Some notes from Windows Azure Fundamentals by http://mattmilner.com
Fabric controller will keep the requested number of instances running.
Package & Configuration files
- .cscfg is xml stating the os
- .cspkg is just a zip file
Service Definition
- Virtual machine sizing
- Endpoints
- Certificates
- Websites (web role)
- Environment variables
- Startup tasks
- Configuration settings declarations
Service configuration
- Operation System
- Instance count
- Values for configuration settings
- Certificate thumbprint
Managing Cloud Services
- Affinity groups
- Fault domains
- Upgrade domains
- VIP swap
- REST API
Storage Services
- x509 certificate and SSL
- Storage Account Keys
- ETags
- Azure Storage Explorer
Tables
- PartitionKey, RowKey, Entity (key/value pairs), Timestamp
- Max 255 fields including keys
- Matching partition keys = data in same physical partition
- Transactions only on the same partition
Blobs/CDN
- Root container - Named container (first dir) - Blob (second dir and filename)
- http://<account>.blob.core.windows.net/images/web/background.jpg
- Block blobs vs Page blobs
- Content-cache metadata=TTL in CDN
Queues (max. 7 days)
- No capitals in name allowed
- 64kb Max after base64 encoded and including xml headers
- eg. worker role that creates thumbnails or processes video
- A worker role can update a message.