Professional WCF 4: Windows Communication Foundation with .NET 4

Chapter 10. Windows Azure Platform AppFabric

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Getting started with Windows Azure platform AppFabric

• Service Bus Integration

• Access Control Integration

The Windows Azure platform represents a radical change in the way applications can be built and managed. This platform provides an Internet-based cloud computing environment that anyone can use for hosting applications and storing the associated data. The platform in general comprises two core services that any cloud-based application can use: compute (e.g., executing an application) and storage (e.g., storing data on disk).

The compute service enables any application to run in the cloud. In essence, the applications are deployed in a highly scalable environment where they share computer processor time available in different virtual machines with Windows Server. These virtual machine instances are spread around the world in different Microsoft data centers.

The storage service, as its name clearly states, provides simple storage capabilities using different schemas such as BLOBs (binary objects), queues, or simple tables through a very easy-to-use REST API based on Http calls. In case an application requires richer querying capabilities for the storage (e.g., relational databases), an additional service, SQL Azure, is also provided by Microsoft in this platform.

In both cases, Windows Azure assures the availability and high scalability that any cloud-based application requires.

AppFabric extends the Windows Azure platform ...