Program scheduling: New Windows Azure Scheduler service

This morning we launched another set of enhancements for Windows Azure. Today's new features include:

Program scheduling: New Windows Azure Scheduler service storage: New synchronous read-write redundant storage scenario monitoring: Enhanced functionality for Windows Azure Services Monitoring and diagnostics

All of these improvements are now available (note that some features are still in the preview). Here are more details about them:

Program scheduling: New Windows Azure Scheduler service

I am pleased to announce that we can preview the new Windows Azure dispatch service. The Windows Azure Dispatch service allows you to schedule tasks that enable the HTTP/S endpoint or to send information to the storage queue according to any plans you make. With the scheduler, you can create reliable tasks that invoke internal or external services within Windows Azure and run them immediately or set them to run at a later time in a regular schedule.

To start using the scheduler, first you need to register the preview on the Windows Azure Preview page. Once you have registered successfully in the preview page, you can login to the admin portal and start using it.

Create a dispatch task

Once you have enabled the schedule preview in your subscription, you can easily create a new task with the following short steps.

In the Windows Azure Portal Management site, click New-> Service-> schedule –> custom Create:

Select the Windows Azure area where you want to run the task, then select an existing task collector or create a new one and add the task to it:

Then you can define your task operations. In this example, we create an HTTP operation that sends a GET request to a Web site (you can also use other HTTP protocols, like HTTPS).

You may prefer to add some information to a storage queue rather than insist on a Web service if you are working on a long-running request or enabling a service in the offline state. To add information to a storage queue you only need to select the storage queue as your operation, then create or select a storage account number and queue to send the request:

Once you have defined the task you want to perform, you will now want to set a recurring schedule for it. A looping task can be as simple as running immediately (useful for testing), running at a specific time in the future, or in a recurring schedule:

Once the task is created, it is listed in the task view.

The task view displays a summary of all task fault/error messages-You can click the History tab to get more details (including headers and content for any HTTP response based on HTTP tasks).

I encourage you to try the scheduler--I'm sure you'll find it a useful way to reliably automate tasks. The following links provide more information on how to use it (and how to create tasks automatically using the command line or your own program):

documentation. NET API NuGet Package MSDN Forum is used to find all your questions about the scheduler can be applied to the feedback and comments of the Scheduler Feedback Forum Scheduler Pricing Details Page (Note that now contains a free node for all subscribers)

Storage: New, readable, geographically redundant storage scheme

I am pleased to announce the release of our new readable geographically redundant storage Solution Preview version. Ra-grs is a significant improvement over our Windows Azure replicated geographic storage. Prior to today, our geo-replacated storage options are built in to support automatic copying of your storage data (Bolb, queues, tables) from one major area to another (for example: the eastern United States to the Western United States), However, access to secondary area data is not provided unless the storage group is transferred collectively in the event of a disaster.

Today's update allows you to always read your secondary storage backup. This allows you to access your data immediately when a temporary failure occurs in your primary storage location (and in your application built-in support for automatic processing of failed read failures). Today's update also enables you to test and track your data backups so that you can easily validate backups (which occur asynchronously in the background).

Enable Read permissions

To enable RA-GRS support, you need to register read access geographically redundant storage previews on the Windows Azure Preview page. Once you sign in to the preview, you can log on to the portal Management site and easily browse to the configuration panel of your storage account to enable Read access:

Once enabled, you can access your secondary storage endpoint location in Myaccountname-secondary.<service>.core.windows.net. You can use the same access keys as the primary storage side for the secondary storage location.

For additional details about Ra-grs and examples of how to use it,

Please read the storage blog at the address below:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2013/12/04/ Introducing-read-access-geo-replicated-storage-ra-grs-for-windows-azure-storage.aspx

Monitoring: Enhanced functionality for Windows Azure Monitoring and service diagnostics

Today's updates include several good enhancements to Windows Azure monitoring and diagnostics capabilities:

Advanced SQL Database Metrics monitoring

Today's updates enable you to monitor the CPU and IO activity metrics for advanced SQL databases, as well as the storage activity metrics in advanced and standard databases. You can find more information on MSDN.

Update Web site Diagnostics

Previously, when you configured the HTTP log storage location for your Web server, you could select an already existing BLOB container.

In this release, you can create a separate new BLOB container for your Web server log and make a unified configuration in the Windows Azure Management portal. You can find the Configuration tab on your Web site with simple navigation, click the Manage Store button and choose to create a new BLOB container option.

Operational history support for Windows Azure Mobile Services

Windows Azure's operational log feature allows you to audit the administrative actions performed by your Windows Azure service. You can click the Action Log tab in the Admin services extension of the admin portal to view them:

Today's update we have added more than 20 new log behaviors to Windows Azure Mobile services, which are displayed in the Action log list.

Summary

Today's edition contains a number of great features that allow you to create a better cloud computing solution. If you don't already have Windows Azure account, you can sign up for a free trial account and start using all of today's features. Then visit Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to use it to create applications.