March, 2011

We’ve discussed interoperability and Windows Azure when we walked through deploying a simple PHP Cloud app. Now let’s continue that conversation as we venture out and explore how to deploy a Ruby based application to Windows Azure.

Thomas Conte (@tomconte), a fellow Architect evangelist from France, has put up a great blog post describing the steps required to deploy a Ruby application that uses the Sinatra framework, the WAZ-Storage library, and a Windows Azure Worker Role.

Start the walkthrough – Deploying Ruby in Windows Azure.

WAZ-Storage is an open source library that allows you to access Windows Azure Blobs, Tables, and Queues from your Ruby code.

Interested in learning how to deploy applications written in .NET or PHP? Check out these walkthroughs:

• Deploying a Simple Cloud App (.NET)
• Deploying a PHP App to the Cloud: A Simple App
• Deploying a PHP App to the Cloud: WordPress

Last week, we talked about deploying a PHP app to the Cloud and WordPress to the Cloud. But we didn’t really cover the essence of the Cloud, its advantages for your web applications, and how to deploy a .NET based app to the Cloud using Visual Studio. Rather than having that conversation online, why don’t we have it in-person, live, with the experts? I’d like to invite you to check out AzureFest, a hands-on educational event designed by Canada’s own MVPs Cory Fowler (@SyntaxC4) and Barry Gervin (@bgervin) from ObjectSharp. At AzureFest, you’ll see how developing and deploying applications to Windows Azure is fast and easy, leveraging the skills you already have (.NET, Java, PHP, or Ruby) and the tools you already know (Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.).

AzureFest sessions are delivered with examples using .NET and Visual Studio, but the concepts are the same regardless of the language and tools. You’ll learn everything to you need to know to get up and running with Windows Azure quickly including:

• Overview of Cloud Computing and Windows Azure
• Setting up the Windows Azure SDK and Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio
• Setting up your Windows Azure account
• Migrating a traditional on-premise ASP.NET MVC application to the Cloud
• Deploying solutions to Windows Azure

AzureFest is a hands-on event. This means that you’ll be following along in your own development environment and actually deploying your solution during the event. In order to get the most out of the experience, you’ll need to bring a laptop with you that is running Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 with the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio installed. If you don’t have Visual Studio, or are not working with .NET, that’s OK. Use the language and tools of your choice – help will be on hand to assist you.

You’ll also need to bring a credit card. Windows Azure activations require a credit card even for the trial period, but don’t worry, nothing will be charged to your credit card as the last part of the event shows you how to take down all of your Windows Azure instances.

We’re taking AzureFest across Canada, and will be coming to a city near you. Check out the listings below to get all the information you need about each of the cities. Don’t see a city that’s near you? Keep checking back as we will be adding more cities and dates as we confirm them. If you’d like to help organize an AzureFest in your city or at your user group, please contact me via email, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Make sure you register early as space is limited. Make sure to find me when you’re are the event – it will be an opportunity for us to chat about what you’re working on, possible projects to move to the Cloud, and how I can help extend your skills to the Cloud.

At Microsoft, we can talk about a lot of things related to the technology and that are helpful for developers: softwares, programming languages, platforms, events... We also know that it's not always easy to find blog posts about your passion, the Web, when a lot of contents are created on our main Canadian developers blog, so it's why we made this new blog that is all about Web technology.

It will be a great place for you to hear about anything that is related to Web. We want you to make this primary source of information and feels like home. I invite you to suggest us some topics you want to hear about it as we will try to make great blog post for you. To be able to do this, we will look at some people that will help Joey and me write for this new online resource.

I hope you'll love this blog as much as we'll have fun to write on it. Now there is not much content, but stay tuned, add the RSS feed to your preferred RSS reader and be ready to read!

Source de l'image: http://www.theimf.com

Your journey to the Cloud started with a walkthrough of deploying a simple PHP app to the Cloud. Now, we’ll continue with exploring how to deploy a more complicated but much more useful application to Windows Azure.

WordPress and Windows Azure go very well together and deploying WordPress to Windows Azure is not much more complicated than the simple “Hello Cloud!” PHP app from the previous walkthrough as you’ll see in this walkthrough.

There are two different approaches to deploying WordPress to Windows Azure. The first is a manual approach where you’ll prepare the PHP environment, build the package in Visual Studio, and then deploy it to Windows Azure through the Windows Azure Management Portal.

The second approach is a more automated installation by using a the Windows Azure Companion. The Windows Azure Companion is a ready-made administrative web site that you run on your account in Azure. The site allows you to install frameworks, like PHP, and other 3rd party applications, like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla!, directly into the same Azure service instance hosting the Companion (a worker role, by the way) If this kind of thing sounds familiar, well it is; think of the Windows Azure Companion as the cloud analogy of the Web Platform Installer.

You may be aware that you can already host PHP, MySQL, Java, and a host of other non-Microsoft frameworks and applications on Windows Azure, and there are a number of solution accelerators (PHP/MySQL, Tomcat, memcached, etc.) available to help you out. The Windows Azure Companion takes things to the next level, providing a single point of administration for hosting and managing frameworks and applications in Windows Azure. Right now it’s focused on PHP-based applications, given the popularity of CMSes like WordPress and Drupal, but it certainly seems like a platform that could be easily extended in the future.

Let’s get started.

