Application Frameworks Now Part of the Windows Azure Web Sites Gallery

April 30th, 2013 Posted in Python, Web Sites, Windows Azure
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A recent addition to the Windows Azure Web Sites Gallery has me very excited, support for installing Web Application Frameworks. Installing a Web Application Framework from the Windows Azure Web Sites Gallery provides the benefit of speed and simplicity during setup by means of implicit configuration for Windows Azure Web Sites.

Let’s take a look at how we can set up Django, a Web Framework for Python applications, using the Windows Azure Management Portal.

Setting up Django on Windows Azure Web Sites

This article makes the assumption that you already have a Windows Azure Subscription. If this is not the case sign up for the 90 day free trial of Windows Azure.

  1. Log into the Windows Azure Management Portal.
  2. Click on the + New button
    drawer-waws-new
  3. Select Compute > Web Site > From Gallery
    drawer-waws-fromgallery
  4. Select App Frameworks
    gallery-appframeworks
  5. Click Next
    gallery-appframeworks-django
  6. Click Complete
    waws-django
  7. Click Browse
    drawer-waws-browse
  8. Start Building!

    Did you know there are Python Tools for Visual Studio?

    waws-django-works

Why is this useful?

Having these packages installable from the Windows Azure Web Site Gallery ensures that you’re receiving a great experience when using the Application Framework of your choice. Once the site is configured, simply download the files using FTP to begin development, or upload your application specific files from your local installation of the same framework.

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Released: Windows Azure Training Kit – April 2013

April 17th, 2013 Posted in Development, Training Kit, Windows Azure
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Scott Guthrie announced the General Availability of Windows Azure IaaS features which includes both Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Windows Azure Virtual Network. This was paired nicely by a post by Bill Hilf highlighting some customer experiences using Windows Azure Infrastructure Services.

It is my pleasure to announce the April 2013 release of the Windows Azure Training Kit.

Windows Azure Training Kit Home

In this release

There have been a number of improvements in this release alongside the refresh to the Infrastructure Services content including:

  • New Presentation: Windows Azure Mobile Services and Android
  • New Lab: Windows Azure Mobile Services and Android
  • New Lab: Windows Azure Mobile Services and Windows Phone
  • New Presentation: Introduction to Windows Azure HDInsight Service
  • New Lab: Introduction to Windows Azure HDInsight
  • Updated ITPro Content + Agenda
  • Updated Presentations for new feature support Windows Azure Overview, Windows Azure Web Sites, Windows Azure Virtual Machines & Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Release Notes

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Fix for WordPress Plugin Update Issues on Windows Azure Web Sites

January 7th, 2013 Posted in Development, PHP, Web Sites, Windows Azure
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Good News!

In a recent service update to Windows Azure Web Sites, the Windows Azure Web Sites team has updated the version of Wincache for PHP 5.3 sites to WinCache 1.3.4, which resolves this issue!

Screen Shot 2013-04-04 at 8.58.48 AM

Screen Shot 2013-04-04 at 8.58.19 AM

A while back I posted an article called Workaround for deleted folder still exists in Windows Azure Web Sites, which talks about how to get around an issue specifically with WordPress plugin upgrading. Recently, on twitter there have been a few people running into this issue, so I thought I would go into a little bit more detail on the issue and how to work around it, permanently.

The Cause of the WP Plugin Issue

In order to dig to the root of the problem, let’s take a few steps back here and get a little bit better of an understanding of the different pieces at play.

PHP

PHP is an interpreted language, simply put it is not compiled into machine code, but instead read and executed step-by-step by an interpreter in this instance, the PHP runtime.

This means that every line would need to be read, interpreted and executed on each request. Which in computer science we understand is not very efficient. For this reason PHP can employ caching to avoid parsing every instruction on each request, instead it stores a certain amount of interpreted instructions in shared memory.

IIS

It’s no secret that Windows Azure Web Sites leverages IIS as it’s Web Server. IIS uses FastCGI to interact with the PHP Interpreter. With the Web Server being able to interact with an interpreter, we have the means to serve up PHP code on IIS. As stated above, PHP can leverage a cache in order to avoid parsing each line of a script, enter WinCache.

WinCache

WinCache is installed and enabled by default for PHP Runtimes maintained by the Windows Azure Web Sites team.

