Preface

With multiple cloud platforms out there, it is easy to get confused when making a technology decision for your projects. This gets further complicated with the plethora of development tools and frameworks available today. Microsoft Azure simplifies this problem by providing a scalable and manageable platform for customers to easily deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot their cloud-based applications. Its seamless integration with new and existing Microsoft tools and inherent support for open source software makes it an obvious choice for building cloud-based applications and services.

Whether you are new to Microsoft Azure cloud development or you have been creating cloud applications, there will be something new for you in this book. We will cover the full application development architecture and cover all tiers of an application. We will also cover a number of patterns that you will encounter, from solutions that are completely hosted in the cloud to hybrid solutions where applications are split between the cloud and on-premises networks.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with the ASP.NET Web API, introduces the ASP.NET Web API framework and provides an overview of its application and internals. It will guide you through the stages of creating a Web API and deploying it in Microsoft Azure.

Chapter 2, Extending the ASP.NET Web API, discusses various extensibility and customization options available in the ASP.NET Web API framework. It guides the reader through various extension points, such as custom routing, message formatters, content negotiation, and securing a Web API. It also discusses various hosting options for deploying Web APIs.

Chapter 3, API Management, provides a set of tools that assist API developers in managing and monitoring Web APIs. We will discuss various options of publishing, marketing, monitoring, and managing a Web API using API management.

Chapter 4, Developing a Web API for Mobile Apps, provides an overview of Mobile Services and walks through a scenario of creating a Web API using Mobile Services. Mobile Services provides an easy-to-use environment to rapidly build cross-platform apps for Windows, iOS, Android, and other platforms. Its rich built-in capabilities for managing backend login, data, authentication, and notifications makes it a compelling option for developing mobile applications.

Chapter 5, Connecting Applications with Microsoft Azure Service Bus, discusses Windows Azure Service Bus, which allows for related and brokered messaging using a range of different features (such as Topics and Queues).

Chapter 6, Creating Hybrid Services, demonstrates how to create Hybrid Services to connect on-premises Large Object (LOB) / database to cloud-based applications. Essentially, this chapter builds on the previous chapter, demonstrating how you can use the elements of the Service Bus to create Hybrid applications. It will also demonstrate how to effectively maintain these applications.

Chapter 7, Data Services in the Cloud – an Overview of ADO.NET and Entity Framework, explores how to create data services in the cloud using Entity Framework and ADO.NET.

Chapter 8, Data Services in the Cloud – Microsoft Azure Storage, explores how you can use cloud-based Azure Storage technologies.

Chapter 9, Data Services in the Cloud – NoSQL in Microsoft Azure, explores how to use DocumentDB, a fully managed, highly scalable NoSQL data management service based on Azure, as well as ways to start using other open source Azure options such as MongoDB.

What you need for this book

The hardware requirements are as follows:

• 1.6 GHz or faster processor

• 1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)

• 10 GB (NTFS) of available hard disk space

• 5400 RPM hard drive

• DirectX 9 capable video card running at 1024 x 768 or higher display resolution

The software requirements and their download or purchase sources are mentioned in the following list:

• Windows 8.1 or greater at http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Windows-8.1/productID.288401200?tduid=e43fc220a3cc8877116cc4a027cb6456

• You can also use your MSDN license to download a copy

• Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition or greater at https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs.aspx

  Note

  Note that the samples have only been tested on Visual Studio 2013 and not on Visual Studio 2015 preview.

• Azure SDK 2.5 at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44938

• Entity Framework at https://www.nuget.org/packages/EntityFramework/6.1.1

• Other helpful tools:

  • Resharper: https://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/

  • Chrome Postman: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-rest-client-packa/fhbjgbiflinjbdggehcddcbncdddomop?hl=en

  • Fiddler: http://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler/fiddler4

  • Azure Storage Explorer: https://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/

  • Service Bus Explorer: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/service-bus-explorer-f2abca5a

Who this book is for

If you are a developer or an architect who wants to develop end-to-end RESTful applications in the cloud, then this book is for you. You will need professional knowledge of C# to work through the projects in this book.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: " By default, the domain name is set to azurewebsites.net."

A block of code is set as follows:

async Task<int> GetContentLengthAsync(string uri)
{
    int contentLength;
    using (var client = new HttpClient())
    {
        var content = await client.GetStringAsync(uri);
        contentLength = content.Length;
    }
 
    return contentLength;
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) 
{ 
// Web API configuration and services 
// Web API routes 
config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( 
name: "DefaultApi", 
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}", 
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional } 
); 
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

PM> Install-Package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Click on Publish to open the Publish wizard, and select Microsoft Azure Websites as the publish target."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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