Chennai .Net User Group

Tips and Important Steps for Migrating Apps to Windows Azure

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:45:00 GMT

The following are the few important steps and tips for migrating ASP.NET apps to Windows Azure. Convert the ASP.NET application into a Web Role project. Verify that the application is running correctly in the development environment. Make sure that your application is 64-bit compatible since Window azure is a 64-bit environment. Since Window Azure Web Roles runs on IIS7 Integrated mode, make sure that your web application does not have any issues with running on IIS 7 Integrated mode. If your web...(read more)

Building a Windows Azure App using Azure Queue, Azure Table and ASP.NET MVC Web Role

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:20:00 GMT

In this post, I will demonstrate a Windows Azure app using Azure Queue, Azure Table and a ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Role application. This post is explaining few initial steps for building a demo Azure app where asynchronous commands (write operations that changes the data) put into Azure Queue and an Azure Work Role will persist the data into Azure Table from Queue messages for the read operations. The source code is available from http://azurehack.codeplex.com/ .The demo application will modify and add...(read more)

Startup Tasks for Windows Azure Roles

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:15:00 GMT

Windows Azure supports startup tasks that can be use to perform operations and install components before your Azure Role starts on Virtual Server. You can use to startup tasks to install other software, register COM components, setting registry keys, start another process, etc. This is very useful in many situations where you might want to running an initialization scripts, execute batch files and PowerShell scripts etc before your Role starts. In the past, I had used a startup task to install ASP...(read more)

Visual Studio Enhancements in Windows Azure SDK 1.6 for Publishing Apps

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:39:37 GMT

The new Windows Azure SDK 1.6 is providing many enhancements including a better experience for publishing Windows Azure applications using Visual Studio. To publish an application onto Azure, do the following steps. First right click on the Azure project from Visual Studio and Select Publish. The below publish window will show. When you run the publish wizard for the first time, you must download your credentials from Windows Azure portal. Choose the Sign In To Download Credentials link...(read more)

CQRS, Commands, Command Handlers and Command Dispatcher

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:57:00 GMT

In this post, I am trying to add some CQRS principles onto my EFMVC project. Please keep in mind that this is not the implementation CQRS patterns, but trying to add some CQRS flavors on the Solution Architecture with Commands that changes the data (Create, Update and Delete). The current implementation of command execution is implemented in a synchronous way. CQRS CQRS is stands for Command-Query Responsibility Segregation that is a principle of separating commands (that change the data) from queries...(read more)

EFMVC 1.0 Preview Released

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:01:00 GMT

A while ago, I have released EFMVC , a demo web app built using ASP.NET MVC 3, EF Code First and Unity. The EFMVC app has demonstrated many architectural patterns and practices such as Generic Repository, Repository pattern, Unit of Work pattern, Dependency Injection pattern and Application Service later. Today I would like to announce the release of EFMVC 1.0 Preview. This release is an early preview release that has made some changes in the solution architecture. The preview is written in ASP.NET...(read more)

Removing EdmMetadata table in EF Code First

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:54:00 GMT

EF Code First Framework is using a table named EdmMetadata on the database to check the current model is compatible with the database. When your model is changing, you need to drop the database and create a new database. In that scenario, you can add a initialization strategy using DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges<TContext>. You can avoid the EdmMetadata table from your database so it won't check the schema of database with model. When you are using Code First Migrations or updating your...(read more)

Autofac - My Choice of IoC Container

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:09:00 GMT

I have been using Unity for dependency injection since the early days of ASP.NET MVC framework. Recently I have evaluated other IoC containers and really impressed with Autofac. The next version of my codeplex project EFMVC will be use Autofac as IoC container. Autofac is a lightweight IoC container that providing better performance and can easily integrate with .NET applications. Autofac is developed by Nicholas Blumhardt and the community is actively working on the code base. Using Autofac in ASP...(read more)

