Would a Azure Storage Web UI be useful?

Question

Hi all,

Whilst working on an Azure project (mostly dev fabric based, little bit in the actual cloud) I found I frequently wanted to look at the state of the azure storage (blob/queue/table) to view status of the app, check a blob/record had been successfully stored, etc.

I am aware that it is possible to mount storage in powershell, view table storage via SQL Management Studio etc.

What I was wondering is if other Azure devs think it would be useful to have a Web-based Storage UI, which would allow you to view Blob/Queue/Table storage, in a nice AJAX/Silverlight/etc web front-end, with the ability to add/remove/delete items...???


It may be that I'm alone in thinking this would be cool and very useful, or maybe it has already been done, or planned for future releases.

Let me know and if there's a gap in the market, i'm happy to build it!

Cheers, j

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joew

Answer 1

Sounds good to me.
I've not been able to get the pug in to work - no documentation.

Andy

Answer 2

There are several UIs for Azure storage and logs available, but the ones I've tried leave much to be desired. Examples:

Sergei Meleshchuk’s Azure storage viewer post of 12/24/2008 showed a storage browser for Queues, Blogs and Tables that looked promising, but it wouldn’t run for me. Starting the app causes it to immediately stop running under Windows Vista Ultimate on two computers. Others confirm it won't run on Vista. If Sergei fixes his app to run on Vista, it probably would satisfy most users.

Chris Hay offers his Windows Azure Blob Browser WPF application for CRUD operations on Azure blobs that you can download from here. It's list boxes aren't expandable and don't have scrollbars, but I use it.

David Aiken’s Windows Azure Online Log Reader is a no-frills Azure Services log reader by the author of Yap, an Azure-based Twitter clone with LiveID login but a terrible user experience.

David Lemphers’ Windows Azure Logs! post of 1/1/2009 starts the new year with a spartan LogBrowser project that I couldn’t get to read my logs.

Above are from recent OakLeaf blog posts.

--rj

Check out the Azure Table and Blob test harnesses at http://oakleaf.cloudapp.net/ and http://oakleaf2.cloudapp.net/.

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OakLeaf Blog

Answer 3

checkout spaceblock.  Does blobs great.  probably will do tables soon.
http://www.codeplex.com/spaceblock

Answer 4

ok, i'm gonna have a go at making this!

Does anyone have any desired features?

• Ability to add/modify/delete (batch option)
• Silverlight / HTML AJAX UI
• Support for Blob/Table/Queue storage
• Support for Blob Block view?
  
• What else??????

Thanks

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joew

Answer 5

Azure Storage Explorer will show you your blobs, queue messages, and table records.

http://www.codeplex.com/azurestorageexplorer

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David Pallmann, Director, .NET Application Development, Neudesic

Answer 6

David,

A Web UI for blobs and tables also should be able to display log files.

--rj

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OakLeaf Blog

Answer 7

I agree. I'll look into it.

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David Pallmann, Director, .NET Application Development, Neudesic

Answer 8

Sorry Dave, didn't see your tool. looks great! think i'll use that

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joew

Answer 9

You can now view log files with Azure Storage Explorer, Roger.

Azure Storage Explorer has been updated on CodePlex.

 

There are 3 items of interest in the new 0.3 preview version:

1. It's built against the January 2009 Azure CTP.
2. Blobs in a folder hierarchy (with prefixes) now display and can be viewed.
3. Blobs whose names end in ".xml" (like log files) are auto-formatted as pretty XML with whitespace to make them more readable.

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David Pallmann, Director, .NET Application Development, Neudesic

Answer 10

We have just finished development of a Silverlight 2.0 based client for Azure Table Storage. We are expecting to release it in next few weeks. If anybody is interested in trying it out before, please send me an email at gmantri @ cerebrata dot com and I will send you a link.

Since it is just out of development and is being tested as we speak, I don't want to make that link publicly available just yet. Once the testing is over, we will make it available to public so that everybody can start using it.

