Windows Azure Toolkit for mobile applications

Windows Azure is a platform based on cloud computing technology – which is becoming more and more popular. The key point of cloud computing is the applications run on the virtual servers, or “clouds”, and the client only send input data then receive result of the computation from the service.

I.                  Windows Azure platform

Windows Azure was built to help developers and technical users develop their applications and run them right on virtual server systems which maintained, updated and protected by Microsoft.

Running cloud applications – however – still requires some additional platform; for example a Windows application may requires SQL Server for managing the database, bringing that application onto the cloud will require bringing SQL Server to the cloud also, that’s why Azure provides additional tools (one of them is SQL Azure) for developing and running cloud applications.

II.               Windows Azure toolkit for iOS

The Windows Azure toolkit for iOS contains a compiled Objective-C library for interacting with services running in Windows Azure like push notification, authN/authZ, storage… as well as the full source code of the Objective-C library along with the Xcode project file. It also provides some sample applications to help new developers understand the mechanism of Windows Azure and how to use Windows Azure Storage

Documentations are also attached with the toolkit.

Interface of Windows Azure toolkit for iOS, the toolkit will

III.           Windows Azure toolkit for Windows Phone 7

The toolkit for Windows 7 was designed to support developers in building applications that leverage the cloud service running in Windows Azure. It provides 2 project templates for both C# and Visual Basic:

·         Windows Phone 7 Empty Cloud Application: This creates a default Windows Phone 7 application with minimum settings and dependencies. For developers that already got used to the mechanism of Windows Azure to build their own idea.

·         Windows Phone 7 Cloud Application: This template generates a Windows Azure project , an MVC 2 Model configured as a Web ( based on ASP.NET) and a Windows 7 Application project. This is for showing the new developers how they can interact with Windows Azure Storage without needing to include the storage account information, which will make it more secure to distribute.

Interface of the toolkit for Windows Phone 7 with 3 specific buttons for any smartphone that runs on Windows Phone 7 OS. The function displayed is one of the sample functions for the Windows Azure cloud application.

IV.           Coming up next

The next toolkit for Android is going to be released on this June with QWERTY keyboard support, complied libraries and samples. When mobile cloud computing becomes popular, smartphone prices will be reduced and the limit of mobile application will expanded. This is going to make Windows Azure the future of computing because smartphone application will not require strong hardware on the device anymore, all the computation  will be processed on servers.

MSDN Blog – Now available: Windows Azure toolkit for iOS : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/05/09/title-now-available-windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios.aspx

Wade Wegner – Getting Started with the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/

Wade Wegner – Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/03/windows-azure-toolkit-for-windows-phone-7/

Codeplex – Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7: http://watoolkitwp7.codeplex.com/