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Integrating Azure in Office Solutions

Version: 1.0.0

Description

The Windows Azure platform is a group of cloud technologies providing a specific set of services to application developers. There is Windows Azure, which provides an environment for running applications and storing data in the cloud, SQL Azure for providing relational data services in the cloud based on SQL Server, and the Windows Azure AppFabric that provides services for connecting applications running in the cloud or on premises.

Overview

The Windows Azure platform is a group of cloud technologies providing a specific set of services to application developers. There is Windows Azure, which provides an environment for running applications and storing data in the cloud, SQL Azure for providing relational data services in the cloud based on SQL Server, and the Windows Azure AppFabric that provides services for connecting applications running in the cloud or on premises.

Windows Azure is a general platform that businesses use in many wide-ranging scenarios from serving as a platform for a new Web site to providing an enterprise with a robust, scalable backbone for enterprise application development and deployment.

Increasingly, developers need to be aware of how to integrate applications with services exposed by Azure. In this Hands-On Lab, you will learn how to consume Azure services within an Office application.

Objectives

The objective of this Hands-On Lab is to provide you with a foundation for developing Office solutions that integrate with Windows Azure. In particular, you will

  • Learn how to setup your Azure development environment
  • Understand how to access the Azure Table Service for data storage
  • Learn how to call methods exposed by WFC Services on Azure

System Requirements

The steps in this Hands On Lab follow the requirements of the Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.4:

  • Supported Operating Systems:Windows 7;Windows Server 2008;Windows Server 2008 R2;Windows Vista
  • IIS 7.0 (with ASP.NET, WCF HTTP Activation, Static Content, and optionally CGI).
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
  • SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (or above – must be a local instance).

Additionally, this lab uses

  • Excel 2010
  • The steps in this lab were developed and tested using Windows Server 2008 R2 along with a 32-bit version of Microsoft Excel 2010.

Setup

This Hands-On lab assumes that the Hands-On lab files are located in a folder named Student\Azure on the C:\ drive. If you haven’t already done so, perform the following steps

  1. Open Windows Explorer
  2. Right-click on the Local Disk (C:) item and choose New >> Folder
  3. Name the new folder Student
  4. Right-click on the Student folder and choose New >> Folder
  5. Name the new folder Azure
  6. Depending on where you installed the Training Kit, go to %Office2010DeveloperTrainingKitPath%\Labs\OfficeAzure\Source\Starter.
  7. Press Ctrl key and click on SaleObservationServiceTestClient, SaleObservatonService, and ExcelAzure.xlsx
  8. Drag the selected items into the Azure folder

Exercises

This Hands-On Lab comprises the following exercises:

  1. Setting up your Development Environment
  2. Consuming Azure Table Storage Server Data in Excel
  3. Calling an Azure hosted WCF Service from an Office Add-In

Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.

Starting materials

This Hands-On Lab includes the following starting materials.

  • SaleObservationService – This is a Visual Studio project that implements a sample WCF Service for Azure. You will build and deploy this project in exercise 1.
  • SaleObservationServiceTestClient – This is a Visual Studio project for testing the SaleObservationService. You will use this project in exercise 1.
  • ExcelAzure.xlsx – This is an Excel file that you will base your Visual Studio project off of in exercise 2.
  • ExcelAzure – This is not required to complete the lab. It is a completed example of exercise 2.
  • NorthwindSalesFunctions – This is not required to complete the lab. It is a completed example of exercise 3.

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Downloads

Download The Offline Training Kit
Download Hands-on Lab Document (DOCX)
Download Hands-on Lab Source Files

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