At this time we have only built table storage management (create/delete) and entities management (create/update/delete) + it has ability to manage multiple accounts simultaneously (like you can manage multiple databases in Management Studio). We intend to add Queue and BLOB support in next few releases.

Thanks

Gaurav Mantri
Cerebrata Software
http://omega.cerebrata.com

Answer 11

Azure Storage Explorer version 2.0 has just been posted on CodePlex at  http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/.

- WPF-based UI with Outlook-style navigation and more polish
- Ability to view pictures in blob storage as images
- Support for multiple storage accounts

David

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David Pallmann, Director, .NET Application Development, Neudesic

Answer 12

You can check this out as well: www.cloud9-explorer.com

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Jörgen Verhart

Answer 13

I checked all of the tools above and have to say that I prefer Cerebrata's tool (https://onlinedemo.cerebrata.com/Cerebrata.CloudStorage/default.aspx) best of all. The #1 feature for me there is the ability to create/update/delete table storage entries (honestly I don't see how tool can claim support for ATS without this) and edit their properties. The ability to see blob's content and to save user credentials are must haves as well.

Answer 14

Hi,

Thought I should mention it here as well. We have just released a Desktop version of Cloud Storage Studio (tool mentioned by Jason above) in private beta. More information & sign up sheet is available on our website: http://www.cerebrata.com or visit this thread about the tool: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazure/thread/4c0578a3-a5da-41ed-b29d-55067c6dcc50 (You will have to scroll down to read about the desktop version).

Thanks

Gaurav Mantri
http://www.cerebrata.com

P.S. Thanks for your recommendation Jason.

Answer 15

Azure Storage Explorer 3.0 (beta) is now available at http://AzureStorageExplorer.CodePlex.com. It includes the ability to import/export between cloud storage and your local file system.

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David Pallmann, Director, .NET Application Development, Neudesic

Answer 16

Hello All,

Yesterday we released a new version of Cloud Storage Studio. Two of the major highlights of this new version are:

1. Compatibility with latest service release/SDK: Cloud Storage Studio is now compatible with November Service/SDK release.

2. Services management: Using Cloud Storage Studio, now you can manage your hosted applications. For most of the common tasks related to application deployment, you can do them right through your desktop without going to Windows Azure portal.

Here is the complete list of all the changes:

Compatibility with latest SDK/Service
Right around PDC time, Azure team released a new version of SDK and Azure Service. Cloud Storage Studio is now compatible with these changes. Under the new SDK, Development Storage now offers the same capabilities that Azure cloud environment to offer and you can take the advantages of the same while using Cloud Storage Studio. If you have not done it already, we would strongly recommend you to download latest SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/. There are a few things we have not implemented from these changes in Cloud Storage Studio: Blob lease, Page Blobs & Entity Group Transactions. We are currently evaluating these features and finding best ways to incorporate these features in Cloud Storage Studio.
 
Service Management API Integration
In this version, we have included the capability to manage your hosted services from Cloud Storage Studio.

Here is what you can do as far as managing hosted services are concerned:
1. You can manage one or more subscriptions and one or more hosted services in each of the subscriptions.
2. You can create/update/delete/run your deployments.
3. You can swap production and staging deployments.
4. You can also promote a staging deployment (only when production deployment is not available).
5. You can do both manual and automatic service upgrades.
6. You can update the service configurations.
7. You can manage SSL certificates associated with hosted services.
8. You can view the affinity groups.
9. You can view service properties.

To learn more about how to manage Hosted Services using Cloud Storage Studio, please read the following blog entry:
http://www.cerebrata.com/Blog/post/Managing-Hosted-Services-Using-Cloud-Storage-Studio.aspx
 
Blobs UI Overhaul
Presenting blobs in a "Folder" like hierarchy was one of the most requested feature. In this version we are including that. So now the blobs will be presented in "Folder" structure. Please note that Azure Blobs storage does not have the notion of folders and we have made use of "/" as the delimiter to create this folder hierarchy. So when you do any operation on the folder like Delete, Copy etc., the application will first get the list of all the blobs in that folder and then do the operation on them. You can upload files directly to a particular folder. You can download files from a particular folder.

