissions and expiry in the signed URL
Can only revoke by deleting the blob or waiting for expiry
Use very short dated URLs
Notes

27. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
High-bandwidth global blob content delivery
24 locations globally (US, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America), and growing
Same experience for users no matter how far they are from the geo-location where the storage account is hosted
Blob service URL vs. CDN URL:
Windows Azure Blob URL:
Windows Azure CDN URL:
Custom Domain Name for CDN:
Slide Objectives
Understand basic concept of a CDN
Understand at a high level how Windows Azure CDN works
Speaker Notes
The Windows Azure CDN provides edge nodes around the world
Data stored in CDN enabled storage accounts is retrieved from the origin storage container and cached at each edge node in a lazy load fashion
Windows Azure Customers have control over how long data is cached for.
Windows Azure CDN has 18 locations globally (United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America) and continues to expand
The benefit of using a CDN is better performance and user experience for users who are farther from the source of the content stored in the Windows Azure Blob service.
Windows Azure CDN provides worldwide high-bandwidth access to serve content for popular events.
Notes

28. Windows Azure CDN To Enable CDN: GET Register for CDN via Dev Portal
Edge Location
404
To Enable CDN:
Register for CDN via Dev Portal
Set container images to public
Edge Location
Edge Location
TTL
Content Delivery Network 
Slide Objective
Understand how to enable CDN
VALUE PROP
The Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content that's hosted in Windows Azure.
Speaking notes
Log into the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal.
In the navigation pane, click Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN.
In the upper portion of the navigation pane, click CDN.
On the ribbon, click New Endpoint. This will open the Create a New CDN Endpoint window.
On the Create a New CDN Endpoint window select a subscription from the Choose a Subscription dropdown on which to enable CDN.
Select the source of the CDN content from the Chose a content provider dropdown.
If you need to use HTTPS connections check HTTPS.
If you are caching content from a hosted service and you are using query strings to specify the content to be retrieved, check Query Strings.
Click Create.
Notes
The content source URL will display Source URL for the CDN Endpoint. This is the URL from which the CDN will retrieve the cached content.
Once you enable CDN access to a storage account or hosted service, all publicly available objects are eligible for CDN edge caching.
If you modify an object that is currently cached in the CDN, the new content will not be available via the CDN until the CDN refreshes its content when the cached content time-to-live period expires.
Windows Azure Blob Service
pic1.jpg
pic1.jpg
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29. Drives

30. Windows Azure Drives Durable NTFS volume for Windows Azure Instances
Use existing NTFS APIs to access a network attached durable drive
Use System.IO from .NET
Benefits
Move existing apps using NTFS more easily to the cloud
Durability and survival of data on instance recycle
Drives can be up to 1TB
A Windows Azure Drive is an NTFS VHD Page Blob
Mounts Page Blob over the network as an NTFS drive
Local cache on instance for read operations
All flushed and unbuffered writes to drive are made durable to the Page Blob
Slide Objective
Understand Windows Azure Drives
VALUE PROP
A Windows Azure drive acts as a local NTFS volume that is mounted on the server’s file system and that is accessible to code running in a role.
Speaking notes
The data written to a Windows Azure drive is stored in a page blob defined within the Windows Azure Blob service, and cached on the local file system.
The data is maintained even if the role instance is recycled because data written to the drive is stored in a page blob.
Windows Azure drive can be used to run an application that must maintain state, such as a third-party database application.
The Windows Azure Managed Library provides the CloudDrive class for mounting and managing Windows Azure drives.
The CloudDrive class is part of the Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient namespace.
Notes

31. Windows Azure Drive Capabilities
An instance can dynamically mount up to 16 drives
Remote Access via standard BlobUI
Can’t remotely mount drive
Can upload the VHD to a Page Blob using the blob interface, and then mount it as a Drive
Can download the VHD to a local file and mount locally
Only one instance at a time for read/write
Using read-only snapshots to multiple instances at once
Slide Objectives
Understand Drives at a high level
Speaker Notes
Backed by Page blobs
Allows Page blob to be accessed as a drive letter on a Compute instance
Read write is limited to a single instance as a time.
Data is cached for reads on local instance
All write flushed operations are immediately committed
Notes

