Azure in Action

Chapter 15. Processing with worker roles

This chapter covers

• Scaling the backend
• Processing messages
• Using the service management APIs to control your application

In Azure there are two roles that run your code. The first, the web role, has already been discussed. It plays the role of the web server, communicating with the outside world. The second role is the worker role. Worker roles act as backend servers—you might use one to run asynchronous or long-running tasks. Worker roles are usually message based and will usually receive these messages by polling a queue or some other shared storage. Like web roles, you can have multiple deployments of code running in different worker roles. Each deployment can have as many instances as you would ...