This cookbook offers practical, immediately usable task-based recipes covering a wide range of advanced development techniques for building highly scalable cloud-based services on the Windows Azure platform. It shows you how to improve these services and how to solve particular problems/scenarios when developing them on the Windows Azure platform. The solutions are presented in a clear step-by-step manner and explained in great detail, which makes them good learning material for everyone who has experience of the Windows Azure platform and wants to improve. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter or refer to recipes in no particular order. If you are an experienced Windows Azure developer or architect who wants to understand advanced development techniques when building highly scalable services using the Windows Azure platform, then this book is for you. You should have some exposure to Windows Azure and need basic understanding of Visual Studio, C#, SQL, .NET development, XML, and Web development concepts (HTTP, Services).
Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
New! Introducing the tech.book(store), a hub for Software Developers and Architects, Networking Administrators, TPMs, and other technology professionals to find highly-rated and highly-relevant career resources. Shop books on programming and big data, or read this week's blog posts by authors and thought-leaders in the tech industry. > Shop now |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Neil Mackenzie
Neil Mackenzie has worked with computers for nearly three decades. He started his computer career doing large-scale numerical simulations for scientific research and business planning. Since then, he has been involved primarily in healthcare software, developing electronic medical records systems. He has been using Windows Azure since PDC 2008 and has used nearly all parts of the Windows Azure platform - including those that no longer exist. Neil is very active in the online Windows Azure community -- in particular, helping to solve many of the questions raised in the MSDN Windows Azure Forums. He is a Microsoft MVP for Windows Azure.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A. Ullal
Format:Paperback
This book skips the introductory (and educational) aspects of Azure so the assumption is that the reader is familiar (or has worked) with Azure. If you're at that stage, you'll find the book very handy for solving specific issues that you may encounter during an Azure project.
The topics that the author has covered are:
Chapter 1, Controlling Access in the Windows Azure Platform.
Chapter 2, Handling Blobs in Windows Azure.
Chapter 3, Going NoSQL with Windows Azure Tables.
Chapter 4, Disconnecting with Windows Azure Queues.
Chapter 5, Developing Hosted Services for Windows Azure.
Chapter 6, Digging into Windows Azure Diagnostics.
Chapter 7, Managing Hosted Services with the Service Management API.
Chapter 8, Using SQL Azure.
Chapter 9, Looking at the Windows Azure AppFabric.
Each chapter then has recipes for specific tasks that one may need. Each recipe starts with a task, a description of the task and how to complete that task. If any preparation needs to be done, the author lists it a "Getting Ready" section. Then, an "How to do it..." section goes into detail explaining how to complete the task with code. Lastly, each recipe ends with an "How it works..." section where the author explains how the code seen in the previous section works.
A warning to the reader: some of the recipes are not task oriented but will help you make architectural decisions, which I found was a pleasant surprise.
In summary, this book is for an intermediate or advanced Azure developer/Architect who is in need of immediate help with a particular issue s/he might be facing in a project.
The topics that the author has covered are:
Chapter 1, Controlling Access in the Windows Azure Platform.
Chapter 2, Handling Blobs in Windows Azure.
Chapter 3, Going NoSQL with Windows Azure Tables.
Chapter 4, Disconnecting with Windows Azure Queues.
Chapter 5, Developing Hosted Services for Windows Azure.
Chapter 6, Digging into Windows Azure Diagnostics.
Chapter 7, Managing Hosted Services with the Service Management API.
Chapter 8, Using SQL Azure.
Chapter 9, Looking at the Windows Azure AppFabric.
Each chapter then has recipes for specific tasks that one may need. Each recipe starts with a task, a description of the task and how to complete that task. If any preparation needs to be done, the author lists it a "Getting Ready" section. Then, an "How to do it..." section goes into detail explaining how to complete the task with code. Lastly, each recipe ends with an "How it works..." section where the author explains how the code seen in the previous section works.
A warning to the reader: some of the recipes are not task oriented but will help you make architectural decisions, which I found was a pleasant surprise.
In summary, this book is for an intermediate or advanced Azure developer/Architect who is in need of immediate help with a particular issue s/he might be facing in a project.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Rob
Format:Kindle Edition
I should admit that I didn't pay much attention to the front matter or explanation of the book and just dove right in. I mention this only because it was a bit jolting due to the fact that (as could easily be gleaned from the title) this is a cookbook. This means that there is not a lot of un-necessary ensemble, but rather a collection of highly focused technical nuggets. While this structure became obvious rather quickly, I decided to continue on and read it straight through just to see what I learned.
I appreciated the fact that the book was devoid of a large section of text dedicated to the now-worn-out question of "what is cloud computing". Nor was there any prologue describing Windows Azure to be found. Instead, the assumption (I presume) is that if you've picked up the book, you likely know the answer to both of those questions (within reason) and simply need help getting past some of nuances of the platform. If this describes you, this book is for you.
Light on fluff, heavy on details, this is a solid book that deals with a number of real-world issues using the Azure platform. This book works great as a reference tool: have a problem, look it up in the index or table of contents, read the recipe, put it back on the shelf.