You can always go back to a "Flat" hierarchy (i.e. the way we always had by making a change in the configuration setting). Please note that application will be closed if you change this setting and you will have to start the application again.
 
Blobs Snapshots
This is an interesting feature introduced in the latest service release and we have included this capability in this version. Basically snapshot functionality allows you to take a read only copy of a blob at a particular moment of time. You can use this to build a very basic file versioning system. Using Cloud Storage Studio, you can:
- Take blobs snapshots
- List blobs snapshots
- Delete, View & Promote (i.e. replace the blob of which this snapshot is taken) blob snapshot.

 
File Content Type Settings
In this version, we have included a capability where in you can define a dictionary of content types of the files that you upload. This can be accessed via Configuration Settings Window. Application will store these content types along with application preferences.
 
File Handler Settings
There are times when you don't have a registered handler on your computer for a particular file type or you may want to use a different application to view a particular file type (e.g. if registered handler for .gif files is Internet Explorer and you want to open them in Paint instead), you can now define that setting in Cloud Storage Studio. This can be accessed via Configuration Settings Window. Application will store these file types and the handler information along with application preferences.
 
Automatically connect to Development Storage
In this new version, you can instruct Cloud Storage Studio to connect to Development Storage automatically when the application starts. To do so, please check the checkbox which says "Connect to development storage automatically" under "Storage Account Settings" in "Configuration Settings Window". Please make sure that development storage service is running.
 
Other Changes

- While filtering entities, the filter window is made bigger & resizable.
 
- Currently while vieweing entities, first four columns (Column to indicate if an entity has been modified, PartitionKey, RowKey & Timestamp) are frozen.
This creates a problem when you have very big values for PartitionKey & RowKey. Now only the first column is frozen. If you want to freeze these four columns (i.e. have a behavior similar to what is currently available), you can change that under Table Settings in the Configuration Settings window.
 
- By default now the columns will resize themselves based on the content.
 
- All Date/Time values are now in UTC instead of local date/time.
 
- Currently there can be only one query tab per table. We have changed it so that now you can have multiple query tabs open per table.
 
- Application preferences are moved out of application and are now stored in user's "AppData" folder (identified by Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData) function).
 
- All the temporary content is downloaded in user's "Temp" folder (identified by System.IO.Path.GetTempPath() function).
 
- F5 key refreshes the list of containers, tables & queues. To do so, just click on the "Containers" (or "Tables" or "Queues") tree view item, and hit F5. Application will try and get the list back from the service.
 
- While creating tables & queues, hitting enter key will invoke the "Save" functionality.
 
- All metadata names (in Queue, Container & Blob metadata windows) now have to be C# identifier compliant.
 
- Container ACL can now have three (3) possible values [Full public read access, Public read access for blobs only, and No public read access] instead of just two (2) values before [Public & Private].
 
- Included Dequeue Count when vieweing messages to show you how many times a message has been dequeued.
 
- While displaying blobs list in a container, now we display the blob type (Block Blob or Page Blob) and blob lease status (Locked or Unlocked). Please note that currently you can't do upload/download operation on Page blobs using Cloud Storage Studio.
 
- You can view the content type of a blob in Blob Upload Window when it's added to the upload queue.
 
- Blob Upload/Download windows are now resizable.
 
- Cloud Storage Studio will not let you assign an expired Container Access Policy while generating Signed URL for a blob.
 
Thanks


Thanks

Gaurav Mantri
http://www.cerebrata.com

Answer 17

I thought it'd would be useful so I created one :)

you check it out here: http://storageexplorer.cloudapp.net/

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http://sgomez.blogspot.com