With the Azure Services Platform, processing and storing data moves from individual corporate servers and Web sites to larger, more reliable, and more secure data centers. Roger Jennings, author of more than 30 books on Microsoft technologies, shows you how to leverage the power of Azure and its related services for cloud computing.

The book begins with a look at the differences between cloud computing and application hosting and examines the various issues that .NET developers and IT managers face in moving from on-premise to cloud-based applications, including security, privacy, regulatory compliance, backup and recovery, asset cataloging, and other common technical issues. The author then drills down, showing basic programming for individual Azure components, including storage, SQL Data Services, and .NET Services. He then moves on to cover more advanced programming challenges.

• Explains the benefits of using the Azure Services Platform for cloud computing
• Shows how to program with Windows Azure components, including Azure Table and Blob storage, .NET Services and SQL Azure
• Addresses advanced programming challenges of creating useful projects that combine cloud storage with Web applications or services
• Companion Web site features complete, finished applications that can be uploaded to jump start a Windows Azure project

Roger Jennings clears away the clouds and gets you started using the Azure Services Platform.

Cloud-based applications make it easier to share data, and the Azure Platform moves processing and storage from individual corporate servers and websites to large Microsoft data centers. With this book, Roger Jennings offers you an overview of cloud computing and shares his approach for hands-on programming of Windows Azure Storage Services (tables, blobs, and queues) and web, worker, and .NET Services applications. You''ll learn how to program with Azure components, while online chapters cover new SQL Azure Database and Workflow features.

• Addresses various issues you may encounter when moving from on-premise to cloud-based applications (such as security, privacy, regulatory compliance, and backup and recovery)

• Shows how to adapt ASP.NET authentication and role management to Azure web roles

• Reveals the benefits of offloading computing services to one or more WorkerRoles when moving to Windows Azure

• Teaches you how to choose the optimum combination of PartitionKey and RowKey values for sharding Azure tables

• Discusses ways to improve the scalability and performance of Azure tables

Wrox guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think. Written by programmers for programmers, they provide a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

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