Windows Azure Forum

WCF RIA Services on Azure

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:59:04 Z

I am still trying to digest all the good stuff shared at PDC on Azure and Silverlight.

I am working on a solution for which WCF RIA Services hosted on Azure with Table Storage as the data source (not SQL Azure) feels like the right answer. I've found great information on the pieces but have not found a specific sample or blog on this particular combination.

Are theer any samples, tutorials or blogs that come to anyone's mind? Thanks for the help.

Trying To Use The Windows Azure Table Browser -- what is my Access Key?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:47:44 Z

I'm trying to use the Windows Azure Table Browser but can't figure out what to use as an Access Key. I tried my token, but that didn't work and threw an ASP.NET error when it tried to cast it to a base 64 char array. I can't find an "access key" anywhere else?

Also, if I want to get at diagnostics information, do I have to set up a DiagnosticsConnectionString that is for production before deployment or does that happen automaitically?

The web site can not be displayed after promotion from staging to production.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:36:31 Z

My web site can not displayed after promotion from staing ro production.

Before promotion, the web site in staging can be correctly shown. After promotion, the web site http://jackyy.cloudapp.net is not reachable.

The deployment id is 1e14c9b47a27431994b8499eeafea4b7

Why is windows azure could not able to upload a configuration file of size 7MB?

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:43:23 Z

Why is windows azure could not able to upload a configuration file of size 7MB?

windows azure is reporting an error while uploading a project configuration file of size 7MB, can anyone guide me in this issue?

Australian MSDN subscribers not eligible for Azure benefits??

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:48:26 Z

Just curious why Australia is not a supported country getting these MSDN benefits for Azure? New Zealand is there BUT Australia isn't? Whats the logic behind that?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ee461076.aspx

Make the web a beautiful place

How do I deal with the error "Invalid FastCGI application path"?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:27:09 Z

I've found the YouTube video "Hosting PHP Applications in Windows Azure" extremely helpful in getting started with hosting a PHP web application on Azure. However, when trying to run my application locally (in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition), I get the error

"Invalid FastCGI application path '%RoleRoot%\php\php-cgi.exe': path must begin with '%RoleRoot%\approot'"

Does anyone have any clues how to get my application up and running?

AspProviders Session provider storing incorrect dates?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:38:08 Z

When looking at the Session table created by the November AspProviders session provider, I see unexpected dates. All entities have CreatedUtc dates of either 31-Dec-1800 as viewed in Cloud Storage Studio, or 01-Jan-1801 as viewed in Azure Storage Explorer. I guess there's a bug in either one of those apps since they display different dates for the same entity, but the curious thing is that CreatedUtc is 200 years old. Also, ExpiresUtc for my sessions all have dates in the past. The most recent listing has an ExpiresUtc date of 17-Nov-2009, and today is 24-Nov-2009. I'm new to ASP.NET, so perhaps there's a convention I'm unfamiliar with. Or, is there a bug in the Session provider?

I see strange things happening with my sessions, and perhaps these anomalies have something to do with it.

CSPKG file is not getting created using PHP Azure SDK

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:26:06 Z

Steps done

1. Select Publish Application to Windows Azure Portal

2. Select Project_WebRole

All the requited Files created to upload to cloud except for app.cspkg which is the main project file

.settings
ServiceDefinition.csx
.project
ServiceConfiguration.cscfg
ServiceDefinition.cscdf

Best practice for manycast across instances?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:57:09 Z

I've got a situation where I need one client to POST data via HTTP and I need a large number of other clients to be able to receive the data in real time via a GET request. It's basically a streaming reflector but the concept isn't entirely unlike a chat application with only one person talking.

On a single server, this is easy enough to do. Module and/or Handler with a static event. Get requests add an event handler and sleep while(Response.IsClientConnected) and the event handler writes new data out to the client. Post requests read the incoming stream and call the event with the data if there are listeners.

With multiple instances, though, I am not seeing a good way to do this. If I had a real shared filesystem I could write to a file and tail output to new GET requests but as far as I'm aware, we don't have that.

The amount of data is fairly significant (think 300kbit/s in 4KByte or so chunks) and needs to be delivered as near as possible to real time. I'm thinking RESTful polling style scenarios with the service bus won't do it but I don't have any experience with that so maybe I'm wrong? Also, I'm sure it would be a bad idea to have multiple users per webrole instance doing this so I'd have to find a way to aggregate them into a single listener per instance per stream.

