Chapter 3
Building a Windows Azure–Based Service
What's In This Chapter?
- Getting started with Windows Azure and SharePoint
- Understanding Windows Azure table storage
- Creating a Windows Communication Foundation Service in Windows Azure
- Connecting to Windows Azure with Business Connectivity Services
Windows Azure is a good platform for running your services and data in the cloud, but how do you leverage these services and data from within SharePoint? In this chapter, you will learn about the Windows Azure Table service, which enables Windows Azure to host very large and scalable flat datasets in the cloud. (Azure storage services also include the Blob service and the Queue service, but these services are outside the scope of this chapter.) Windows Azure can also host your Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, and you will learn how to create a WCF service in Windows Azure that reads and writes data in a Windows Azure table. Then you will learn how to create a Business Connectivity Services (BCS) model to consume the Windows Azure service without writing any code.
The scenario this chapter uses leverages county tax data from all the states from 2007. You will see how to move this open-source government data into your Windows Azure table and consume it in your SharePoint applications. Although the example uses data from somewhere else, you could apply the same techniques for your own data, including moving some of your SharePoint lists to the cloud.
Before digging into ...
