Getting Started With Windows Azure SDK 2.1 in VS 2013 Preview

Introduction

Today, I am introducing Windows Azure SDK 2.1 which is the latest version of Windows Azure. It is released with the Visual Studio 2013 Preview along the new .NET Framework 4.5.1. The latest version of Windows Azure with version number 2.1 is resolved by the core Windows Azure service runtime assembly using semantic versioning.  There are various libraries included in the latest version as given below:

• Windows Azure Storage 2.0.6
• Windows Azure Service Bus 2.1
• Windows Azure Caching 2.0
• Windows Azure Configuration Manager 2.0.1

If you want to download these libraries then you can download from their respective NuGet packages. There are some important information about Windows Azure. Let's have a look.

SDK Future Versions

Microsoft has announced that the Windows Azure SDK version 2.1 is the last release of the SDK that will be supported by Visual Studio 2010. In the future, Visual Studio 2013 will support the next release of SDK and it'll not be supported by Visual Studio 2010. This SDK version 2.1 supports Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2012 and the latest Visual Studio 2013 Preview. In addition, it is suggested by Microsoft that you should upgrade your projects into the latest version of Visual Studio that is Visual Studio 2013 Preview for ensuring that you are able to use the latest features of Windows Azure when the next version of the SDK is released. 

Side-by-Side Cloud Service Debugging

Side-by-Side Cloud Service Debugging is only supported with Windows Azure SDK for .NET versions 1.7, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.1. It is not supported with the projects built in prior versions of .NET 1.7 . For example: If you are working on a project on Windows Azure and the .NET version is 1.6 on a machine with version 2.1 installed then the following error message will display: "The system is missing a prerequisite to execute the service."

New Changes

The following are some changes in this latest version:

• You can now create your ASP.NET MVC 5 Web API project or SPA project in a new Cloud Service using Visual Studio 2013 Preview. When you create these project types through "File" > "New" > "Windows Azure Cloud Service" > "ASP.NET Web Application", you need to manually add an assembly redirect to ODataLib version 5.5 if you are using the Storage Client Library. You can do this in the following way:
   
  • In the Solution Explorer, right-click on References of your project and remove and re-add the Storage Client Library NuGet Package.
  • Or, add the assembly redirect
     
• You can run the Windows Azure compute emulator now on Windows 8.1 Preview. Windows 8.1 Internet Explorer has a new upgraded security mode that breaks the Start without debugging functionality of computer emulator. When you start the emulator, IE launches and fails to load the web app hosted on the local host because it is not in the list of Trusted Sites. The functionality of debugging is not affected.
   
• When you load the ServiceRuntime from SDK 2.0 or any later versions, it throws an exception. The solution is that you need to add the useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationpolicy attribute value of true in the startup element of the App.Config file.
   
• The WebPI feed will fail to install if the Microsoft Root Certificate Authority 2010 or 2011 is missing.

Let's start some practice with Windows Azure.

Step 1: Open Visual Studio with "Run as Administrator"

Step 2: "File" > "New"

If you do not have support for creating Windows Azure SDK, then the following information will be displayed:

After completing the setup, restart your Visual Studio 2013 Preview and create the new project with Windows Azure.

Step 3: Select the cloud service.

Step 4: Create the project using various project templates.

Step 5: Debug your project.

Summary

So far in this article I introduce the latest information about Windows Azure SDK v 2.1. I am working on this new version of Windows Azure and I'll write another article on this in the future.