Does anyone have any brilliant ideas about the various services enabled in Azure that I could leverage for such a task?

I'm also looking for the best way to do a chat room type application on Azure -- I have a feeling there might be some samples of that floating around.

For anyone who is interested, I've written a motion jpeg encoder for Silverlight 4 that pulls from a webcam and a decoder for Silverlight 3 and I'm trying to find a suitable way to stream it over http. With a bit of jumping through hoops with IHttpModule to get access to the incoming post data without buffering all of it first, I've managed to get a single-server version working. I'll be making code samples available for single-server shortly after I figure out how to compress the audio from PCM to ADPCM and back. I've already posted some hints to various blogs detailing what's involved -- it's actually quite simple to do M-Jpeg.

How to install the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio for VWD 2010 under XP?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:09:56 Z

Hello,

how can we install the Windows Azure Tools/Tepmplates for Visual Web Developer 2010 Beta under XP?

Thank you very much.

Start role failed for one or more roles...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:34:06 Z

I know a question like this was asked a few days ago but not of the solutions suggested fixes the prob.
Yesterday testing Azure locally worked fine. Today it doesn't - nothing has changed on my PC at all.

VS 2010 Beta 2 says 'Running the Service Deployment...' in the status bar and about 20 seconds later I get a generic message box with 'Start role failed for one or more roles' and that's it.

What I've tried:
- Uninstalling Azure and reinstalling.
- Shutting down and restarting the development fabric before debugging.

Any ideas?

Time

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:11:27 Z

I thought that the Azure computers were all set for using GMT time. As a result, I've based all of my internal processing in my azure app on GMT internally, then when I output to the user, I convert the time to their local timezone, which I have stored with their login info. Everything has been working fine. I just upgraded my app to the November CTP and noticed this. Before I go and dig in my app, has anything changed regarding time in Azure? Is there a time difference in calling DateTime.UtcNow across datacenters?

Wally

MVP in ASP.NET - ASPInsider - Author - Otherwise I am a loser.

Configure VS2010 b2 to use SSL cert in Azure WebRole

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:46:50 Z

Hi,

I have been trying to upload my VS2010 b2 solution using a SSL certificate to Azure.

I have created a certificate using the makecert tool like so:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin\makecert" -r -pe -ss My -a sha1 -n "CN=ServiceMonitorCert" -sky exchange -len 2048 -sp "Micr
osoft Enhanced RSA and AES Cryptographic Provider" -sy 24 servicemonitor.cer

I then upload the cert into Azure's API Certificates storage.

In my VS 2010 b2 project I select the properties page of the Web Role, I select the Certificates tab and add the new certificate (the Certificates tab and list displayed is not the same as the older articles). I give the Cert a name matching the name in the makecert line above, Store Loation set to "LocalMachine", Store Name set to "My".

Then I go the the Endpoints tab, select the HTTPS checkbox, and select the SSL cert in the dropdown.

When I go to publish the solution to Azure I get the following message:
At least one certificate specified in your service definition is not found. Please upload these certificate(s), and then upload your application package again. - Dr. Watson Diagnostic ID: f486c89044d2461c9f74c2103fd9a929

I think I have tried a couple of combinations Name/Store Name but I keep getting the same error message? Does anybody have a walkthrough which works? or do you know what I did wrong?

Thanks,

Wouter

DiagnosticsConnectionString works in dev environment and publishes to cloud storage but fails in azure

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:49:11 Z

I've created a storage account. I created a DiagnosticsConnectionString that uses the account name and key for that storage account. And I modified my web.config to have a TraceListener and also to traceFailedRequests. When I run my service from localhost, it connects to the storage account in the cloud and successfully logs information which I can then read in the WASLogsTable using http://myazurestorage.com.

But when I deploy the service to production or staging, I am not getting the same results -- nothing is getting logged (or perhaps nothing is getting transferred).

What could I be missing? Here's the code used in the override of onStart in the web role:

public override bool OnStart()

{

// Get the factory configuration so that it can be edited

DiagnosticMonitorConfiguration config = DiagnosticMonitor.GetDefaultInitialConfiguration();

// Set scheduled transfer interval for infrastructure logs to 1 minute

config.DiagnosticInfrastructureLogs.ScheduledTransferPeriod = System.

TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1);

// Specify a logging level to filter records to transfer

config.DiagnosticInfrastructureLogs.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter =

LogLevel.Error;

// Set scheduled transfer interval for user's Windows Azure Logs to 1 minute

config.Logs.ScheduledTransferPeriod = System.

TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1);

DiagnosticMonitor.Start("DiagnosticsConnectionString", config);

// For information on handling configuration changes

// see the MSDN topic at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166357.

RoleEnvironment.Changing += RoleEnvironmentChanging;

return base.OnStart();

}

Poison Messages: Need Best Practices

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:12:09 Z

Hi! I was wondering is anyone had some advice they could give me regarding poison message handling in Azure. I think Neil Kidd's "Poison in Windows Azure" article is a good starting point but I was wondering if anyone else had some advice.

http://blogs.msdn.com/neilkidd/archive/2008/12/07/poison-in-windows-azure.aspx

A related question is "What happens to queued messages after the visibility timeout?" Experimentation seem to indicate that expired messages get moved to the back of the queue (a good thing!) My question, though, is this a guaranteed behavior? If not it is would be all too easy for poison messages to form a "sandbar" that stops the queue dead in its tracks.

Again, any additional insights would be greatly appreciated!

Can't run the service.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:51:34 Z

Project migrate to November 2009 Release. After this it not running in the cloud. Locally all working fine, but after 'deploy' and 'run' pass two phase - 'initializing' and 'busy'. I can't see the logs, because ' Upcoming Changes to Windows Azure Logging'. I don't understand why service don't start? How i get information about this?

Alexander Sitnikov

Why would i convert my application to current Azure model while VM model is supported?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:58:59 Z

Hi,
On PDC keynote there were a talk that Azure will support VM model (where you can install/configure all type of legacy applications). If this is the case what is the need of converting to corrent model. I would really like to know before i convert all my applications.

Thanks.

connection reset by peer

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:37:58 Z

I m trying to insert data on the azure database. After sometime i m getting the below error:

<HEAD><TITLE>Connection reset by peer</TITLE></HEAD>\n<BODY BGCOLOR=\"white\" FGCOLOR=\"black\"><H1>Connection reset by peer</H1><HR>\n<FONT FACE=\"Helvetica,Arial\"><B>\nDescription: Connection reset by peer</B></FONT>\n<HR>\n\n</BODY>\n\0\r\n

Error when create Storage Container

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:20:46 Z

I'm getting a very strang error when creating a new storage container:

_container.CreateIfNotExist();

The exception is:

------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.StorageClientException : The account being accessed does not have sufficient permissions to execute this operation.

----> System.Net.WebException : The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

------------------------------------------------------

However, when i change another account name and the shared key, it runs well.

So I think there is something wrong with my account since it was working properly several days ago.

My Account Name is : kuckustorage

Please help, thanks.

I got stuck on Updating deployment

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:10:40 Z

I got stuck on Updating deployment when trying to update the configuration of production in hosted service.

my web site URL is http://jackyy.cloudapp.net

An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions 127.0.0.1:8731

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:45:04 Z

I tried to deploy a service and get this error:

An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions 127.0.0.1:8731

in my Solution i have a CloudService with one Worker-Role. This Worker-Role has a reference to a WCF-Service. The WCF-Service is also in the Solution but not in the Cloud-Service.

If i try this application on my computer it works fine, but after i moved it to windows azure i get this error???

authentication error when trying to access azure blob storage without the client library

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:13:50 Z

Hi,

I am trying to access my blob storage without using the client library or any sdk function.
I followed the MSDN description for creating the authentication header ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179428.aspx )
but something seems to be wrong as I always get an authentication error (403).
What I want to do is simply list the containers inside my blob storage.
To achieve this, I use the following code:

string requesturl = "http://[accountname].blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list";
string method = "GET"; 
string accountName = "[accountname]";
string sharedKey = "[PRIMARY KEY FROM THE AZURE PORTAL]";

string date = DateTime.UtcNow.ToString();