32. Drive Details Operations performed via Drive API not REST Calls
Operations on Drives
CreateDrive
Creates a new NTFS formatted VHD in Blob storage
MountDrive/UnmountDrive
Mounts a drive into Instance at new drive letter
Unmounts a drive freeing drive letter
Get Mounted Drives
List mounted drives; underlying blob and drive letter
Snapshot Drive
Create snapshot copy of the drive
Slide Objectives
Understand Drives at a high level
Speaker Notes
Cannot specify the drive letter to mount to.
The mounted letter is returned as the result to MountDrive call
To snapshot Should flush all writes and then block with a lease while snapshotting drive
Then can mount new snapshot
Harder to predict storage charges due to unknown transaction counts- be careful and test
Notes

33. How Windows Azure Drives WorksVM
Drive is a formatted page blob stored in blob service
Mount obtains a blob lease
Mount specifies amount of local storage for cache
NTFS flushed/unbuffered writes commit to blob store before returning to app
NTFS reads can be served from local cache or from blob store (cache miss)
Application
Drive X: OS
Local Cache
Slide Objectives
Understand Drives Mounting and Caching
Speaker Notes
A Windows Azure drive acts as a local drive mounted on the file system and is accessible to code running in a role.
The data written to a Windows Azure drive is stored in a page blob defined within the Windows Azure Blob service, and cached on the local file system.
Because data written to the drive is stored in a page blob, the data is Durable.
Notes
Windows Azure Blob Service
DemoBlob

34. Cloud Drive Client Library Sample
CloudStorageAccount account = CloudStorageAccount.FromConfigurationSetting("CloudStorageAccount");
//Initialize the local cache for drives mounted by this role instance CloudDrive.InitializeCache(localCacheDir, cacheSizeInMB);
//Create a cloud drive (PageBlob) CloudDrive drive = account.CreateCloudDrive(pageBlobUri); drive.Create(1000 /* sizeInMB */);
//Mount the network attached drive on the local file system string pathOnLocalFS = drive.Mount(cacheSizeInMB, DriveMountOptions.None);
//Use NTFS APIs to Read/Write files to drive …
//Snapshot drive while mounted to create backups Uri snapshotUri = drive.Snapshot();
//Unmount the drive drive.Unmount();
Slide Objectives
Understand Drives API
Speaker Notes
In Storage Client API
No equivalent REST calls
A Windows Azure drive may be mounted as a writable drive, or as a read-only drive if it is created from a snapshot of a page blob.
To create a read-only drive, call the Snapshot method to create a new snapshot and return the snapshot's URI, then create a new instance of the CloudDrive object from the snapshot's URI and mount the drive
Before a role instance mounts a drive for the first time, it must initialize the cache by calling the InitializeCache method.
When a role instance mounts a writable drive, it acquires an exclusive-write lease on the associated page blob that it retains as long as the drive is mounted.
If the same role instance attempts to mount a drive with the same URI a second time, the operation is ignored and the Mount method returns the local path to the existing drive.
Notes

35. Failover with Drives Must issue NTFS Flush command to persist data
Use System.IO.Stream.Flush()
Read/Write Drives protected with leases
1 Minute lease expiry
Maintained by Windows Azure OS Driver
Unmount on RoleEntryPoint.OnStop
On failure
Lease will timeout after 1 minute
Re-mount drive on new instance
Slide Objectives
Understand Drives under Failure scenarios
Speaker Notes
All writes must be flushed to be persisted to the underlying Page Blob
Read/Write drives maintain a lease
Unmount drives in OnStop method of Role
In failure will need to wait for lease to expire < 1 minute before remounting
Notes

36. Tables

37. Table Storage Concepts
Account
Table
Entity
Name =…
= …
customers
Name =…
Add=
contoso
Photo ID =…
Date =…
Slide Objectives
Understand Tables
Speaker Notes
The Table service provides structured storage in the form of tables.
The Table service supports a REST API that is compliant with the ADO.NET Data Services REST API.
Developers may also use the .NET Client Library for ADO.NET Data Services to access the Table service.
Notes
photos
Photo ID =…
Date =…

38. Table Details Not an RDBMS! Table Entities Create, Query, Delete
Tables can have metadata
Not an RDBMS! Table
Insert
Update
Merge – Partial update
Replace – Update entire entity
Upsert
Delete
Query
Entity Group Transactions
Multiple CUD Operations in a single atomic transaction
Entities
Slide Objectives
Understand Tables
Speaker Notes
Within a storage account, a developer may create named tables.
Tables store data as entities.
An entity is a collection of named properties and their values, similar to a row.
Tables are partitioned to support load balancing across storage nodes.
Each table has as its first property a partition key that specifies the partition an entity belongs to.
The second property is a row key that identifies an entity within a given partition.
The combination of the partition key and the row key forms a primary key that identifies each entity uniquely within the table.
The Table service does not enforce any schema.
A developer may choose to implement and enforce a schema on the client side
Notes

