Azure for Architects - Recent Updates

Thanks to everyone who came out for my recent talks on Azure for Architects - there has been some great new developments in the last few months for the Windows Azure platform.

You can find my recent Azure presentation and walk-thru's here:

https://cid-e80ea9288abd4452.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Azure%7C_Updates

I'm really excited about some of the "hidden gems" that are in the stack that seem to solve some of the most challenging issues folks face in building distributed web applications - much less ones that are hosted in the clouds.  Here's a few highlights:

Access Control:

You can implement Azure Access Control constructs down to the method invocation level by using a helper class "AccessControlHelper.Demand ActionClaim" to require that users are properly authenticated in order to call your methods. 

Note how this simple calculator service below implements the "DemandActionClaim" on each of the methods:

In the Azure Access Control Portal, you set-up specific Input and Output claims to determine what actions are allowed by an authenticated user.

Here are the specific Input Claim requirements:

and the Output Claim requirements:

The final ACL ( Access Control List):

when you run this demo, note how the "Subtract" operation fails with an "Access Denied" message - due to the fact that there was no specific access given to the  "Subtract" operation on the Azure Access Control Portal:

Hybrid Direct Connections:

Okay, this one is really cool - the ability to automatically detect and "upgrade" the network connection speeds...the NetTcpRelayBinding can be configured to support the Hybrid/Direct connection mode which first establishes a relayed connection, and if possible, switches automatically to a direct connection between a client and service.

Note how in the example below, the connection is automatically upgraded to remove the use of a relay - the number of messages processed jumps almost 10X!  

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