I have been looking into Workflow Foundation for a build we are currently undertaking.
I have a proof of concept and have been using IIS AppFabric for tracking, faults, and persistence to SQL which are key to our new build. We are now looking to Azure for the hosting of the workflow service, which i have working but cannot find any guides on how to set up the monitoring IIS AppFabric offers in terms of database setup.
I have read that AppFabric will no longer be supported as of this year, does this include Azure AppFabric. What is the best approach in Azure?
Windows Server AppFabric is retired since 11/04/2017: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/appfabric/2015/04/02/microsoft-appfabric-1-1-for-windows-server-ends-support-422016/
My recommendation: You should write your workflow using Azure Logic Apps. It already offers tracking mechanisms that uses Azure Storage accounts.
Related
This is regarding Microsoft's Azure DevOps(Formerly VSTS). Just wanted to clear things, can Azure DevOps be classified as a Platform as a Service. Since it is a cloud service it should be categorized into IaaS but it eliminates the middleware/OS in pipeline. If not then where does it go in the cloud services area? IaaS/SAAS?
Thanks.
Azure DevOps is SaaS for end users (Developers,PM,QA and other stakeholder). In the backend, all the services offer by "Azure DevOps" may run on VMs or Physical server. That mean Microsoft point of view, they may use combination of IaaS & PaaS solution for this platform. Ultimately all services running on VM or physical server.
Its a SaaS, since you are buying a service, not a platform, not virtual machines.
From learn.microsoft.com
Based on the on-premises capabilities, with additional cloud services, we manage your source code, work items, builds, and tests. Azure DevOps uses platform as a service (PaaS) infrastructure and many Azure services, including Azure SQL, to deliver a reliable, globally available service for your development projects.
So according to Microsoft it is PaaS.
I published a web api in Azure via Visual Studio. I would like to know if it is PaaS or IaaS.
When I search for the answer, I find lot of definitions about the PaaS and IaaS.
But I did not find where it is clearly defined which services found in Azure portal are PaaS and Which are IaaS?
Thanks.
With best regards,
SR
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service):
Cloud infrastructure services, known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), are made of highly scalable and automated compute resources. IaaS is fully self-service for accessing and monitoring things like compute, networking, storage, and other services, and it allows businesses to purchase resources on-demand and as-needed instead of having to buy hardware outright.
PaaS (Platform as a Service):
Cloud platform services, or Platform as a Service (PaaS), provide cloud components to certain software while being used mainly for applications. PaaS provides a framework for developers that they can build upon and use to create customized applications. All servers, storage, and networking can be managed by the enterprise or a third-party provider while the developers can maintain management of the applications.
Source: SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS: What’s The Difference and How To Choose
In short: with IaaS you use infrastructure (mostly VMs, networking, ...) from your cloud provider that you manage yourself. With PaaS you use an abstraction layer on top of some infrastructure where you do not manage the underlying infrastructure itself. You only manage the application and its data.
If you've deployed to an App Service, you're using PaaS. If you've deployed to a VM that you manage and runs IIS, you're using IaaS.
Another interesting read: What is PaaS?
To several developers on my team, they describe Azure Logic Apps as an evolution of Workflow Foundation.
In addition, WCF services hosted in IIS are more evolved on Service Fabric.
Are these analogies correct? Are better ones available?
Azure Logic Apps is a Platform as a Service offering to give you simple integration with a number of connectors (from SaaS to on-premises databases like DB2) out of the box. Optimized for cloud scale, simple deployments, and platform capabilities like retry policies and alerting.
It's a little challenging when drawing the comparison between Workflow Foundation and Azure Logic Apps. From a basic workflow perspective they both have similar capabilities that have control flow, scopes and call outs to actions/activities. WF is a framework so it gives you certain control over the host and storage configuration for persistence, and allows for interacting with MSDTC for local ACID transactional resources and closely coupled to WCF -- where Logic Apps is cloud hosted so you don’t need to be concerned with how to host or scale the Logic App.
Also it’s a cloud based service which relies on communication via REST for describing APIs and, as a cloud based service, relies on eventual consistency and idempotent calls instead of distributed transactions.
I guess in short I'd summarize in that yes, many scenarios that people would have historically used workflow foundation for could now use Logic Apps (and those scenarios get many advantages from the platform), but it's a different level of control and approach -- similar almost to an Azure Web Site vs. VM with IIS.
I have a Azure benefit from my Visual Studio with MSDN subscription.
Microsoft doesn't host MySQL servers in Azure, but I can create a DB from ClearDB through the Azure Portal.
Questions
Is this services included in my benefit?
Can I "Buy" a custom domain with my benefit?
You can provision a VM and deploy MYSQL, this would be included in your benefit but maybe expensive.
You can provision SAAS services like ClearDB via Azure Marketplace but generally billing is separate. When you provision a third party service there is normally a FREE TIER available. If moving to a PAID TIER generally this is billed separately from your Azure Payment methods I have found. Point being , depends on the service you are provisioning. Best bet is to ask the service provider sales channel.
I am a little confused about two new technologies receiving a lot of buzz currently;
Can somebody please explain to me what the difference (or similarities) are between Azure and .NET Services?
Are they one and the same thing?
Is Azure the Cloud OS that my .NET Services run in?
Is .NET Services a component that makes up the greater Azure vision?
Thanks
You've basically got it right that .NET Services is a component that makes up part of the Azure platform. Check out the Azure Services graphic for a visual representation of the components.
Azure is composed of the operating environment and the base services that are used to host cloud applications. It provides the base capabilities (web and worker processes) as well as the simple data storage offerings.
.NET Services are the services that many applications will use to create cloud scale applications, although originally the services were mostly geared toward enterprise development. It includes the access service and service bus.
There are also a few other services that are provided:
SQL Azure is the SQL Server for the cloud offering. It is used like a regular SQL Server instance, for the most part, but is hosted and sericed by Microsoft.
Live Services are consumer focused services that make use of many Microsoft services: Mesh, Live ID, Messenger, etc.
One thing to note is that, although these services are offered as part of the Azure platform, the .NET Services should be usable from any platform. The are REST based services that can be consumed by any application that has the ability to call REST services.
Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that drivers the Azure Platform, which is an open platform that supports/will support multiple Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and evironments. Azure Platform
.Net Services are a set of libraries that aid in working with the Azure cloud based infrastructure services available. .Net Services