SharePoint and Azure: How They Play Together?

Today, I presented a session on Azure and SharePoint—specifically addressing how to integrate the two technologies. SharePoint is not built on Azure, so this session was about how can you take an application that you’ve deployed to Windows Azure and subsequently tie it back to SharePoint in some way. The topics I covered in the session were as follows:

  • Quick overview of the development environment and tools (Azure and SharePoint 2010)
  • Integration of ASP.NET application on Azure with SharePoint using IFRAME
  • Using the Business Connectivity Services to integrate SQL Azure with a SharePoint external list (using SPD 2010).
  • Leveraging the built-in security features in SharePoint to connect the separate username/password in Azure with that of SharePoint (using the Secure Store Service).
  • Building custom services that you deploy in Azure and then integrate back into SharePoint through the BDC Metadata Model template in Visual Studio 2010 (that is the BCS).
  • Integrating Silverlight with an Azure-connected external list using the SharePoint Client Object Model.

The session was aimed at 200 level, but we ended up going into some code. Because there isn’t too much out there on this topic, I put together some rough notes on the demos with a couple of code samples. These are use at your own risk, but should give you an idea on how to get started. I will clean these up over the next few weeks and compile into a more step-by-step brochure.

You can find PDF versions of the deck and the demo supplements along with a couple of code samples here:

http://cid-40a717fc7fcd7e40.office.live.com/browse.aspx/Azure%5E_TechEd

Happy coding!

Steve