You can get a 30
day pass for Windows Azure by clicking on this link and then entering promo
code CP250. You don’t need a credit card or anything
to get started using this promo code and URL.
It includes the following. You just need to sign in with
your Windows Live ID in order to get started, and then fill out the small form
shown below.
Accept the agreement…
Now get started:
Note that it can take 2-3 business days for
you to receive an email letting you know that your 30 day pass account has been
set up. The rest of this walkthrough assumes this has occurred, or that
you otherwise have access to an Azure account (paid, via MSDN, etc.).
At this point if you’ve been following along, you’re ready
for step 4 shown above, Deploy Your Application to the Cloud. To do this,
you’ll need to log in to your Windows Azure
Management Portal at windows.azure.com. You access the portal using the
same Live ID you used to get your pass (or that you otherwise have associated
with your Windows Azure account). The relatively new version of this portal is
shown here:
If you are going to be taking advantage of Microsoft
Platform Ready testing (in order to qualify for the $250 USD marketing funds
offer), you will need to ensure that your account has a certificate and a
storage account set up in addition to your application’s web or worker roles.
We’ll look at getting these set up after we show how to deploy the
application. To deploy, we’ll need to create an application package and a
configuration file.
Back in Visual Studio, open your Windows Azure solution,
right click on the cloud project, and choose Publish.
Choose the option to Create Service Package Only.
Once the build and package steps complete, a Windows
Explorer window will open showing you the files that were produced. Click on
the address bar and Copy the address to your clipboard.
Now in your browser in the Azure Management Portal, click on
New Hosted Service. Fill in the options however you see fit. If you created a
30-day pass, you should see it as an option in the Choose a subscription
dropdownlist at the top of the form. The URL prefix must be unique (among all
Azure deployments, not just yours).
For Package location, choose Browse Locally and Paste the
address where your published package is located, and then choose your .cspkg
file. For the Configuration file, choose Browse Locally again, Paste in the
address again if necessary, and choose your .cscfg file.
Click OK. This can take a bit of time, but once it’s done,
verify that your application is working properly at the URL you chose above.