// SETTING UP THE HEADER FOR THE SIGNATURE

string signature =
    method + "\n"       // HTTP VERB
    + "\n"              /*Content-Encoding*/
    + "\n"              /*Content-Language*/
    + "\n"              /*Content-Length*/
    + "\n"              /*Content-MD5*/
    + "\n"              /*Content-Type*/
    + "\n"              /*Date*/
    + "\n"              /*If-Modified-Since */
    + "\n"              /*If-Match*/
    + "\n"              /*If-None-Match*/
    + "\n"              /*If-Unmodified-Since*/
    + "\n"              /*Range*/
    + "x-ms-date:" + date + "\n"            /*CanonicalizedHeaders*/
    + "x-ms-version:2009-09-19\n"           /*CanonicalizedHeaders*/
    + "/" + accountName + "\n"              /*CanonicalizedResource*/
    + "comp:list\n"                         /*CanonicalizedResource*/
    + "restype:container\n"                 /*CanonicalizedResource*/
    + "timeout:20";                         /*CanonicalizedResource*/


// CREATING THE SIGNATURE

byte[] signBytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(signatureString);
byte[] hash = new HMACSHA256(Convert.FromBase64String(sharedKey)).ComputeHash(signBytes);
string signature = System.Convert.ToBase64String(hash);
string authHeaderValue = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,"SharedKey {0}:{1}",accountName,signature);

// SETTING UP THE WEBREQUEST

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(requesturl);

request.Headers.Add("x-ms-version", "2009-09-19");
request.Headers.Add("x-ms-date", date);
request.Headers.Add("Authorization", authHeaderValue);

// TRYING TO GET A WEB RESPONSE

HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse(); // <= yields a 403 error

I am not quite sure especially about the CanonicalizedResource. This shouldn't be that hard because it's the most simple query against the blob storage, I think.
But somehow I don't get it running.

Maybe someone has a clue what I am doing wrong?

Thank you very much,

Kerstov

ATTENTION: Storage Accounts in the “USA - Northwest” Region Being Deleted

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:58:02 Z

In August, the Windows Azure team announced that CTP participants would need to migrate their applications and storage accounts out of the “USA - Northwest” region. We followed up in email with everyone who had affected applications or storage accounts, and the deadline for migration has now passed. Applications in “USA - Northwest” have already been turned off, and the remaining storage accounts will be deleted on November 28th, 2009. Once the accounts are deleted, there will be no way to retrieve the deleted data.

In preparation for deleting them, we made all the remaining storage accounts read-only around 2:00am PST Monday morning. If you’re seeing errors when you try to write to your storage account, this is likely the reason.

To check where your storage account is, visit the portal (https://windows.azure.com) and browse to the storage account in question. If it says “USA - Northwest,” it will be deleted shortly. If it says “USA - Anywhere,” you can use http://wheresmyapp.cloudapp.net to confirm the location of the account.

If your account is indeed in the northwest, you’ll need to create a new storage account and manually move any data you want to keep. You can write your own code to do the migration or use third-party tools to help. For example, Azure Storage Explorer (http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com) provides export and import of table storage via comma-separated value files (.csv).

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Windows Azure Customer Contact alias: wacc@microsoft.com.

404 : Resource not found. While accessing Blob Files

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:17:38 Z

I have an application which stores images in blob storage. The application accesses these image directly from the blob url say

http://acct.blob.core.windows.net/images/test

This used to work till yesterday. However when I access this same link from my application today I get a 404 Error:
And the following is the response I received when I called the same url from Fiddler

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Error><Code>ResourceNotFound</Code><Message>The specified resource does not exist.

RequestId:721eec31-2fa3-42cc-aca9-3f827bbdad37

Time:2009-11-04T16:01:40.4257556Z</Message></Error>

Has there been any changes in the Blob access mechanism? How do I resolve this issue?

Error with setup

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:13:55 Z

Hi I got my invitation code but when I entered it I got the following error

Reference #:

P: 11f56768-1be9-40a8-947e-d01a5894a72a / 09

Reference Time:

11/23/2009 4:11:23 PM

Problem Details

Unexpected Error Occurred.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Feedback on Tools for VS - include UI hint when adding roles

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:12:23 Z

I didn't realize until after seeing this done in PDC videos that you can change the name of Roles as you add them in the "File -> New Project" wizard. Would MSFT consider adding a UI hint that the Roles are renameable? Right now you have to mouse over the role before you see the delete/rename icons. Until seeing others do that in demos, I manually changed the role names after they were created.

