Database Reference
In-Depth Information
More than an online storage service, iCloud keeps a person's data content available on all his/her
computing devices including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. It also keeps a person's e-mail,
contacts, and calendars up to date across his/her devices. he iCloud service does everything for
the subscriber to manage his/her personal data.
Windows Live SkyDrive is the Microsoft Version of the personal cloud. he subscribers of
SkyDrive can store, organize, and download their iles, photos, and favorites on Windows Live
servers. hey can access the data stored on SkyDrive from any computer with an Internet connec-
tion. SkyDrive allows the subscribers to organize their data by creating folders and to collaborate
on document editing. he subscribers can move, copy, delete, rename, and caption their iles. hey
can also create a contact list and grant permissions to access speciic folders so that friends and
family members can share photos, videos, music, and other data content. he multimedia iles can
be displayed in multiple formats such as JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, and TIFF. From their
blogs or web pages, the subscribers can create links to their iles stored on SkyDrive or embed the
data stored on SkyDrive.
As described above, cloud computing is everywhere now. Database system development can
particularly beneit from the features provided by cloud computing. he goal of this topic is to
develop a cloud-based database system and its applications by taking advantage of the cloud com-
puting environment. he PaaS service provided by Windows Azure is particularly suitable for
accomplishing the goal of this topic. hroughout the topic, Windows Azure and Windows Azure
SQL Database will be used for the hands-on activities. To prepare for the database development,
one needs to irst install the Windows Azure SDK, which will be covered in the next section.
ACTIVITY 1.1 WINDOWS AZURE SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT KIT INSTALLATION ON WINDOWS 7
To simplify the development, deployment, and management of cloud-based applications on
the Windows Azure platform, Microsoft provides the application developers with a set of
rich application development tools such as the Windows Azure SDK. he Windows Azure
SDK provides an application development environment for Windows Azure. he SDK pack-
age includes APIs, tools, documentations, and samples needed to develop cloud applications
that run on Windows Azure. With the SDK package, application developers can create and
test applications locally before deploying the applications to a cloud. he Windows Azure
SDK comes with the compute and storage emulators that simulate the cloud computing
environment. To develop the project covered in this topic, you will need to download and
install the Windows Azure SDK package.
TASK 1: WINDOWS AZURE SDK INSTALLATION PREPAR ATION
Before the installation of the Windows Azure SDK, make sure that your computer meets
the following requirements:
1. To install the Windows Azure SDK, your computer needs to have one of the following
or later versions of the software:
a. Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7
b. SQL Server 2012
