Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role ApplicationVersion: 2.0 DescriptionThis hands-on lab provides step-by-step guides for hosting in Windows Azure (WAZ) a Web application accepting identities from an external identity provider: with the authentication functions being performed by an external identity provider, you are now free to focus on the business function of your application instead of worrying of low level details. As you will learn while you go though the lab, this is easily accomplished by taking advantage of Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), formerly known as Geneva, for enhancing your web site. OverviewThis hands-on lab provides step-by-step guides for hosting in Windows Azure (WAZ) a Web application accepting identities from an external identity provider: with the authentication functions being performed by an external identity provider, you are now free to focus on the business function of your application instead of worrying of low level details. As you will learn while you go through the lab, this is easily accomplished by taking advantage of Windows Identity Foundation (WIF), formerly known as Geneva, for enhancing your web site or web service. The text gives very concrete indications, and it is optimized for minimizing the number of steps that are necessary for getting up and running with the minimal scenario. We will occasionally add notes in the text to explain choices rationales and indicate alternatives for the reader who is interested in understanding how the solution works or wants to explore more advanced scenarios: if all you are interested in is getting the basic scenario up and running, you can safely skip those notes as you follow the lab instructions. Essential Introduction to Windows Identity Foundation for Windows Azure developersWindows® Identity Foundation (WIF) is a developer framework which enhances the .NET Framework with advanced identity capabilities. Based on the concept of Claims Based access, WIF offers a series of classes that, while integrating seamlessly with the traditional .NET identity object model, gives developers control over every aspect of authentication, authorization and identity-driven application behavior. WIF point & click tooling and tight Visual Studio integration make very easy to externalize authentication to a federated partner, so that a developer can configure an ASP.NET application or a WCF service to rely on external entities for identity management. WIF allows application access using open protocols and standards, while hiding the complexity of the security plumbing behind a handy programming model. WIF will work with applications written with the .NET Framework 3.5 SP2 or higher. You can find further information at https://www.microsoft.com/wif. Essential Introduction to Windows Azure for Windows Identity Foundation developersWindows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manages Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers. Windows Azure offers a set of Visual Studio templates that can be used to develop ASP.NET applications or worker services destined to be deployed in the cloud. The Windows Azure Tool for Visual Studio includes the Windows Azure compute emulator, a hosting environment that can be used for local simulation of execution in the fabric. The Windows Azure compute emulator gives you the chance to experiment with multiple concurrent instances and other cloud features without the need to be online, while still being able to use your familiar debugging and development tools. Windows Azure applications can be packaged via Visual Studio or command-line tooling, and then deployed in the cloud via the Windows Azure management portal. You can find further information at https://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazure.mspx in order to able to deploy your project. ObjectivesIn this hands-on lab, you will learn how to:
System RequirementsThe following is required to complete this hands-on lab:
SetupYou must perform the following steps to prepare your computer for this lab.
Using the Code SnippetsThroughout the lab document, you will be instructed to insert code blocks. For your convenience, most of that code is provided as Visual Studio Code Snippets, which you can use from within Visual Studio 2010 to avoid having to add it manually. If you are not familiar with the Visual Studio Code Snippets, and want to learn how to use them, you can refer to the Setup.docx document in the Assets folder of the training kit, which contains a section describing how to use them. ExercisesThis hands-on lab includes the following exercise:
Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.
Note:
When you first start Visual Studio, you must select one of the predefined settings collections. Every predefined collection is designed to match a particular development style and determines window layouts, editor behavior, IntelliSense code snippets, and dialog box options. The procedures in this lab describe the actions necessary to accomplish a given task in Visual Studio when using the General Development Settings collection. If you choose a different settings collection for your development environment, there may be differences in these procedures that you need to take into account.
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