1. Azure Development
Best practices
Wouter Seye

2. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 2

3. Diagnostics
 Configure using
diagnostics.wadcfg config file
 Alternative to the programming
approach.
 Key benefit: executes the setup
before the role itself starts and
before any StartUp tasks execute
Azure Development Best Practices 3

4. Diagnostics
Trace files
| Trace files are written to LocalStorage
| LocalStorage is setup to copy to Blob storage
| Download file from blob container wad-tracefiles
Azure Development Best Practices 4

5. Diagnostics
Event Log
| Writes to Table Storage (WADWindowsEventLogsTable)
Azure Development Best Practices 5

6. Diagnostics
Performance Counters
| Writes to table storage
(WADPerformanceCountersTable)
Azure Development Best Practices 6

7. Diagnostics
Azure Management Pack for SCOM
| Discovers Windows Azure applications.
| Provides status of each role instance.
| Collects and monitors performance information.
| Collects and monitors Windows events.
| Collects and monitors the .NET Framework trace messages
from each role instance.
| Grooms performance, event, and the .NET Framework trace
data from Windows Azure storage account.
| Changes the number of role instances via a task.
Azure Development Best Practices 7

8. Diagnostics
Powershell CmdLets
 Configure the Windows Azure Logs
$roles | foreach { Set-WindowsAzureLog -LogLevelFilter "Error" -RoleName $_.RoleName -InstanceId $_.InstanceId -StorageAccountName $SAN -
StorageAccountKey $SAK -DeploymentId $did -BufferQuotaInMB 50 -TransferPeriod 5 }
 Configure the Diagnostics Infrastructure Logs
$roles | foreach { Set-InfrastructureLog -LogLevelFilter "Error" -RoleName $_.RoleName -InstanceId $_.InstanceName -BufferQuotaInMB 50 -
TransferPeriod 5 -StorageAccountName $SAN -StorageAccountKey $SAK -DeploymentId $did }
 Configure the Windows Event Logs
$logs = "Application!*","System!*“
$roles | foreach { Set-WAEventLog -EventLogs $logs -LogLevel "Error" -RoleName $_.RoleName -InstanceId $_.InstanceName -BufferQuotaInMB 10 -
TransferPeriod 5 -StorageAccountName $SAN -StorageAccountKey $SAK -DeploymentId $did }
 Configuring Performance Counters
$cpu_perfcounter = new-object Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterConfiguration
$cpu_perfcounter.CounterSpecifier = "Processor(_Total)% Processor Time" $cpu_perfcounter.SampleRate = new TimeSpan(0,5,0)
 Configuring IIS Log Files
Azure Development Best Practices 8

9. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 9

10. Retry mechanism
Transient Fault Handling
| SqlAzureTransientErrorDetection
| StorageTransientErrorDetection
| ServiceBusTransientErrorDetection
Azure Development Best Practices 10

11. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 11

12. AppFabric Servicebus
Brokered Messaging API
| Ensure that message processing happens strictly within
the designated lock period. (currently max 5 min)
| Messaging objects are intended to be created once and
reused whenever possible.
| “out-of-the-box” resilience against the faulted
communication objects.
| As soon as a BrokeredMessage object is sent to a queue
or topic, it is consumed by the underlying messaging
stack and cannot be reused for further operations.
Azure Development Best Practices 12

13. AppFabric Servicebus
Emulator?
| No service bus development emulator
| In development each member needs his own NS
Azure Development Best Practices 13

14. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 14

15. Using Blob Storage
Leasing
| Only in REST API
| Allows for concurrency control
| The distributed equivalent of a lock
| Perform initialization on deployment
Azure Development Best Practices 15

16. Using Blob Storage
Copy to Local Storage
| Copy to LocalStorage on startup
| Re-use Prism’s DirectoryCatalog
| Faster access
| Cheaper
Azure Development Best Practices 16

17. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 17

18. Codit.Azure
| Reliable storage classes
| CloudBlob
| CloudQueue
| CloudTable
| ServiceBus Topic
| ServiceBus Queue
| BrokeredMessage Extensions
| Utility classes
Azure Development Best Practices 18

19. Overview
| Diagnostics
| Retry mechanism
| AppFabric Servicebus
| Using Blob Storage
| Codit Framework (Codit.Azure)
| Connectivity
Azure Development Best Practices 19

20. Connectivity
Issues
| If the server sits behind an Internet connection with
dynamically assigned IP addresses
| If the upstream ISP is blocking select ports
| If it’s not feasible to open up inbound firewall ports
| You have no influence over the infrastructure whatsoever
Azure Development Best Practices 20

21. Connectivity
Connect
| Ideal for on-premise databases
| Firewall issues
| Netsh startup command
Azure Development Best Practices 21

22. Connectivity
Appfabric Service bus
| Dll’s not on the cloud machine
| Install in GAC with startup script
| Update machine.config with RelayConfigurationInstaller
| Relay bindings
| Queues
| Topics
Azure Development Best Practices 22

23. Connectivity
Port Bridge
| What if your service isn’t a WCF service or doesn’t speak
HTTP?
| What if it speaks
SMTP, SNMP, POP, IMAP, RDP, TDS, SSH, etc…
| A point-to-point tunneling utility to help with these
scenarios
Azure Development Best Practices 23