Can't call REST API from .NET 4?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:07:16 Z

SUMMARY
We some boilerplate code which uses a DataServiceContext and the REST APIs to access Azure table storage. This works fine in .NET 3.5. We upgraded to .NET 4.0 (we need multitouch in our client) and I assumed this wouldn't be a problem, as the REST API is pretty standard stuff. It doesn't work, however, and using fiddler I see that the generated request is different (and I assume the cause of the failure). Is there a way to force our .NET 4 client to generate requests in the .NET 3.5 style?

DETAILS:

We have some boilerplate code which accesses a table in Azure. Under the covers it uses a DataServiceContext (and TableStorageDataServiceContext) to make REST calls and retrieve Azure table data. We need to upgrade our client code to .NET 4, as our project is dependent on multi-touch technology. I assumed that because these were standard REST calls that the client .NET version shouldn’t make a difference. It appears that it does. Under .NET 4, some of the requests work fine. Others do not. I’d like to force our client to behave as it did under .NET 3.5. Poking around with fiddler I see this request as failing:

Under .NET 3.5 our client sends a requests like:

GET /AttendeesTable()?$filter=(RowKey%20eq%20'Jeff.Berg')%20and%20(PartitionKey%20eq%20'jeffberg')&$top=1 HTTP/1.1

DataServiceVersion: 1.0;NetFx

MaxDataServiceVersion: 1.0;NetFx

And the response is fine.

Under .NET 4.0, the very same client code results in:

GET /AttendeesTable(RowKey='Jeff.Berg',PartitionKey='jeffberg') HTTP/1.1

DataServiceVersion: 1.0;NetFx

MaxDataServiceVersion: 2.0;NetFx

Note the GET request is formatted differently and the MaxDataServiceVersion is increased. The response code is ResourceNotFound with message “The specified resource does not exist”

Is there a way to force our client code to behave as it did under .NET 3.5? Or am I misunderstanding the situation? Or, what information can I provide that will help illustrate the problem and resolve the issue?

-jeff

can not add service reference

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:38:42 Z

i created an azure service with a web-role. Now i try to add service reference to an othe project from windows azure. If i open the web page in the browser i get this message:

You have created a service.

To test this service, you will need to create a client and use it to call the service. You can do this using the svcutil.exe tool from the command line with the following syntax:

But if i try to get services from this URL i get an error message, visual studio can not parse this file, or something like this....

how can i create a client to test this services????

End of CTP

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:15:24 Z

On the main Azure site + a Microsoft Austalia MSDN Flash newsletter it says that people can continue to their CTP account after launch date until their country lauches (Australia in March)...

My question is: does Microsoft extend the CTP limits such as VM hours and bandwidth?

Introducing the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:31:55 Z

As part of the Windows Azure CTP, we are announcing the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) to deliver Windows Azure Blob content. Windows Azure CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content.

Windows Azure CDN has 18 locations globally (United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America) and continues to expand. Windows Azure CDN caches your Windows Azure blobs at strategically placed locations to provide maximum bandwidth for delivering your content to users. You can enable CDN delivery for any storage account via the Windows Azure Developer Portal. The CDN provides edge delivery only to blobs that are in public blob containers, which are available for anonymous access.

The benefit of using a CDN is better performance and user experience for users who are farther from the source of the content stored in the Windows Azure Blob service. In addition, Windows Azure CDN provides worldwide high-bandwidth access to serve content for popular events.

When you enable CDN access for a storage account, the developer portal provides you with a domain name of the following format: http:/ /<guid>.vo.msecnd.net/. This domain name can then be used to access blobs in a public container. For example, given a public container “images” and a storage account “cohowinery”, once the storage account is enabled for CDN access, users can access the blobs in that container using either of the following two URLs:

Windows Azure Blob service URL: http://cohowinery.blob.core.windows.net/images/
Windows Azure CDN URL: http://<guid>.vo.msecnd.net/images/

When a request is made using the Windows Azure Blob service URL, the blob is read directly from the Windows Azure Blob service. When a request is made using the Windows Azure CDN URL, the request is redirected to the CDN endpoint closest to the location from which the request was made to provide access to the blob. If the blob is not found at that endpoint, then it is retrieved from the Blob service and cached at the endpoint, where a time-to-live (TTL) setting is maintained for the cached blob. The TTL specifies that the blob should be cached for that amount of time in the CDN until it is refreshed by the Blob service. The CDN attempts to refresh the blob from Windows Azure Blob service only once the TTL has elapsed. The default TTL is 72 hours. At PDC 2009, we will allow you to specify the standard HTTP Cache-Control header for your Windows Azure blobs. If this value is specified for a blob, then the TTL period will be set to the value specified in Cache-Control header.