39. Entity Properties Entity can have up to 255 properties
Up to 1MB per entity
Mandatory Properties for every entity
PartitionKey & RowKey (only indexed properties)
Uniquely identifies an entity
Defines the sort order
Timestamp
Optimistic Concurrency
Exposed as an HTTP Etag
No fixed schema for other properties
Each property is stored as a <name, typed value> pair
No schema stored for a table
Properties can be the standard .NET types
String, binary, bool, DateTime, GUID, int, int64, and double
Slide Objectives
Understand Tables and Entities
Speaker Notes
Tables store data as entities.
An entity is a collection of named properties and their values, similar to a row- not an RDBMS though
Tables are partitioned to support load balancing across storage nodes.
Each table has as its first property a partition key that specifies the partition an entity belongs to.
The second property is a row key that identifies an entity within a given partition.
The combination of the partition key and the row key forms a primary key that identifies each entity uniquely within the table.
The Table service does not enforce any schema.
A developer may choose to implement and enforce a schema on the client side
Notes

40. No Fixed Schema FIRST LAST BIRTHDATE FAV SPORT Slide Objectives
Wade
Wegner
2/2/1981
Nathan
Totten
3/15/1965
Nick
Harris
May 1, 1976
FAV SPORT
Canoeing
Slide Objectives
Understand Flexible Entities
Speaker Notes
Tables store data as entities.
A table can contain entities of any shape
There is no fixed schema
There is no schema checking
There is no strong typing- not that Birthdate is stored as both a datetime value and as a string
Not that we can add additional columns
Notes

41. Querying ?$filter=Last eq ‘Wegner’ FIRST LAST BIRTHDATE
Wade
Wegner
2/2/1981
Nathan
Totten
3/15/1965
Nick
Harris
May 1, 1976
Slide Objectives
Understand The Basic Query Syntax
Speaker Notes
Tables store data as entities.
Querying is per the ADO.NET Data Services spec
Should endeavour to always include the Partition key to limit scope of query- partitions always served by a single storage node
Notes

42. Purpose of the PartitionKey
Entity Locality
Entities in the same partition will be stored together
Efficient querying and cache locality
Endeavour to include partition key in all queries
Entity Group Transactions
Atomic multiple Insert/Update/Delete in same partition in a single transaction
Table Scalability
Target throughput – 500 tps/partition, several thousand tps/account
Windows Azure monitors the usage patterns of partitions
Automatically load balance partitions
Each partition can be served by a different storage node
Scale to meet the traffic needs of your table
Slide Objectives
Understand The Partition Key
Speaker Notes
Tables are partitioned to support load balancing across storage nodes.
A table's entities are organized by partition.
A partition is a consecutive range of entities possessing the same partition key value.
The partition key is a unique identifier for the partition within a given table, specified by the PartitionKey property.
The partition key forms the first part of an entity's unique identifier within the table.
The partition key may be a string value up to 1 KB in size.
You must include the PartitionKey property in every insert, update, and delete operation.
Notes

43. Partitions and Partition Ranges
PartitionKey
(Category)
RowKey
(Title)
Timestamp
MODELYEAR
Bikes
Super Duper Cycle …
2009
Quick Cycle 200 Deluxe
2007
Canoes
Whitewater
Flatwater
2006
Rafts
14ft Super Tourer
1999
Skis
Fabrikam Back Trackers
Tents
Super Palace
2008
PartitionKey
(Category)
RowKey
(Title)
Timestamp
MODELYEAR
Bikes
Super Duper Cycle …
2009
Quick Cycle 200 Deluxe
2007
Canoes
Whitewater
Flatwater
2006
Server B
Table = Products
[Canoes - MaxKey)
Server A
[MinKey - Canoes)
Server A
Table = Products
PartitionKey
(Category)
RowKey
(Title)
Timestamp
MODELYEAR
Rafts
14ft Super Tourer …
1999
Skis
Fabrikam Back Trackers
2009
Tents
Super Palace
2008
Slide Objectives
Understand Partition Ranges
Speaker Notes
DON’T use unique PartionKey values for your entities – each entity will then belong to its own partition
Range partitions group entities that have sequentially, unique PartitionKey values to improve the performance of range queries.
Without range partitions, a range query will need to cross partition boundaries or server boundaries, which can decrease the performance of the query.
Notes