One of the things that impressed me about the book was Neil's work to point the reader to external resources. There were a number of places where there is something along the lines of "for a more detailed explanation of topic X, visit person Y's website at http://...." [and, in case you are wondering, this comment was not influenced by Neil's excellent external references on blob storage interactions... at least not much] Further, I thought that the pointing of the reader to external tools and libraries that were not necessarily required to solve the stated problem but add significant value to the actual solution was great (such as the library for handling connection failures when working with SQL Azure and AppFabric). It is attention to detail such as this that gives the reader confidence that the author wasn't just pounding out tasks to meet a deadline but rather was sharing solutions that he had used to solve real-world problems.
Taking a more critical view of the book, I'd mention just a few things. The first is that there are a number of key points that begin with "Note:" or something similar that have key tips that are very important to the success of the recipe however (at least in the eBook version I have) they are easily lost in the rest of the text. This is likely due to the format/structure of the book and the intention is for you to read one recipe end-to-end and be done rather than reading start to finish as I did, but I would encourage the reader to be sure to read the entire recipe text and not just copy/paste the code. Neil often uses the code to teach concepts and if you just copy the code you will miss this instruction.
My second criticism is that there are a number of places in the text where the author says something along the lines of "xyz is related to this. See the Using XYZ recipe for details". While not possible in the print copy, it would have been great in the eBook version for these to be hyperlinks to the referenced section
Being that it is a first edition, there are also a few places where there are minor errors such as task numbers not lining up exactly with the numbers used in the related "how it works" section, but in such cases it was rather easy to intuit what was being referred to and didn't detract from the book.
All told, it is a good book and I'd quickly recommend it as a reference tool for Azure developers.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was sent a copy of the book and asked to read it and post a review.
I appreciated the fact that the book was devoid of a large section of text dedicated to the now-worn-out question of "what is cloud computing". Nor was there any prologue describing Windows Azure to be found. Instead, the assumption (I presume) is that if you've picked up the book, you likely know the answer to both of those questions (within reason) and simply need help getting past some of nuances of the platform. If this describes you, this book is for you.
Light on fluff, heavy on details, this is a solid book that deals with a number of real-world issues using the Azure platform. This book works great as a reference tool: have a problem, look it up in the index or table of contents, read the recipe, put it back on the shelf.
One of the things that impressed me about the book was Neil's work to point the reader to external resources. There were a number of places where there is something along the lines of "for a more detailed explanation of topic X, visit person Y's website at http://...." [and, in case you are wondering, this comment was not influenced by Neil's excellent external references on blob storage interactions... at least not much] Further, I thought that the pointing of the reader to external tools and libraries that were not necessarily required to solve the stated problem but add significant value to the actual solution was great (such as the library for handling connection failures when working with SQL Azure and AppFabric). It is attention to detail such as this that gives the reader confidence that the author wasn't just pounding out tasks to meet a deadline but rather was sharing solutions that he had used to solve real-world problems.
Taking a more critical view of the book, I'd mention just a few things. The first is that there are a number of key points that begin with "Note:" or something similar that have key tips that are very important to the success of the recipe however (at least in the eBook version I have) they are easily lost in the rest of the text. This is likely due to the format/structure of the book and the intention is for you to read one recipe end-to-end and be done rather than reading start to finish as I did, but I would encourage the reader to be sure to read the entire recipe text and not just copy/paste the code. Neil often uses the code to teach concepts and if you just copy the code you will miss this instruction.
My second criticism is that there are a number of places in the text where the author says something along the lines of "xyz is related to this. See the Using XYZ recipe for details". While not possible in the print copy, it would have been great in the eBook version for these to be hyperlinks to the referenced section
Being that it is a first edition, there are also a few places where there are minor errors such as task numbers not lining up exactly with the numbers used in the related "how it works" section, but in such cases it was rather easy to intuit what was being referred to and didn't detract from the book.
All told, it is a good book and I'd quickly recommend it as a reference tool for Azure developers.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was sent a copy of the book and asked to read it and post a review.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book starts directly by hitting on the major areas of Microsoft Windows Azure Development that any developer should understand real well to make good use of this platform. Topics like Controlling Access, Blobs, Azure Tables, Azure Queues, Azure Diagnostics and more are discussed in detail. Not only how to use these things, but in which scenarios would you want to utilize each.
One more thing I would like to mention is the inclusion of exercises in this book - a great idea in my mind for folks who learn by sample (like myself).
My recommendation: Buy it for yourself. It's worth the price!
One more thing I would like to mention is the inclusion of exercises in this book - a great idea in my mind for folks who learn by sample (like myself).
My recommendation: Buy it for yourself. It's worth the price!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
hate kindle version
waste of money. unreadable for me. there are no pictures except for the cover page. not even a diagram. total BS. just download the code online.
Published 12 months ago by read every day
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wish I'd read this last week.
Neil's "Cookbook" is a well-organized list of functional tasks, organized around the specific pillars of Azure; each task can be applied independently. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Patrick M. Tormey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must have Azure book
Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook is a book targeted at developers with at least some basic experience of Windows Azure. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Guy Barrette
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Source of Code Development
Awesome Coding Steps!
Every Steps will introduce different Approach of doing same thing. This will teach you the way of coding... Read more
Every Steps will introduce different Approach of doing same thing. This will teach you the way of coding... Read more
Published 20 months ago by NithyananthaBabu
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very effective format, comprehensive coverage, and appropriate level...
Given the complexities of Windows Azure, it's very effective when climbing up the learning curve to have a practical reference that helps you code on a variety of topics that span... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Jeffo
