Building a Windows Azure Development Environment

As I’ve been working with some of the best and the brightest the WAISG has to offer, I think it’s time to provide a link to assist others in some Windows Azure 101 (a/k/a “Getting Started”) bits and pieces. In this post, I’ll cover setting up your development environment on a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 system.

• Make sure you have the current Service Pack for your operating system. The easiest way to do this is to click on the Orb (or Start, in WS2008R2) and type ‘Windows Update’. Windows Update will detect if your system is patched to current levels.
• Install Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2010 Express (the free version). Be sure to check Windows Update again after installation (and rebooting) to ensure you have the current Service Pack (SP1) installed.
• Using the Web Platform Installer, Install the Windows Azure SDK for .NET.
• Install the Windows Azure AppFabric SDK. As of this writing, the current version is 1.5. There are code samples available on that page as well.
• Install the Windows Azure Training Kit. This kit is chock-full of information, tutorials and source code. The current version is “January 2012″. As this is updated frequently, I suggest you do the full install (about 500 mb) and install into a separate folder on your hard drive.
• Visual Studio 2010 Express installs SQL Express by default, but your development environment may include a full (or development) version of SQL Server. In either case, check Windows Update for a current Service Pack for your version. The SQL Express management UI is a separate download: SQL Express Management Studio Express. If you have full SQL Server, the UI is included. For help running the UI, please see “Using SQL Server Management Studio” on MSDN.

:: whew ::    Only a few more steps (I promise).In order to use the local emulators:

• Compute: You MUST run Visual Studio as an administrator (link to a Windows 7 Forum, but works for both W7 and 2008).
• Storage: Your logged in user MUST be a member of the SQL Server sysadmin group (link to David Browne, who provides a script that does this for a local user .. as long as that local user is an administrator of the local system .. otherwise, contact your IT). This is required as the local user must be able to create databases for storage of Blobs, tables and Queues during development.

With these bits installed, you should be able to conquer any of the labs in the Windows Azure Training Kit with ease .. and speed your way into the Cloud!

I’ll see you there.