WinCache is a caching system which can be enabled for PHP application which run on Windows  leveraging IIS. This is done by Installing WinCache, then adding a reference to php_wincache.dll from within your php.ini file.

 

By default, Windows Azure Web Sites has PHP 5.3 installed with WinCache 1.1.

Now that we have a better understanding of the different pieces involved, let’s take a closer look at the issue at hand.

There is a bug in WinCache 1.1 [Bug #59352] which causes a lock on a folder which isn’t released until IIS is restarted, which is why this workaround is effective at fixing the issue.

How to Resolve the Plugin Updating Issue

The resolution is fairly simple. The bug has been fixed in a newer release of WinCache (version 1.3 which works with PHP 5.4).

Recently, PHP 5.4 was enabled in Windows Azure Web Sites making the fix as simple as following these steps to Enable PHP 5.4 in Windows Azure Web Sites.

Happy Coding!

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Windows Azure Training Kit – December 2012

December 22nd, 2012 Posted in ASP.NET MVC, Mobile Services, Training Kit, Windows Azure
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Good News! The world didn’t end, which is good for two reasons, first we’re all alive, but also my team has been working hard to provide you another great Windows Azure Training Kit release.

What’s new in this release?

Back in October, you may have heard of a massive on campus Microsoft event known as Build. Build was a great event filled with an absolutely everything you need to know about Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Azure Development. If you haven’t already done so, check out the day 2 keynote which highlights all of the news around Windows Azure.

In this release we’ve packaged up the day two Keynote demos for you to be able to look at the code or deliver a similar session using the very same demos.

Event Buddy Demo

eventbuddy-session-list

In this demo you will start with a disconnected application that manages events and sessions to later connect it utilizing Windows Azure Mobile Services to provide structured storage for events and sessions. In order to use authentication within the application, you will add Twitter (or Facebook) to your application and services. Following this you will upload session decks to SkyDrive and finish by sending Live Tiles using push notifications every time an attendee rates a session.

BUILD Clips Demo

upload-video

In this demo, we will show how to build and deploy an ASP.NET web site that enables users to browse, play, and upload their own personal videos. We will then extend the web site to include Web APIs that power a Windows 8 experience. Finally, the web site project will be deployed to Windows Azure Web Sites and scaled using multiple paid shared instances.

Windows Azure Mobile Services – Scheduler

We have updated the Windows Azure Mobile Services Presentations, Demos and Hands-on Labs to include the new scheduler functionality. If you want some more information about the new scheduling functionality in Windows Azure Mobile Services, check out Scott Guthrie’s post.

Updated Repositories

You can download the offline training kit (Windows only) or grab the files from GitHub.

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Provisioning a MySQL Database from the Windows Azure Store

December 3rd, 2012 Posted in Development, Web Sites, Windows Azure
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The Windows Azure Store is available as part of the Windows Azure Management Portal, a convenient resource for all of your Windows Azure needs, which can be accessed from a variety of Devices including your favorite iDevice, Surface, Windows Phone, Mac or PC.

At the time of writing, the Windows Azure Store is currently only available in the US.

Click on the + New in the Windows Azure Management Portal Taskbar, then select STORE.

CustomCMS-Store-TaskbarDrawer

The Store opens in a modal dialogue, either scroll down or filter to APP SERVICES to find ClearDB MySQL Database, then click the [next] arrow.

CustomCMS-Store-AppService-ClearDB

Select an appropriate database size (or stay with the Free plan and upgrade later once the site is live) and select the Subscription to charge. Provide a name for the Database (can be left with the default, a name will be assigned for automatically), select the region to provision the database in (whenever possible, try to provision the Web Site and database in the same region to avoid latency). Click the [next] arrow.

CustomCMS-Store-ClearDB-Create

The following screen will provide an overview of the monthly charges of the new MySQL Database. Be sure to review the terms of use and privacy statement, then click the [purchase] checkmark.

CustomCMS-Store-ClearDB-Purchase

After the Add-on has been provisioned, click on the Connection Info button in the Taskbar.

CustomCMS-Store-ClearDB-ConnectionInfo

Copy the connection string for use in your application. Alternatively, a newly created database can be added as a Linked Resource to an existing Windows Azure Web Site, the credentials will be surfaced under the connection string section of the CONFIGURE tab.

