Windows Azure Table Storage

Friday, November 07 2008 | Tags - , |

Windows Azure provides simple data storage services like blobs, tables and queues to store your data in the cloud. They are called as Storage Account

azure-storage

Using Table Storage is one of the simplest way to start exploring the Windows Azure Storage. The tables are accessed using a Uri which is:

http://{application-name}.tables.core.windows.net

Replace the {application-name} with your cloud project name

How is data stored in a table?

Below is a representation of how a table looks like in the ‘cloud’

image

  • Each account has a Table
  • The Table has an Entity
  • An Entity contains Columns
  • Entity can be considered to be the row and Columns as values
  • An Entity always contains these properties:
    • PartitionKey
    • RowKey
    • Timestamp
  • The PartitionKey and RowKey identify a row or an Entity

Programming Windows Azure Tables

Not so fast again :)

You need to have a Storage Account if you want to use the ‘cloud’ table storage. But the Windows Azure SDK comes with a Development Storage tool which simulates the Windows Azure Storage in your local machine! You can very well use that to see how things are worked out in the ‘cloud’. If you are using the local development storage, the tables Uri would be:

http://127.0.0.1:10002

If you need ‘cloud’ storage, you have to register for the ‘Azure Services Invitations” program at Microsoft Connect and wait for your invitation code :)

In my next post, lets see how we can program Windows Azure Table Storage

Chaks' Corner Tags : - ,

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