ASP.NET MVC In The Clouds

Nov 14, 2008 aspnetmvc aspnet suggest edit

Quick question? What’s higher than a kite?

No, it’s not me nor Cheech and Chong. It’s a cloud!

Bad jokes (but funny video link) aside, Windows Azure, Microsoft’s foray into cloud computing, is getting a lot of attention right now. The basic idea behind cloud computing is you can host your application in the cloud and pay a monthly fee much like a utility such as paying for water and power.

The benefit is you don’t have to deal with the infrastructure work and maintenance and you get “elastic” scalability, meaning your application can dynamically scale to meet rising need without much work on your part. That’s the idea at least.

The Saturday evening before I left for the PDC, Eilon (lead dev for ASP.NET MVC) and I got together to try out ASP.NET MVC with the Azure Dev Fabric environment. This was something we promised to prototype for Jim Nakashima of the Azure team before the PDC, but were … ah … a little late to deliver. ;)

We had good reason as we had been pre-occupied with getting the Beta release out, but still felt bad for totally dropping the ball, hence the late Saturday night pair programming session.

It turned out that it didn’t take long to get the default ASP.NET MVC project template sample app running in the Dev Fabric, which Jim later posted to his blog. Unfortunately, we didn’t invite a QA person over that evening and didn’t test the entire site thoroughly. While the home and about page worked, the account pages requiring the Membership Provider didn’t. Doh!

Fortunately Jim recently updated the sample to now work with ASP.NET Providers running in the cloud and posted it to his blog. Even before Jim updated the sample we delivered to him, Aaron Lerch posted his own step by step guide to getting providers to work. Nice!

The sample project Jim posted has some fixes to the project that allow it to work in the actual cloud. There were a couple of minor bugs regarding rendering URLs with port numbers when using our form helpers (already fixed in our trunk) that would not affect most people, but does happen to affect running in the cloud.

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Comments

12 responses

Angie • November 14th, 2008
Whenever I feel like being in the clouds, I blaze a joint and wonder why I ever got involved with Microsoft cause Open Source and Free Software is more than just releasing the source code. Phil, why did You ever sell out, even if it is to be temporary to be in the cloud of money that Microsoft throws our way.
Delete this post upon reading!
Lars Mæhlum • November 14th, 2008
Mike:
Join the dark side and get a free cookie. :)
I'm a devout pragmatist, and only got into .NET about a year ago when I started my current job. And with a background in Open Source I must admit that I was not to keen about working with a closed framework.
But I am starting to get very comfortable with it, because .NET is by far the best platform I have ever developed on.
And after a while I realized that the best way of developing a platform is the way that gives the best results, no matter what license gets thrown on top of it. (As long as you are allowed to freely redistribute said framework to your users)
So light up another one and code using the platform that you feel most comfortable with. And if you really feel that .NET is too closed, then join up and start developing lots and lots of free libraries for it. They are the ones you'd want to customize to your needs anyway :)
haacked • November 14th, 2008
@Mike Please elaborate, maaaaan. ;)
Sean Chambers • November 14th, 2008
I admire that you are able to put up with flames like the first comment Phil. I for one would have deleted that off the bat. It really doesn't add anything and is just a blind insult thrown your way.
I commend you for listening and being open rather than slamming the door shut in people's face like Mike. You are in a difficult position, bridging the gap between OSS and MS. I don't think I could do it myself.
Keep up the good work man. There are areas where there are shortfalls but in the grand scheme of things I think you are doing the community a real service. As you stated before, you have a thick skin so march on! =)
haacked • November 15th, 2008
@Sean thanks Sean. I might have been offended if I even understood the point he was trying to make. I can't even begin to address it because I don't understand what specifically he means. Is he upset that ASP.NET MVC or Azure isn't OSS? Or is he upset that I'm not participating in Subtext development any more, which is not true as can be seen by reviewing recent SVN check-in comments on our build server.
Calling someone a "sell-out" is a really vicious character attack. But without providing any details of what I've sold (and exactly how much did I get for it? Because I could use the extra money in these times :P )
Anyways, thanks for commenting Sean. It's much appreciated. :)
Adam • November 15th, 2008
Keep up the good work Phil and don't take any $hit!!!
We all think you're doing an amazing job.
DanDax • November 16th, 2008
Phil, You are the best! I was working on this problem last night and decided to give up and wait for another day (today actually). Quick question: what was the change you made to MVC for registration/login to work? Can we go back to using Html.BeginForm() or do we have to use the workaround that you gave Jim?
Chance • November 18th, 2008
@Phil -
I for one think you, along with Rob and Scott have brought an entirely new way of doing business to Microsoft which I've come to love. You guys now have the resources and manpower to produce amazing systems like the MVC because you understand the importance of listening to the community.
I'm a general fan of open-source, where the whole purpose behind it is to propegate the evolution of software. I simply don't see how stoner Mike there can dispute that what you've brought to Microsoft has done just that. If he's referring to Windows Azure, I'd really be interested in hearing how Microsoft is doing anything different then the other big-wig Cloud servers out there. Its the next generation of hosting and I for one, am glad to see MS jumping on that bandwagon. There is no web-based language that rivals asp.net MVC riding on C#.
This post may seem a bit suck-upish, which wasn't my intention. I simply hate the term "sell-out" and genuinely appreciate yours, and the rest of your gang's contribution to web-development. The MVC framework has reinvigorated my passion for web-development.
</long>
Great post, thanks!
Chicago movers • August 16th, 2010
Hi Phil you're amazing and the way you have explained looks really awesome.
Tig welders • November 9th, 2010
The basic idea behind cloud computing is you can host your application in the cloud and pay a monthly fee much like a utility such as paying for water and power.
I very much agree with you Phil.
Rajesh S • December 14th, 2010
Hi Phil,
i am using asp.net for quiet some time and i want to know what are the new features available to learn cloud computing for asp.net?
Thanks and Regards,
Rajesh.S
Varun Maggo • November 10th, 2011
Hi Phil,
I guess Chuck Norris is haaacked ;)

Great going.
Varun Maggo