A short description of the Windows Azure Service Management API

1. Azure Service Management API
A journey ending in billing,
monitoring and usage

2. What are we going to learn?
• How Visual Studio deploys under the covers
• How to use tools and scripts to automate parts of
the deployment
• How to monitor asynchronous operations in a
deployment
• The fundamentals of how we interact Azure
beneath all of the libraries and layers of
abstraction
• A small part of the Service Management API –
there is much more SO does this interest me
enough to work on a group Codeplex project?

3. What can I manage?
• Hosted services
• Storage accounts
• Affinity groups
• Security (X509v3 certificates)
• Subscription history
• Access Control Services

4. What tools can I use to manage?
• The management portal!
• Windows Azure Powershell CmdLets
• The Azure MMC SnapIn
• Visual Studio.NET
• Third party tools such as those by Neudesic,
Cerebrata, Paraleap and others
• An RDP Client
• Any device!

5. What do we mean by Management?
• Create-Read-Update-Delete (CRUD)
• Manage transaction security
• Checking full audit history
• Locations and “affinity groups”
• Accessing and managing storage accounts
• Track asynchronous long running operations
• Get information about the host operating
• Managing Access Control Services

6. Management API details
• RESTful (REpresentational State Transfer)
• Use of OData (ACS Management)
• Use of HTTP and multiple verbs
– GET, PUT, POST, DELETE
• Endpoints are HTTPS protecting data in transit
• Each request needs a “Management
Certificate” attached for authentication
purposes

7. Management Examples (CRUD)
• Listing hosted services
– GET http://management.core.windows.net/[subscription
id]/services/hostedservices HTTP/1.1
• Creating a hosted service
– POST http://management.core.windows.net/[subscription
id]/services/hostedservices HTTP/1.1
• Deleting a hosted service
– DELETE http://management.core.windows.net/[subscription
id]/services/hostedservices/[SERVICE NAME] HTTP/1.1
• Updating a hosted Service
– PUT http://management.core.windows.net/[subscription
id]/services/hostedservices/[SERVICE NAME] HTTP/1.1

8. What else goes into the request?
• Header x-ms-version: 2011-10-01
• Content-type: application/xml
• X509v3 certificate
• Either blank request OR
• XML Document with well known schema

9. DEMO
Creating and Deleting a Hosted
Service Programmatically

10. My Request Message
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CreateHostedService
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure">
<ServiceName>lwaugtest1.bad</ServiceName>
<Label>djE=</Label>
<Description>this is the first test service for the user
group</Description>
<Location>North Europe</Location>
</CreateHostedService>

11. My Response Exception
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Length: 194
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
x-ms-request-id: 3badf9cdddc540cd922993fa01598297
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:16:45 GMT
<Error xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure"
xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-
instance"><Code>BadRequest</Code><Message>The hosted
service name is invalid.</Message></Error>

12. DEMO
Creating and Deleting a Hosted
Service with Powershell

13. Steps to Using Powershell CmdLets to
Deploy
• Generate a certificate with the following command:
– makecert -r -pe -n "CN=Richard's New Cert" -a sha1 -len 2048 -ss My "C:richard2.cer“
• Add the certificate through the management portal
• Open powershell after CmdLets are installed and enter:
– Add-PSSnapin AzureManagementToolsSnapIn
• Create new Blob container via Storage Services API
• Upload .cspkg to Blob Storage
• Enter the following into Powershell:
– New-Deployment -serviceName lwaugtestone -subscriptionId edd1c493-f3f5-42d0-ba03-
7bf1eb2cfcaa -certificate (get-item
cert:CurrentUserMY7A67E9C2225C4930CBFCEF869C993EB560A3B1A4) -slot production –
package http://lwaugbe.blob.core.windows.net/packages/HelloCloud.cspkg -configuration
"C:ProjectsTech ProjectsLondon Windows Azure User
GroupHelloCloudHelloCloudbinReleaseapp.publishServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg" -
label lwaugtestone
• Followed by:
– Set-DeploymentStatus -subscriptionId edd1c493-f3f5-42d0-ba03-7bf1eb2cfcaa -certificate
(get-item cert:CurrentUserMY7A67E9C2225C4930CBFCEF869C993EB560A3B1A4) -
ServiceName lwaugtestone -Status Running -slot Production

14. DEMO
Using Fiddler to check on a
Deployment

15. Steps to Using Fiddler and Azure
• Use Request Builder
• Add certificate file to C:UsersxxxMy
DocsFiddler2ClientCertificate.cer
• Add the ms-version-x header
• Request the following:
– GET https://management.core.windows.net/edd1c493-f3f5-
42d0-ba03-7bf1eb2cfcaa/operations/[token] HTTP/1.1
• Look for an InProgress or Succeeded response

16. Summary
• Service Management is web friendly, open, platform
independent and standardised
• There are a variety of tools and APIs available to manage
services
• RESTful services mean you can manage from ANY client
application
• Ability to create complex continuous integration testing
scenarios and deployments with staging and production
environments
• Ability to manage multiple subscriptions simultaneously
• No real constraint on the activities that can be
accomplished
• All transactions are fully secure

17. http://azuresm.codeplex.com
Azure Service Manager is an enterprise application
which provides an subscriber-based API through WCF
to allow clients to collect information on multiple
Azure subscriptions, including hosted services, SQL
Azure and storage services. It provides service, usage
and billing data.

18. Azure Service Manager