Author: Joe Nalewabau

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure.

You can create a new Cloud Service using the New Project dialog in Visual Studio and selecting the “Cloud Service” template. 

This will bring up a dialog which enables you to add Web and Worker roles to your Cloud Service.

If you create a Cloud Service that contains a Web Role and Worker Role, your project structure will look similar to the one below:

The Cloud Service project:

• Builds and packages your Cloud Service for the Development Fabric
• Provides Run and Debug functionality in the Development Fabric
• Publishes your package to the Windows Azure Service Package format
• Enables you to configure the roles and role projects in the Cloud Service

This document will walk through using the Roles node in the Cloud Service project.

Inside the Cloud Service project you will see a node called “Roles”. The Roles node provides a graphical view of the Visual Studio projects that are associated with the roles defined in the Service Definition file (ServiceDefinition.csdef).

You can use the Roles node to:

• Change the project associated with the Web or Worker role in your Cloud Service
• Add or remove roles from your Cloud Service
• Set Role properties

Changing a project associated with a role

At some stage you might want to change the project associated with a specific role in your cloud service. You have two options:

1. Associate a role with a new project
2. Associate a role with an existing project

Associate a role with a new project

In order to create a new project for a specific role in your cloud service, you:

• Open the Roles node in the Cloud Service
• Right click on the existing node you want to change the project association and choose “Associate with->New … Project” (note that the menu item text changes to reflect the role type)
• The New Project dialog is displayed with the appropriate project template for the Role type you selected.
  • Name the project and hit OK
• A new project is created for you in the solution
  • The Roles node is updated to show the association to the newly created project
  • The previous project associated with the role remains in the solution.

Associate with an existing role project

In order to associate an existing project with a specific role in your cloud service, you:

• Load or create the role project you want to associate into the same solution as your cloud service.
• Right click on the existing node you want to change the project association and choose “Associate with->… Role project in solution” (note that the menu item text changes to reflect the role type)
• The “Associate with Role Project” is displayed. This dialog lists the projects in the current solution that have the same Role type as the role you are changing.
  • Choose the project you want to associate the role with and hit Ok.
• The roles node is updated to display the project association
  • The previous project associated with the role remains in the solution.

Add or Remove Roles from a Cloud Service

You can also use the Roles node to add or remove roles from a Cloud Service. While you could do this directly in the service definition file, using the Roles node allows Visual Studio to update the Service Configuration file at the same time.

Adding a Role to a Cloud Service

Adding a role to Cloud Service is simple, right click the Roles node in a Cloud Service and select the type of role you want to add to your cloud service.

Note that you have an option to add a new project for that role or use an existing role project. Once a role is added to the cloud service, the appropriate entries are also made in the service configuration file.

Removing a Role from a Cloud Service

Removing a role from a Cloud Service is simple, right click the role you want to remove and select “Remove”. Visual Studio will remove the role from the service definition as well as any service configuration entries for that role.

Note that removing a role in a cloud service does not do anything to the project currently associated with that role – removing simply removes the association between the role and that project.

Setting Role Properties

Select one of the Role project associations under the Roles node, right click and select “Properties”.

This will allow you to use the Properties Window to set properties on the Role such as enabling full trust or setting the instance count.