Brian Swan has an interesting solution for parsing a connection string from the connection string settings found in the CONFIGURE section of a Windows Azure Web Site in his blog entry getting database connection information in Windows Azure Web Sites

CustomCMS-Store-ClearDB-ConnectionInfo-Details

Stay Cloudy my Friends…

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Continuous Deployment in Windows Azure Web Sites

November 17th, 2012 Posted in Web Sites, Windows Azure
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Automation of tasks is one thing that I am an advocate of in my development projects. Getting functionality that is repeatable with a low risk of human error for a one time cost is a sound business decision and as a developer, keeps your hands on rolling more code for a greater percentage of your work day. It’s a Win-Win scenario.

The Windows Azure Web Sites team along side the Kudu team have added Continuous Deployment functionality in Windows Azure Web Sites with support for three familiar social source code repositories: CodePlex, GitHub and BitBucket. The team has also added support for Contiguous Integration using Team Foundation Service [a new Cloud Based offering of Team Foundation Server].

Windows Azure Web Sites now allows Continuous Deployment from Private Repositories from both GitHub and BitBucket.

In this post:

  1. Create a Windows Azure Web Site
    1. Enable Git Deployment
  2. Associate a Source Code Repository
    1. Associate a GitHub Repository to Windows Azure Web Sites
    2. Associate a BitBucket Repository to Windows Azure Web Sites

Create a Windows Azure Web Site

To avoid reinventing the wheel, you can follow instructions outlined on the Windows Azure Develop Center on how to Create a Windows Azure Web Site and Enable Git Deployment.

NOTE: If you do not need a MySQL database, or have decided to go with another database option, choose Quick Create from the Web Site menu instead of Create with Database.

Associate a Source Code Repository

In order to facilitate the Continuous Deployment it’s necessary to have a centralized location to pull the website code from, in this particular blog entry we’re going to use GitHub and BitBucket.

Initializing a Git Repository will redirect the Management Portal to the DEPLOYMENTS tab.

Now that Git has been enabled use the collapsible menus to select how you would like to deploy code to the new Windows Azure Web Site.

Associate a GitHub Repository to Windows Azure Web Sites

GitHub-Deployment-Accordion

Expand the item labeled Deploy from my GitHub repository.

GitHub-Deployment-Steps

Click on Authorize Windows Azure. This will open a window to federate with GitHub, you will need to approve the ability for Windows Azure to access your GitHub account.

GitHub-Authentication

Once access has been granted, the browser will redirected back to the Management Portal to a screen to select either a Public or Private repository.

GitHub-Select-Repository

After selecting the repository to be published, click on the check mark to start the deployment process.

If your repository is empty, push to GitHub to trigger deployment to Windows Azure.

GitHub-First-Deployment

Each subsequent push to GitHub will trigger a service hook and begin a deployment of the latest bits to the Web Site. Now that the deployment has been pulled into the Web Site, clicking on Browse in the Taskbar Drawer will launch the web application.

GitHub-Published-Custom-WordPress-Site

Associate a BitBucket Repository to Windows Azure Web Sites

BitBucket-Deployment-Accordion

Just like associating a GitHub account to a Windows Azure Web Site, expand the Deploy from my BitBucket repository. Authorize Windows Azure to access a BitBucket account by federating authentication through BitBucket.

BitBucket-Deployment-Steps

After clicking on Authorize Windows Azure, a prompt to authenticate with BitBucket.

BitBucket-Authentication

After signing into BitBucket a prompt to select the Public or Private repository to deploy to Windows Azure Web Sites.

BitBucket-Select-Repository

Unlike GitHub, BitBucket will require you push a change to the repository before the Service Hook will deploy code to the Windows Azure Web Site.

image

Once a push has been made to the private BitBucket repository, the deployment will be pushed to the Web Site.

image

In the taskbar drawer at the bottom of the browser viewport, click the Browse Button.

image

A new window will open and the site will display the web files which were pulled into the Web Site.

Conclusion

Continuous Deployment is a great way to introduce new features or functionality to your customers in an automated fashion. With the new support for Private Repositories, Windows Azure Web Sites can help delivery stunning web sites which utilize either open source projects from public repositories, or provide clients with a customized solution from a private repository.

Stay Cloud my Friends…

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