Windows Azure – BidNow Sample

Posted: December 2, 2010  |  Categories: Microsoft Azure Uncategorized
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If you want to dive more into Windows Azure you can have a look at BidNow. BidNow is an online auction site designed to demonstrate how you can build highly scalable consumer applications running in the Windows Azure Platform.

When BidNow was originally released, it was a sample built using Windows Azure and Windows Azure Storage, along with authentication provided via Live Id. Since the original release, a number of additional services and capabilities have been released. Consequently, BidNow now utilizes the following pieces of the platform:

These updates not only provide important and useful capabilities, but also highlight the ways in which to build applications in the Windows Azure Platform. If you like to learn more you can read Wade Wegner’s latest post. It will show how setup a platform (what you need to install, OS, Visual Studio, SDK, Identity Framework) to make this sample run.

My environment is as follows on a 8740w HP Elitebook, 8Gb RAM, Intel Core i7 machine:

  • Windows 7, Professional x64
  • Windows PowerShell 2.0 (already installed on Windows 7)
  • Windows Azure Software Development Kit 1.3
  • Windows Azure AppFabric SDK 2.0
  • Internet Information Services 7.5
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
  • Microsoft SQL Express 2008 R2
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
  • Windows Identity Foundation Runtime
  • Windows Identity Foundation SDK 4.0

When downloading the sample you will get a zipped file and need to unpack (run it). After that you need to start ‘StartHere’ (Windows Command Script). It will then show the screen below:

BidNowSample 1

Click next will run scan to check if all required software is installed.

BidNowSample 2

Click Next.

BidNowSample 3

Configuration of BidNow Demo starts and will setup AppFabric Labs ACS and Cache, Database (SQL Azure, SQL Express or both), blobs and certificates. During the setup you will see a couple of screens like below, where you will have to type in namespace, secret keys and so on.

BidNowSample 4BidNowSample 5

Steps to undertake and actions to perform are described in a wiki.

BidNowSample 7

After configuration is completed code can be opened through visual studio and then it simply build and run.

BidNowSample 8

If you that familiar yet with Windows Azure you can start by going to Windows Azure Platform Portal, where you find lots of resources like whitepapers and so on. Other important resources to look at are:

Have fun and there are more samples to be found for Azure on code gallery.

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Author: Steef-Jan Wiggers

Steef-Jan Wiggers is all in on Microsoft Azure, Integration, and Data Science. He has over 15 years’ experience in a wide variety of scenarios such as custom .NET solution development, overseeing large enterprise integrations, building web services, managing projects, designing web services, experimenting with data, SQL Server database administration, and consulting. Steef-Jan loves challenges in the Microsoft playing field combining it with his domain knowledge in energy, utility, banking, insurance, healthcare, agriculture, (local) government, bio-sciences, retail, travel, and logistics. He is very active in the community as a blogger, TechNet Wiki author, book author, and global public speaker. For these efforts, Microsoft has recognized him a Microsoft MVP for the past 8 years.

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