Programming Microsoft's Clouds: Windows Azure™ and Office 365

Chapter 12

An Azure Datamarket Overview

What’s In This Chapter

• Understanding Windows Azure Datamarket
• Creating and managing your Marketplace account
• Browsing and subscribing to published content
• Understanding and using Datamarket datasets

The amount of data available for applications is incredible—and unfortunately, it’s locked behind corporate walls. If you can navigate the multitude of access methods to get to the data, that data is invariably presented in various formats. Accessing different data sources from different vendors—or even the same vendor—and then corralling and controlling that data can be a nightmare. But you can simplify data publishing and even consumption using a cloud-based solution that provides access to disparate data from multiple sources via a common format and access. Enter Azure Datamarket.

What Is Windows Azure Datamarket?

Windows Azure Datamarket is a subset of the Windows Azure Marketplace wherein a single Marketplace account can purchase applications and data. Datamarket was the first area in the Azure Marketplace. Microsoft has since introduced Applications published to Datamarket, which is not limited to the .NET and Windows world. Currently located at https://datamarket.azure.com/, the Marketplace gives users access to a store of applications and datasets for purchase. Figure 12-1 shows the Marketplace homepage.

Introduced as code-name Dallas, and based on common nonplatform-specific web technologies such as HTTP and AtomPub, Datamarket provides ...