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Moving to the cloud - part 4

When e-mail, files and blog are already in the cloud the Cornball is the only application left on my hosting provider. It is now getting really exciting because there is no doubt that the Corball should move to the Microsoft cloud, Windows Azure.

The Cornball is a Silverlight application which communicates through a WCF service with a MySQL database, all on the same hosting provider. This is about to be converted into a Silverlight application which communicates through a WCF service on Windows Azure that in turn communicates with an SQL Azure database.

Microsoft have published a lot of information to get started with Windows Azure, but basically it is quite simple. After downloading the tools and SDK it is just to get on with the development. Through my MSDN subscription I have got some free Azure capacity so just by logging on to the Windows Azure portal I am ready to configure my cloud.


The Windows Azure Management Portal is a Silverlight based user interface which is very easy to use an intuitive. There is a wide variety of settings and possibilities, but the things I needed for my application was to create a Data Store, a database and also a Hosted Service. Once these components were created I could easily set up a connection in Visual Studion which enabled me to Deploy my application directly to the cloud.


SQL Azure has a Silverlight based user interface as well, and it works perfectly for my simple needs. I have only got two tables and a couple of stored procedures. There are some limitations in SQL Azure compared to SQL Server but since I was moving from a MySQL server that was nothing I really thought about.

So, now I have moved e-mail, files, web sites and databases to the cloud and I could not be more happy! Everything has been running as clockwork and I have saved some money each year as well. I have also gained a lot of experience and set myself free from some worries.
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