The value of caching blobs in the Windows Azure CDN is realized only when the content is delivered from the CDN edge cache, so content requested only once during the blob’s TTL period will not get performance improvements from edge caching. The blob content that benefits the most from caching are blobs accessed frequently during their cached TTL period.

You may also register one custom domain name for Windows Azure CDN access per storage account in the Windows Azure Developer Portal. For example, if you wanted to access CDN content through the domain “merlot.cohowinery.com”, you can register that custom domain name for the CDN endpoint in the portal. Continuing with our example, this would allow you to then access your blobs via one of the following three URLs:

http://cohowinery.blob.core.windows.net/images/
http://<guid>.vo.msecnd.net/images/
http://merlot.cohowinery.com/images/

The last two URLs above would access the blobs in the “images” container via the Windows Azure CDN, whereas the first URL would access the blobs directly from the Windows Azure Blob service.

The following steps are to enable CDN access to a storage account:

1. Go to the Windows Azure Developer Portal.

2. Click on your storage account.

3. Click on “Enable CDN” for your storage account.

4. The portal provides a CDN domain name in the form of: http://<guid>.vo.msecnd.net/ .

The configuration created for this endpoint is not immediately available; it can take up to 60 minutes for the registration to propagate through the CDN network worldwide. Users who try immediately to use the CDN domain name will get a 400 error until the configuration is updated worldwide.

After you’ve followed the steps listed above, you have to designate the containers you want to provide access to as a public container (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179391.aspx). You can then access blobs in that container using the CDN URL. The CDN domain name represents the storage account, so any public blob container within that storage account can be accessed via the CDN URL.

You can also register a custom domain name for the Windows Azure CDN endpoint. Follow these steps to register and use a custom storage domain name for your CDN content:

1. Go to the Windows Azure Developer Portal

2. Click on your storage account

3. Click on “Manage” for your http://<guid>.vo.msecnd.net/ endpoint.

4. Enter your custom domain name.

5. To complete the register of your custom domain name you will be asked to verify that you own the domain. You will be asked to register for your “custom.domain.name” a CNAME record from “<guid>.custom.domain.name” to “domainnameverification.windows.azure.com”, where the <guid> is specified by us in the portal.

6. Once you have registered that CNAME, click on validate in the portal for the CDN endpoint. Windows Azure will then validate that the CNAME record exists, and if successful your custom domain name will be registered.

To use the custom storage domain name:

1. Create a CNAME record from “custom.domain.name” to “<guid>.vo.msecnd.net”

2. Make the containers you want to provide anonymous access for public containers using the following blob API:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179391.aspx

3. You can then begin providing anonymous access to your blobs with http://custom.domain.name/ via the Windows Azure CDN.

If you no longer wish to cache a blob in the CDN, you can:

· Delete the blob from the public container

· Make the container private instead of public using the blob API:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179391.aspx

· Remove the Windows Azure CDN endpoint from your storage account in the Windows Azure Developer Portal.

Blobs already cached in the CDN will remain cached until the TTL for each blob expires. When the TTL expires, the Windows Azure CDN will check to see whether the CDN endpoint is still valid and the Windows Azure blob is still anonymously accessible. If it is not, then the blob will no longer be cached. This means that if you want to change the content of the blob and the blob is currently cached in the CDN, the new content will not be available via the CDN until the CDN refreshes its content when the cached content TTL expires.

Additional information:

· At this time there is no charge for CDN access to your blobs while in CTP. Information on pricing for the Windows Azure CDN offering will be provided in the future.

· For best performance, we recommend caching blobs less than 10 GB in size.

· Windows Azure CDN access only works for anonymous access and for HTTP. HTTPS is not supported for CDN access.

· A custom domain name can be registered for only one storage account endpoint at a time. For example, one could not register the domain name “merlot.cohowinery.com” for two different Windows Azure CDN endpoints at the same time.

