Windows Azure Data Storage

Chapter 6

Local Storage

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understand the basic concepts of Local Storage
• Discover how to programmatically access Local Storage resources
• Learn the limitations and restrictions on Local Storage

Just the idea of having access to Local Storage when creating a cloud application is going to seem odd to some. It is, until you understand that local in this particular usage means local to the process that is running in the cloud.

Fundamentally, the goal behind Local Storage is to provide a mechanism for having applications that have been written for and deployed to Azure to be able to access a file system in an environment where it might not seem like a file system should be available. Or, more interestingly, when the machine on which your process runs is changed and the physical location of the file system changes with it.

In this chapter, you learn about the concept of Local Storage, the mechanics of how to utilize this storage, and the limitations and considerations that need to be made in order to take advantage of it.

LOCAL STORAGE

Local Storage is an odd name for this Windows Azure feature. Unfortunately, the name Local Storage really doesn’t do a good job of describing when it should be used. To help you grasp its real purpose, the next couple of paragraphs discuss the original development approach that Azure allows you to implement.

Web and Worker Roles

Back when Windows Azure was first delivered as a product, there was one way in which you would write a web-based ...