The Windows® Azure™ SDK development environment includes development storage, a utility that simulates the Blob, Queue, and Table services available in the cloud. If you are building a hosted service that employs storage services or writing any external application that calls storage services, you can test locally against development storage.
The development storage utility provides a user interface to view the status of the local storage services and to start, stop, and reset them.
This topic contains the following subtopics:
System Requirements
SQL Server Express Authentication
Initializing and Running Development Storage
Generating Database Tables in Development Storage
Authenticating Requests for Development Storage
Development Storage UI
System Requirements
Development storage relies on a Microsoft® SQL Server™ instance to simulate the storage servers. By default, development storage is configured for a Microsoft® SQL Server™ Express versions 2005 or 2008 database.
You can also configure development storage to access a local instance of SQL Server. See Initializing and Running Development Storage below for more information.
If you are running SQL Server Express versions 2005 or 2008, you can also install SQL Server Management Studio Express to manage your SQL Server Express installation.
In order to configure development storage, you must have administrative privileges on the computer.
SQL Server Express Authentication
Development storage connects to SQL Server or SQL Server Express by using Windows authentication.
Initializing and Running Development Storage
Calling the CSRun command automatically starts development storage. You can also use this command to stop development storage.
The first time you run development storage, an initialization process runs to configure the environment. The initialization process creates a database in SQL Server Express and reserves HTTP ports for each local storage service. This step requires administrative privileges. The tool displays a message indicating that the initialization process has completed.
Using the DSInit Tool to Manually Initialize Development Storage
You can run the initialization process separately from development storage by running the DSInit.exe tool. This tool is installed by default to the C:\Program Files\Windows Azure SDK\v1.0\bin\devstore directory. After you've initialized the local environment, it's not necessary to call DSInit.exe again.
Note that you must have administrative privileges to call DSInit. See DSInit Tool for more information.
Reinitializing the Database
If you need to reinitialize the database, you can call dsInit /forceCreate to recreate it. Note that this will cause all existing data in the local Blob and Queue service to be lost.
Configuring Development Storage for a Local SQL Server Instance
To configure development storage to run against a local instance of SQL Server, rather than against SQL Express, call DSInit with the /sqlInstance parameter, passing in the name of the target SQL Server instance. Use the name of the SQL Server instance without the server qualifier (e.g., MSSQL instead of .\MSSQL) to refer to a named instance. Use "." to denote an unnamed or default instance of SQL Server.
You can call dsInit /sqlInstance at any time to configure development storage to point to a different instance of SQL Server.
Authenticating Requests for Development Storage
Development storage supports only a single fixed account and a well-known authentication key. This account and key are the only credentials permitted for use with development storage. They are:
Account name: devstoreaccount1
Account key: Eby8vdM02xNOcqFlqUwJPLlmEtlCDXJ1OUzFT50uSRZ6IFsuFq2UVErCz4I6tq/K1SZFPTOtr/KBHBeksoGMGw==
Important The authentication key supported by development storage is intended only for testing the functionality of your client authentication code. It does not serve any security purpose. You cannot use your production storage account and key with development storage. You should not use the development storage account with production data.
Development Storage UI
The development storage utility provides a UI for managing the local Blob, Queue, and Table services. To display the UI, when the development fabric is running, right-click the Windows Azure icon in the task bar and choose Show Development Storage UI.
You can use the development storage UI to start or stop any of the services, or to reset them. Resetting a service stops the service, cleans all data for that service from the SQL database (including removing any existing blobs, queues, or tables), and restarts the service.
When the UI is closed, the development storage utility continues to run and is available as an icon in the system tray. To shut down development storage, right-click the Windows Azure icon in the task bar and choose Shutdown Development Storage service.
See Also