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
   
3. Select Compute > Web Site > From Gallery
   
4. Select App Frameworks
   
5. Click Next
   
6. Click Complete
   
7. Click Browse
   
8. Start Building!
   

   Did you know there are Python Tools for Visual Studio?

   

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.

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

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

• We have retired the IaaS content which was designed for VS2010 from the Offline Download
  • The content is still available for download from the Windows Azure Training Kit Organization on GitHub

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!

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!

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

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

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.

• HOL-Windows8AndMobileServicesJS
• HOL-Windows8AndMobileServices
• DevCamps-Windows8AndWindowsAzureMobileServices
• Presentation-Windows8AndWindowsAzureMobileServices
• Demo-Windows8AndMobileServices

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Stay Cloudy my Friends…

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

Expand the item labeled Deploy from my GitHub repository.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Associate a BitBucket Repository to Windows Azure Web Sites

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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…

It’s exciting to announce that Windows Azure Web Sites now has PHP 5.4 ready to be enabled in your Web Sites.

Even though PHP 5.4 is available PHP 5.3 is still enabled by default.

Enable Native PHP 5.4 in Windows Azure Web Sites

After Creating a Windows Azure Web Site, navigate into the Web Site details page and select the CONFIGURE tab. Under the framework section you will see PHP VERSION, select the box containing 5.4, it will turn purple notifying that there is an unsaved change.

At the bottom of the browser viewport you will find the TASK DRAWER, which would have changed to include a SAVE button. Click the SAVE button to enable PHP 5.4 for your Windows Azure Web Site.

Once the change has been saved, you’ll be greeted by this nice little success notice.

Finally, you will also notice that the purple indicator has now changed back to blue on the PHP 5.4 box.

You are now ready to deploy PHP 5.4 applications to Windows Azure Web Sites.

Happy Clouding!

Three years ago, I began learning about this thing called “The Cloud” at that point in time I made a decision, much like I made as a teenager to get into Web Development in the first place. The thought that lead me down this career path was “Huh, this web thing is really going to take off, I need to be a part of it.” When I heard about Cloud Computing a similar thought ran through my mind, “Wow, this cloud thing is really cool, this is definitely the way of the future.”

A year into working with Windows Azure, I urged other developers to start researching the cloud [Get Started for Free] as it was still early enough to be ahead of the curve and set themselves out from the rest. Enter Windows AzureConf.

I cannot say for certain if I influenced any of these individuals in particular , but what I can say is they have also identified that the Cloud was future. Featuring a Keynote from Scott Guthrie (The Gu) as well as presentations from the Windows Azure Community drawing from their own Real-World experience with Windows Azure.

Join us for Windows AzureConf

In June we launched a number of additional features and services in to Windows Azure’s offerings, since then we have added a great deal more as highlighted in Satya Nadella’s Day 2 Keynote Address at Build.

What will be covered at Windows AzureConf

Windows AzureConf will cover a wide variety of topics including:

How can I get started?

There are a number of ways to get started with Windows Azure including the Windows Azure Training Kit, tutorials on WindowsAzure.com and of course reading the blogs of our community members:

Find more great Windows Azure Community Members on the MVP Site.

Special Thanks to the WindowsAzure.com team for updating the Windows Azure Training Kit page.

What’s new in this Release?

The October 2012 update of the Windows Azure Training Kit includes 47 hands-on labs, 24 demos and 38 presentations designed to help you learn how to build applications that use Windows Azure services. The October update includes updated hands-on labs to use the latest version of Visual Studio 2012 and Windows 8, new demos and presentations.

Presentations

We received a lot of requests to add speaker notes in the slide presentations. I’m happy to announce that we have included speaker notes necessary to support the majority of sessions in the Agendas which are outlined on the Agendas section. The following presentations have speaker notes to aid you in delivering a session:

Foundation

DevCamps

• Cloud Services
• iOS, Android and Windows Azure
• Windows 8 and Windows Azure Web Sites
• Windows 8 and Windows Azure Mobile Services

Localized Content

We have scene how excited the community was about mobile services, so we have created new GitHub organizations to host localized versions of the Mobile Services Presentation.

Hands-on Labs

September marked the launch of Visual Studio 2012 RTM. How do we ring in this celebration? We’ve converted a number of Hands-on Labs to support Visual Studio 2012. In addition to this, we wanted to ensure that you were properly supported for running community events, so we have ensured that the Hands-on Labs will work with Visual Studio 2012 Express Editions just incase you or your audience do not have a license.

Labs available for use with Visual Studio 2012

New Labs page Layout

As the number of labs has increased, we wanted to provide a nice simple way of discovering the provided hands-on labs. The page is divided now into VS2012, VS2010, Open Source, Scenario, and All [which is the classic layout with the ability to Navigate by Service.]

Demos

You may not have noticed in the August 2012 REFRESH but we shipped a few demos. You might not have noticed this because we didn’t have a navigation page for you to browse them, they were just sitting around on your hard drive if you were adventurous enough to check.

We’ve added a landing page now which will help you navigate and discover the demos which we have packaged for use with the presentations.

Available Demos

Contribute

One of the nicest things about the Windows Azure Training Kit is that it is open source and available on GitHub. This enables you in the community to Report Issues or Fork and either extend the solution or commit bug fixes back to the Training Kit.

You can find out more details about  the training kit from our GitHub Page including guidelines on how to commit back to the project.

Happy Clouding!

Non .NET Example with Environment Variables

In Non .NET Languages such as PHP or Node.js you may not have a standard configuration location or you may find the implementation of Environment  Variables more convenient. In a past article I outlined how to read App Settings from the App Settings section of the Windows Azure Management Portal, which explained that App Settings configured in such a way are exposed as Environment Variables.

Cloud Services also have a way to configure custom Environment Variables in the Service Definition (CSDEF) file which is packaged up with a Cloud Service Package (CSPKG). Considering both Cloud Services and Windows Azure Web Sites enable you to expose Environment Variables this is consistent way to share information in either deployment method.

Configuring Environment Variables in Web Sites Portal

Configuring Environment Variables in Cloud Services

Environment Variable in Action

PHP

Node.js

ASP.NET Example using Web.config

In ASP.NET there is the concept of a web.config file. This is an xml based file which is used for storing configuration settings which are specific to a deployment. It is easy to pivot on environment by providing transforms of the web.config file. Let’s assume we have 3 environments Local, WebSites and CloudService.

This will yield three configuration transforms which upon build will roll up to the base web.config:

• web.local.config
• web.websites.config
• web.cloud.config

Creating an App Setting

An App Setting is a Key/Value pair configured in the <appsettings /> element within the web.config file.

Web.config

Application Configuration File

We’ll set this appsettings to a value appropriate for debugging.

Web.local.config

Configuration Transform

We will provide a replacement element for the appsettings for our local test environment.

Web.websites.config

Configuration Transform

We will provide a replacement element for the appsettings for Windows Azure Web Sites.

Web.cloud.config

Configuration Transform

We will provide a replacement element for the appsettings for a Windows Azure Cloud Service.

AppSetting in Action

Conclusion

Depending on your development language or your scenario [as the Environment Variable route would work for ASP.NET as well] you can quickly and easily setup a way to verify which Environment you are deployed to be it Local Test, Windows Azure Web Sites, Windows Azure Cloud Services or any other environment you may have.

Stay Cloudy my Friends…