Another requirement for Windows Platform Ready is the
presence of a certificate with your Azure account. You don’t need to purchase
a certificate – you can use a self-signed one that you can easily create with
IIS on your local dev machine. David
Aiken has a nice blog post on how to create a certificate for Windows Azure
that I used for these steps.
First, open IIS Manager and click on your computer name.
Then double-click on Server Certificates from the IIS section in the main
window, as shown here:
Next, click on the Create Self-Signed Certificate option on
the right. Specify a name for the cert (e.g. “AzureCert”). You should then
see it listed in the list of Server Certificates:
Close IIS manager and open Certificate Manager (Start ->
Run -> certmgr.msc). Open the Trusted Root Certification Authorities and
click on Certificates. Locate your certification by sorting on the Friendly
Name column and finding the name you provided.
Now right click on your cert and choose All Tasks ->
Export.
Select No, do not export the private key and click Next.
Select DER encoded (the default) for the file format and click Next. Specify
the file name and path (e.g. c:\AzureCert.cer) making sure to name it with the
.cer extension. Verify the options and click Finish.
Now back in the browser, in the Azure Management Portal,
click on Management Certificates. Choose Add Certificate from the ribbon
menu. Be sure the correct subscription is selected, then browse to the .cer
file you just exported, and click OK.
Your application is now ready for MPR testing and
verification!