· You can register overlapping domain names for different endpoints. For example, the following domain names can be registered at the same time for different storage accounts or endpoints:

o http://merlot.cohowinery.com/

o http://vintage.merlot.cohowinery.com/

Stay tuned for more information about the Windows Azure CDN and additional new and exciting features at PDC 2009.

Brad Calder

Windows Azure Storage

Error generating WSDL from Silverlight WCF service from template.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:53:02 Z

I have created a WCF service from the Silverlight WCF service template in VS and I was able to run and deploy on the Azure Fabric however I still get the incorrect WSDL URI so it won't work properly on creating proxy classes on a Silver Light client. On the other hand I have create a default WCF service uploaded to Azure Fabric and WSDL UIR works correctly which in the past was an issue. I am not sure what are the differences between SL WCF Service and WCF Service, both from VS templates. I appreciate all the help.

Server Error in '/' Application.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:58:00 Z

I got this, albeit I did not do anything other than using my application that was running stable since 4 weeks now with data, that I was using for 4 weeks now. So the problem MUST be microsoft.
What's happening?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<error xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata">
<code>InsufficientAccountPermissions</code>
<message xml:lang="en-US">The account being accessed does not have sufficient permissions to execute this operation.
RequestId:01506d82-2346-4ddf-b7e3-e216914bd5e2
Time:2009-11-23T12:50:56.5768128Z</message>
</error>

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Data.Services.Client.DataServiceClientException: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<error xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata">
<code>InsufficientAccountPermissions</code>
<message xml:lang="en-US">The account being accessed does not have sufficient permissions to execute this operation.
RequestId:01506d82-2346-4ddf-b7e3-e216914bd5e2
Time:2009-11-23T12:50:56.5768128Z</message>
</error>

Source Error:

 An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[DataServiceClientException: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>

<error xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata">

  <code>InsufficientAccountPermissions</code>

  <message xml:lang="en-US">The account being accessed does not have sufficient permissions to execute this operation.

RequestId:01506d82-2346-4ddf-b7e3-e216914bd5e2

Time:2009-11-23T12:50:56.5768128Z</message>

</error>]

   System.Data.Services.Client.<HandleBatchResponse>d__25.MoveNext() +1412



[DataServiceRequestException: An error occurred while processing this request.]

   System.Data.Services.Client.SaveAsyncResult.HandleBatchResponse() +1501

   System.Data.Services.Client.SaveAsyncResult.EndRequest() +40

   System.Data.Services.Client.DataServiceContext.SaveChanges(SaveChangesOptions options) +160

   Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageMembershipProvider.CheckPassword(DataServiceContext svc, String username, String password, Boolean updateLastLoginActivityDate, Boolean failIfNotApproved, MembershipRow& member) +1049



[ProviderException: Error accessing the data store!]

   Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageMembershipProvider.CheckPassword(DataServiceContext svc, String username, String password, Boolean updateLastLoginActivityDate, Boolean failIfNotApproved, MembershipRow& member) +2731

   Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageMembershipProvider.CheckPassword(String username, String password, Boolean updateLastLoginActivityDate, Boolean failIfNotApproved, MembershipRow& member) +107

   Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageMembershipProvider.CheckPassword(String username, String password, Boolean updateLastLoginActivityDate, Boolean failIfNotApproved) +114

   Microsoft.Samples.ServiceHosting.AspProviders.TableStorageMembershipProvider.ValidateUser(String username, String password) +157

   IntelliSign_WebRole.Controllers.AccountMembershipService.ValidateUser(String userName, String password) +89

   IntelliSign_WebRole.Controllers.AccountController.ValidateLogOn(String userName, String password) +357

   IntelliSign_WebRole.Controllers.AccountController.LogOn(String userName, String password, Boolean rememberMe, String returnUrl) +83

   lambda_method(ExecutionScope , ControllerBase , Object[] ) +187

   System.Web.Mvc.ReflectedActionDescriptor.Execute(ControllerContext controllerContext, IDictionary`2 parameters) +251

   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary`2 parameters) +31

   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClassa.<InvokeActionMethodWithFilters>b__7() +88

   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodFilter(IActionFilter filter, ActionExecutingContext preContext, Func`1 continuation) +534

   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary`2 parameters) +312

   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +856

   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +185

   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContextBase httpContext) +221

   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +586

   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +177

CloudQueue.BeginGetMessage (TimeSpan, AsyncCallback, Object)

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:10:12 Z

I have a question regarding the semantics and implementation of the

CloudQueue.BeginGetMessage (TimeSpan, AsyncCallback, Object)

function. First, is it implemented using polling or is it push? Or in other words, is there some entity inside the azure framework that constantly issue Http/REST calls to the queue, or is it true wait/notifiy?

