Developing a Web Site with Windows Azure–Part I

Microsoft has been very persuasive pushing Windows Azure as a cloud hosting alternative. It’s a broad range of services that one can use to support many kinds of scenarios: web applications, mobile apps, databases, content distribution networks and more.

I will finally get around to test drive Windows Azure for Web application development. I’ll be using the following tools and services from Microsoft:

• Web Matrix 3 (still in beta at the time of this post): a free, lightweight, cloud-connected web development tool.
• Team Foundation Service: Your source code and work items are stored in the cloud. Plan projects, collaborate with your team, and manage your code online from anywhere.
• Windows Azure: Microsoft’s cloud platform.

To use the free TFS service you have to register your Microsoft account here. This free service includes:

• Up to 5 users
• Unlimited number of projects
• Version control (TFVC or Git)
• Work item tracking
• Agile planning tools
• Feedback management
• Build (still in preview)
• Test management (still in preview)

For a free trial of Windows Azure services, you also have to register your Microsoft account here. Your free trial contains:

• virtual machines & cloud services / 750 compute hours per month
• SQL server / 750 hours of web, standard, or enterprise
• web sites / 10 web sites
• mobile services / 10 mobile services
• relational database / 1 SQL database
• SQL reporting / 100 hours per month
• storage / 70 GB with 50,000,000 storage transactions
• backup / 20 GB
• data transfer / unlimited inbound & 25GB outbound
• media services encoding / 50 GB (input & output combined)
• cdn / 20 GB outbound with 500,000 transactions
• cache / 128 MB
• service bus / 1,500 relay hours and 500,000 messages

To download and install Web Matrix you don’t need any extra registration. Be aware that version 3 is the one used here to take advantage of the Azure and TFS integration.

In conclusion, the working setup for the Azure test-drive will be:

• Team Foundation Service for source code version control;
• windows Azure account to deploy applications and services on;
• Downloaded and installed Web Matrix to build a Web application, add it to Source Control and deploy it from there.