Setup for ‘Build Your First Windows Azure Application’ at #utcc

I’ll be presenting a hands on session at the Spring 2012 Utah Code Camp this Saturday (March 10th). While you will be able to just watch me do the work, the intent of this sessions, and how you will get the most out of it, is to actually participate and build an application along with me. With this in mind the following should be installed on your computer before 11:30 (Mountain Time) this Saturday!

Please feel free to ping me with any questions! (mention @mgerickson on Twitter might be the best way to get me).

First you will want a subscription to Azure. This will not be totally necessary as we will likely only test our application locally in the Cloud Emulator, but you’ll want the experience of deploying and running it in the cloud. If you do not already have a subscription you can get a free 90 day subscription here: http://bit.ly/mgericksonAzureTrial

Next you’ll need some software:

1. Visual Studio 2010 (note that VS 11 will not currently work for this). Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher will work fine, or you can also get the free Microsoft Visual Studio Web Developer Express 2010 edition from here: http://bit.ly/mgericksonVSWebExpress
2. SQL Server 2008. The most straight forward way it to be sure you have the Express edition installed (http://bit.ly/mgericksonSQL2008Express) but a full (Enterprise, Standard, Developer) edition will also work.
3. IIS7 – be sure it is configured for ASP.NET and WCF HTTP Activation, Static Content, IIS Management Console and HTTP Redirection
4. IIS URL Rewrite Module 2.0 (http://bit.ly/mgericksonURLRewrite2)
5. Windows PowerShell
6. Windows Azure SDK for .NET (best way is to use Microsoft’s Web Platform Installer – launch from here: http://bit.ly/mgericksonAzureNetCenter)

You download all the bits and see instruction to manually install everything here: http://bit.ly/mgericksonAzureSDKNov2011

We only have 60 minutes to get our application built and running, so it will be an overview and will move fast, but I hope you plan to join us and have some fun in The Cloud!