ASP.NET MVC 4 Enhancements to Default Project Templates

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:37:00 GMT

The ASP.NET MVC 4 provides an additional project teamplate for Mobile Web Application. The new Project dialog is shown below The project templates that are used to create new ASP.NET MVC 4 projects have been updated and provide a nice and modern looking user interface. The home page using the new project template is shown below The new project template provides adaptive rendering for both desktop browsers and mobile browsers without any customization. The home page is displayed in the mobile browser...(read more)

ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview Released

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:37:00 GMT

Microsoft has announced the availability of ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview. The following are the some of the new features of ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview. Mobile Project Template based on jQuery Mobile Enhancements to Default Project Templates Recipes for Code Generation in Visual Studio Task Support for Asynchronous Controllers You can install the ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview from here . For the Windows Azure, ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview supports the September 2011 1.5 release of the...(read more)

Auto Registration in Microsoft Unity

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:26:00 GMT

Unlike many other .NET IoC containers, Microsoft Unity does not support auto registrations. Auto registration is a very useful feature for any IoC container and it would be very helpful in some specific contexts. The Unity Auto Registration project in Codeplex will provide the support for automatic registration using a fluent API. You can add Unity Auto Registration package using NuGet. The following command will add reference to Unity Auto Registration. PM> Install-Package UnityAutoRegistration...(read more)

Building JavaScript MVVM apps in ASP.NET MVC using KnockoutJS

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:56:37 GMT

JavaScript is getting more attention in modern web application development and increasing the popularity of JavaScript on every day. HTML 5 is making a revolution in web apps world and it is becoming a common platform for variety of scenarios. JavaScript is the language for HTML 5. The next question is how we can write highly maintainable JavaScript code and how to write testable JavaScript code. The answer would be to use a high level JavaScript framework such as KnockoutJS, BackboneJS and SpineJS...(read more)

Speaking at Kerala Microsoft User Group on JavaScript MVVM and KnockoutJS

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:20:55 GMT

I will be speaking about JavaScript MVVM and KnockoutJS at Kerala Microsoft User Group , Kochi on August 20. In this session, I will provide an overview of KnockoutJS, a MVVM framework for creating rich, interactive user interfaces with JavaScript and HTML. Finally, I will demonstrate how to use KnockoutJS in your ASP.NET/ASP.NET MVC applications. The event details available from here . ...(read more)

EF Code First Migrations August 2011 CTP Released

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:25:17 GMT

EF Code First is a great ORM tool which lets you to develop applications in a Domain Driven approach. One of the pain point of EF Code First was the data migrations when your domain model is changing. Finally the ADO.NET team is providing a data migration solution for EF Code First that will incrementally evolve the database schema as you model changes over time. The ADO.NET team has released the CTP version of Code First migration solution named EF Code First Migrations August 2011 CTP. EF Code...(read more)

User Activity logging in ASP.NET MVC app using Action Filter and log4net

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:31:02 GMT

In this post, I will demonstrate how to use an action filter to log user tracking information in an ASP.NET MVC app. The below action filter will take logged user name, controller name, action name, timestamp information and the value of route data id. These user tracking information will be logged using log4net logging framework. public class UserTrackerAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute , IActionFilter { public override void OnActionExecuted( ActionExecutedContext filterContext) { var actionDescriptor...(read more)

Using MvcPaging in ASP.NET MVC Apps

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:51:15 GMT

In this post, I will demonstrate how to use NuGet package MvcPaging in ASP.NET MVC apps. MvcPaging provides a Pager HtmlHelper that renders a pager based on a PagedList implementation. MvcPaging’s Pager helper is also providing Ajax functionality for the paging implementation. You can add MvcPaging package via NuGet. The following command in the NuGet console will install MvcPaging in your project. PM> Install-Package MvcPaging Using MvcPaging Step 1 – Add MvcPaging Namespace using MvcPaging;...(read more)

Microsoft MVP for the Second Time

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 04:11:24 GMT

Last Friday, I got an email from Microsoft stating that I have been awarded as Microsoft MVP again for 2011!! Now I became a Microsoft MVP for the second time in a row. Here's the email below: Dear Shiju Varghese, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in ASP.NET/IIS technical...(read more)

