Windows Azure Learning Path–Level 200

Level 200 - Intermediate

The intermediate lesson is designed to take you into a learning path that explores Windows Azure capabilities necessary for building cloud solutions. Windows Azure is equipped with rich managed services ecosystem that will speed up your development through pre-built building block services. Access Control Service, Azure Storage, Cache, and Service Bus are a few examples of managed services which accelerate your development of industrial strength cloud applications and services. Exercises to complete for this level: Please read the Overview to find details about Exercise 1 to 3 and download Hands-on Lab source files prerequisite for each of the exercises.

Exercises to Complete for this Level:

Getting Started: Provisioning the Cache Service You need to provision Azure Cache service in preparation for Exercise 1, 2 and 3.

Exercise 1: Using the Windows Azure Caching for Session State

In this exercise, you will explore the use session state provider for Windows Azure Caching as the mechanism for out-of-process storage of session data to be useable in a web farm. For this purpose, you will use Azure Store - a sample shopping cart application implemented in MVC. Please make sure to Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before start of Exercise 1.

Exercise 2: Caching Data with Windows Azure Caching

In this exercise, you will store SQL query results in Azure Caching service for faster access of frequently used SQL data. Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before starting Exercise 2.

Exercise 3: Creating a Reusable and Extensible Caching Layer

In this exercise, you will explore building a caching layer on top of your existing data access classes that will allow you to plug in different caching providers, or even remove them altogether, through simple configuration changes. Download Hands-on Lab Source Files before start of Exercise 3.

Exercise 4: Working with Azure Storage

Tables Windows Azure Tables is a NoSQL database that is offered as a managed service on Windows Azure. Azure Table storage saves developer from getting into the complex infrastructure scalability activities which often can consume valuable developer time. Azure Table storage runs on a highly scalable elastic infrastructure that scales out keeping pace with the demand of the application throughput. Visit https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/storage/ for details on Azure Table storage. If not already done, setup Azure subscription per the instructions located at: https://walearningpath.cloudapp.net/free and set up Azure Storage account.