Before proceeding, you’ll need to make sure that you have a Windows Azure account. Between now and June 30, 2011, take advantage of this free trial offer that provides you with sufficient resources to run an entire single instance web site, 24 hours a day, for an entire month. Visit Canadian MVP Colin Melia’s blog for instructions on creating your Windows Azure account. 

Don’t have a credit card, no problem. As a special offer through our blog, you can sign up for a Windows Azure Pass at windowsazurepass.com. Select Canada as the country and CDNDEVS as the promo code.

To deploy WordPress to Windows Azure

1. In part 1, you’ll go through the basic process of hosting PHP applications on Windows Azure, which includes creating the deployment package and configuring the PHP CGI Web Role.

   You don’t have to follow the last steps of this part where you’re instructed to visit the Windows Azure Management Portal and deploy the sample app.

2. Now that you know how to create a deployment package, in the next part, you’ll add the WordPress installation to the package. You’ll then make the necessary configuration changes and deploy the final package to Windows Azure via the Windows Azure Management Portal.

If you don’t have Visual Studio, or prefer to work without it, you can also prepare the deployment package using the Windows Azure Command Line Tools for PHP. Use the Deploying a Simple PHP Cloud App walkthrough to learn more about the command line tools. Alternatively, you can use the Windows Azure Companion with the instructions below.

To deploy WordPress by using the Windows Azure Companion

Jim O’Neil, a fellow developer evangelist, walks you through the installation of the Windows Azure Companion, followed by the installation and activation of WordPress in his blog post Windows Azure Companion: PHP and WordPress in Azure.

As I mentioned in our first walkthrough, if at any time during your walkthrough you have any questions or are having trouble, feel free to send me an email (cdnazure@microsoft.com). I’ll be more than happy to help.

Please take a moment to share what you thought of the walkthrough, what you’ve learned, and what next steps you’ll take on your journey to the Cloud in this LinkedIn Cloud Development group discussion. I’ll be reading through your responses and taking your feedback as input for future walkthroughs and events.

As part of Microsoft's continued commitment to interoperability, the Windows Azure platform has been built from the ground up with interoperability in mind. As an open platform, Windows Azure offers you language choices that include .NET, PHP, Ruby, Python, and Java, as well as IDE choices that include Visual Studio and Eclipse. With the support of community-based libraries, development in Java, PHP, and Ruby is made even easier with SDKs especially written for those languages.

Windows Azure is a standards-based platform, enabling interoperability through the support of multiple Internet protocols including HTTP, XML, SOAP and REST.  This allows you to develop solutions that combine components written in different languages and deployed to either traditional hosting or to Windows Azure as you can see in the diagram below.

In Deploying a Simple Cloud App on the Canadian Developer Connection I covered deploying a .NET based application from Visual Studio 2010. In this post, we’ll explore how you can do the same with a PHP-based application using your IDE of choice and the Windows Azure Command Line Tools for PHP.

Pre-Work

Before we get started with real work, you’ll need to download and install some pre-requisites. There are two ways to do this – you can download and install using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer or you can perform a manual installation. Click on the links for the method that you’re most comfortable with. Once you’re done with the installations, come back here and we’ll start the walkthrough.

Let’s deploy your simple PHP Cloud App

In Part 1:

1. You’ll write a small PHP application in Notepad (or your editor of choice).
2. Once it is written, you’ll test it to make sure that it compiles correctly.
3. You’ll create a deployment package for Windows Azure and deploy it to the Development Fabric.

   A deployment package contains the service definition for your Cloud solution along with the content and binaries for each of the roles. The package is zipped and encrypted, unless you set an environment variable to have the package created unencrypted.

   The Service Configuration file is kept separate to the service package as it can be updated independently of the service package (updating setting values or increasing/decreasing the number of instances of roles, for example).

4. The Development Fabric will simulate the Windows Azure environment and allow you to ensure that your application will work when deployed to the Cloud.

   The Development Fabric includes the compute and storage emulators:
   
   The compute emulator emulates Windows Azure on your local computer. It enables you to run and test your application before you deploy it as a hosted service to Windows Azure.
   
   The storage emulator emulates Windows Azure Storage, providing local blob, queue, and table storage. It enables you to ensure that your application is correctly using the storage entities before you deploy it to Windows Azure.

Click here to get started with Part 1.

In Part 2:

1. You’ll create a new hosted service for your PHP Cloud application and in doing so, provision the Windows Azure Web Role instances.
2. Once provisioned, you’ll test the application in the staging environment to ensure that it works correctly.

   Why is the DNS name for the staging environment different than the one you provided when the hosted service was created? That name (URL prefix) is reserved for the production environment.

3. You’ll then promote the application from the staging environment to the production environment.
4. You’ll test it one more time to ensure that the production deployment was done successfully.

Click here to get started with Part 2.

If at any time during your walkthrough you have any questions or are having trouble, feel free to send me an email (cdnazure@microsoft.com). I’ll be more than happy to help.

Please take a moment to share what you thought of the walkthrough, what you’ve learned, and what next steps you’ll take on your journey to the Cloud in this LinkedIn Cloud Development group discussion.

With the simple app deployed successfully to the Cloud, let’s deploy something a little bit more complicated yet much more useful. Check out Deploying a PHP App to the Cloud: WordPress to learn how simple it is to deploy and use WordPress with Windows Azure.