Second, I was not sure about the semantics of TimeSpan, does that mean wait for a maximum time of TimeSpan, if no message has arrived within that time then call the callback function anyway. Is that true?

Accessing local storage

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:39:31 Z

I'm trying to upgrade my code from the July CTP to the November CTP. This code uses the following code to access a file from local storage:

ILocalResource myIO = RoleManager.GetLocalResource("AIResources");
string PathToFile = Path.Combine(myIO.RootPath, "localFile.txt");

I can't seem to figure out how to adapt this for the new CTP. Help?

How to migrate and deploy an existing vs.net2005 webservice and web application using vs.net2008

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:48:41 Z

I have vs.net2008,sql server2008 and windows sdk,microsoft toolkit,windows powershell with vista enterprise edition with all pre requisites softwares. I have created the database and deployed in azure cloud. I have even tested the database in the cloud with local webservice. I have an existing webservice and a web application build in vs.net2005. the web application request the webservice for database interaction and in return the result is return to the application. I want to upload these files and deploy in the azure cloud. I have created a project where I have a webservicerole and webApp role as per cloud norms where I have two csdef and cscfg. Now I want to add the files in the existing project but I cannot find how to add the app_code and .asmx file. How to add files and what all changes are require in order to make it compatible so that I can run in azure cloud. All the toolkit demo has shown of creating new application but not how to deploy an existing application. I want to know the steps and if possible the procedure for doing all these. mail me at uddipto@adaptsolutions.in Thanks in advance

Structure Map

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:10:02 Z

I have a ASP.Net MVC2 application with structure map working fine. When i tried adding this application as web role to azure cloud service, it does not work. I didnt receive any error also. the web role is not starting. help needed.

VS Azure Tools Installation Problem

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:55:46 Z

Am I the only one experiencing the following dialog upon trying to install VSCloudService.msi ?

"Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.0 CTP (10/23/2008) requires Visual Studio SP1 or Visual Studio Web Developer 2008 Express Edition SP1. If you installed pre-SP1 components after upgrading to SP1, please reinstall SP1 and try again."

I have VS SP1 running and everything is up to date.

Suggestion: do not store a Web Role's "Launch Browser" preference in the Azure project file

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:46:18 Z

I have a suggestion: do not store a Web Role's "Launch Browser" preference in the Azure project file.
Instead store it in a hidden file, just like Visual Studio Solutions have .suo files.

The details:

1) I created a new Windows Azure project and added two web roles - MySite1_WebRole and MySite2_WebRole
2) I'm the main developer responsible for MySite1_WebRole so I typically right click on Roles/MySite1_WebRole and check "Launch Browser". Since I rarely work on Roles/MySite2_WebRole, I right click on Roles/MySite2_WebRole and un-check "Launch Browser"
3) I see these preferences are saved to MYAZUREPROJECT.vbproj

Saving these preferences to the project files causes a few problems - here are some examples -

I'm using source control so the project is typically read-only. Since these preferences are being saved in the project file, I now need to check out the project file. Now some other developer working on Roles/MySite2_WebRole will not get a browser launched for his/her role. He may need to check out the files as well - and we could play this thug-of-preferences for a long time.

Alternatively I could make my project file not read-only temporarily - but that's a mess, since now I may not get real updates in the project file. Or I could always write to the project file and merge changes as needed - but that gets ugly for the same reasons above.

Here's the way this should be handled

In Visual Studio 2008, if I have multiple projects in a Solution I can right click on the Solution > Properties > Common Properties > Startup Project.

Now, let's say I make a change and choose "Multiple startup projects" instead of "Single startup project".

If I now save, these preferences are saved in the solution.suo file - NOT the solution.sln file.

Where can I find the latest Windows Azure Tools of VS2008, Vs2010Beta2?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:22:45 Z

Some of the internet links points back to themselves. Is there a latest version available after the recent PDC?

mysorian