ASP.NET Universal Providers (System.Web.Providers)

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:23:50 GMT

Microsoft Web Platform and Tools (WPT) team has announced the release of ASP.NET Universal Providers that allows you to use Session, Membership, Roles and Profile providers along with all editions of SQL Server 2005 and later. This support includes Sql Server Express, Sql Server CE and Sql Azure.ASP.NET Universal Providers is available as a NuGet package and the following command will install the package via NuGet. PM> Install-Package System.Web.Providers The support for Sql Azure will help...(read more)

mvc-mini-profiler - An effective mini-profiler for ASP.NET MVC

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:45:39 GMT

The mvc-mini-profiler is a lightweight, but effective mini profiler tool for ASP.NET apps specially designed for ASP.NET MVC 3 apps. The mvc-mini-profiler is an free and open source tool from Stack Overflow team. The tool is initially developed for StackOverflow family of websites and open sources the tool later. This is an another great open source tool from Stack Overflow team after Dapper object mapper for .Net. The mvc-mini-profiler is available from http://code.google.com/p/mvc-mini-profiler...(read more)

Speaking at Kerala Microsoft User Group on Scaffolding in ASP.NET MVC 3

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:48:59 GMT

I will be speaking at Kerala Microsoft User Group , Kochi on June 11. The title of the session is “Scaffolding with EF 4.1 and ASP.NET MVC 3”. This will be a hands-on session about scaffolding/code-generation in ASP.NET MVC 3 apps based on EF 4.1 Code First The event details available from here ....(read more)

Azure Storage Explorer

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:06:00 GMT

Azure Storage Explorer is an open source tool at Codeplex that can allow you to inspecting and altering the data in your Windows Azure Storage projects including the logs of your cloud-hosted applications. Azure Storage Explorer is an excellent GUI tool that will be a very useful when you are working with Azure storage services. All 3 types of cloud storage can be viewed and edited: blobs, queues, and tables. Check out the Azure Storage Explorer tool from http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com...(read more)

Using Windows Azure AppFabric Caching

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Wed, 04 May 2011 10:57:00 GMT

Microsoft has announced the production version of Windows Azure AppFabric Caching service. Today, scalability and performance are the most challenging areas in enterprise application development and a distributed caching solution can avoid unnecessary round-trips to the database and give you better performance and even better availability. The Windows Azure AppFabric Caching service lets you create high performance apps for the Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Windows Azure AppFabric Caching...(read more)

EFMVC – A demo web app using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF 4.1 Code First

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:59:34 GMT

I have created a demo web app for some of my previous blog posts and can be download from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . The following technologies are used for the web app ASP.NET MVC 3 Entity Framework 4.1 Code First Microsoft Unity 2.0 jQuery Mobile The following are the main features of the web application CRUD demo in ASP.NET MVC 3 with Entity Framework 4.1 Code First Razor View Engine Generic repository for Entity Framework 4.1 Code First Repository Pattern and Unit of Work Dependency Injection...(read more)

SQL Azure Migration Wizard Tool

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:28:16 GMT

The SQL Azure Migration Wizard (SQLAzureMW) is an open source tool at CodePlex that can help you migrate your SQL Server database to SQL Azure.The SQL Azure Migration Wizard tools will help you analyze your SQL Server database for compatibility issues and will migrate your schema and data to SQL Azure. Check out the SQLAzureMW tool from http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/ . the SQLAzureMW tool can use to migrate the data between the following Sql Server to Sql Azure Sql Azure to Sql Server Sql Azure...(read more)

Speaking at Windows Azure Camp

Shiju Varghese's Blog — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:11:29 GMT

I will be speaking at Windows Azure Camp, at Trivandrum on on April 30, 2011. In my session, I will be create a Windows Azure Web Role App using ASP.NET MVC and EF Code Fist and will deploy this app to Windows Azure. This session will also cover the Windows Azure AppFabric caching. The event details available from here . ...(read more)