Eclipse Plugin for Java Developers on Windows Azure
I’m pleased to announce the availability of the Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse with Java (by Microsoft Open Technologies), June 2012 CTP .
This has been the most ambitious and technically complex update we’ve had, focusing on improving the ease of creating projects, deploying apps to the cloud, and simplifying developers’ programmatic access to various services provided by Windows Azure. This update also includes a set of other enhancements driven by user feedback.
These are the main additions:
- New Windows Azure Deployment Project wizard – enables you toselect your JDK, Java server, and Java apps right in the improved wizard UI. The list of out-of-the-box server configurations to choose from now includes Tomcat 6, Tomcat 7, GlassFish OSE 3, Jetty 7, Jetty 8, JBoss 6, and JBoss 7 (stand-alone), and it is user-customizable. (This UI improvement is an alternative to dragging and dropping compressed files and copying over startup scripts, which was previously the main approach. That method still works fine but will likely be preferred only for more advanced scenarios now.)
- Server Configuration role property page – enables you to easily switch the servers and applications associated with your deployment after you create the project, as part of the Role Propertiesdialog box.
- “Publish to cloud” wizard – an easy way to deploy your project to the Windows Azure cloud directly from Eclipse, automating all the heavy lifting of fetching credentials, signing in, uploading, and so on. (This is a contribution from our Java partner GigaSpaces Technologies Ltd.)
- Widows Azure Toolbar – provides easy access to several commonly used actions: Run in emulator, Reset emulator, Create cloud package, New Windows Azure Project, Publish to Windows Azure cloud , Unpublish.
- Componentsproperty page makes it easier for advanced users to set up project dependencies between individual Windows Azure roles in the project and other external resources such as Java application projects, as well as to describe their deployment logic.
- Package for Windows Azure Libraries for Java (by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc) –consists of all the JAR files needed for programming the Windows Azure APIs, including the Windows Azure Libraries fo Java. It is installed by default when you install the main plugin. You add a reference to just this one Eclipse library from your Java project. You can now also easily embed the entire library in your WAR file at the same time with just a single check box (no need to configure the deployment assembly separately). This package is for users who do not use Maven and would rather not have to download all the JAR files on their own.
- Instance input endpoint configuration UI– helps enable remote debugging and JMX diagnostics for specific compute instances running in the cloud in scenarios with multi-instance deployments. Users can do this by configuring this new type of Windows Azure endpoint. (Previously, remote debugging could be made to work reliably only for single-instance deployments.)
- Windows Azure Access Control Services Filter (by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc) – enables your Java application to seamlessly take advantage of Windows Azure Active Directory Access Control (ACS) authentication using various identity providers (such as Google, Live.com, and Yahoo). You don’t have to write authentication logic yourself, just configure a few options and let the filter do the heavy lifting of enabling users to sign in using ACS. Then just write the code that gives users access to resources based on their identity, as returned to your app by the filter inside the Request object.
Martin Sawicki
Principal Program Manager
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation