Best Practices for Data Storage Security on Windows Azure
J. D. Meier of the patterns & practices team is writing Azure Security Guidance as a series of application scenarios and solutions. The goal is to show the most common application scenarios on the Microsoft Azure platform.
The scenarios put an emphasis on looking at data on Azure in the context of various application scenarios. The basic pattern is exposing data as a service to your application on Azure. This has two variations: Azure Storage and SQL Azure. Another pattern is exposing data as a service to an on-site application (such as a local Web app that uses data in the cloud.)
Patterns that he describes in the article include:
- ASP.NET to Azure Storage
- ASP.NET to SQL Azure
- ASP.NET On-Site to SQL Azure Through WCF
The patterns & practices teams help software development teams be more successful with the Microsoft application platform.
About Windows Azure Storage
The Windows Azure storage services provide persistent, redundant storage in the cloud. The storage services include these fundamental services:
- Blob service
- Queue service
- Table service
The REST APIs for the Windows Azure storage services offer developers a means to access the Blob, Queue, and Table services in Windows Azure or in the development environment.
All storage services are accessible via REST APIs. Storage services may be accessed from within a service running in Windows Azure, or directly over the Internet from any application that can send an HTTP/HTTPS request and receive an HTTP/HTTPS response.
About SQL Azure
Microsoft SQL Azure Database is a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL Server® technologies. It provides a highly available, scalable, multi-tenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud. SQL Azure Database helps to ease provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any software. High availability and fault tolerance is built-in and no physical administration is required. SQL Azure Database supports Transact-SQL (T-SQL).
Getting Started
Find out more at Windows Azure Getting Started.
See the series at Why Windows Azure on MSDEV.
See the MSDEV videos at Everything You Need to Know About Azure as a Developer.
See the Windows Azure Platform Training Course on Channel 9 including the Azure developer training kit.
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Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation