Viewing the State of a Cloud Service using Server Explorer

The Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio offer a way to view and monitor your deployment environments from within Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 by using the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer. You can add deployment environments that you wish to monitor to the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer, and observe their state while you continue to work in Visual Studio.

A Windows Azure application may be deployed as a cloud service in the Staging deployment environment, the Production deployment environment, or both. You can choose to monitor either or both of these environments for a cloud service from the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer.

Note
You must have already published your application to a deployment environment in order to view it in the Windows Azure Compute node. For more information about how to publish an application from Visual Studio, see Publishing a Cloud Service using the Windows Azure Tools.

You must have a named set of credentials, which are used by Visual Studio to communicate with Windows Azure to manage your cloud service. In the Windows Azure Management Portal, this authentication process is handled transparently by using your Microsoft account, but Visual Studio must explicitly authenticate your subscription in order to manage your cloud service. After you have saved your credentials, you can use them when you publish an application or monitor the deployment environment from within Visual Studio. These credentials are stored in a .publishsettings file.

Use the following procedures to add and remove deployment environments from the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer, and view IntelliTrace logs for the deployment environments.

Note
You cannot start or stop role instances from Server Explorer.

Add a Deployment Environment to Server Explorer

To add a deployment environment to Server Explorer

1. To open Server Explorer in Visual Studio, on the menu bar choose View, Server Explorer.

2. To add a deployment environment, open the shortcut menu for the Windows Azure Compute node and choose Add Deployment Environment.

   The Add deployment environment dialog box is displayed. Any environments that have already been added are displayed in the Windows Azure Accounts node.

3. Choose the link to sign in and download a .publishsettings file.

4. On the page that appears, follow the instructions for downloading a .publishsettings file, which contains a certificate for your Windows Azure subscription.

5. Choose the Import button, and then choose the .publishsettings file that you just downloaded.

   Note
   You must provide a different set of credentials to manage your cloud services than to make a request against the storage services in Windows Azure.

6. When you have created and saved your named credentials, open the credentials that are listed under the Windows Azure Accounts node to select the cloud service and deployment environment to display in Server Explorer. The name is displayed in Deployment environment.

   Warning
   If the name of the credentials that you created is not listed under the Windows Azure Accounts node, close the Add deployment environment dialog box and reopen it to view the name.

7. To add the environment to the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer, choose the OK button.

   The deployment environment is now displayed in Server Explorer under Windows Azure Compute. It indicates the deployment environment being monitored, whether IntelliTrace has been enabled for the deployment, and the status of each role instance.

8. (Optional) If your cloud service contains a web role, to view it in your web browser, open the shortcut menu for the deployment environment name and point to View in Browser, as shown in the following illustration:

   

Note
Server Explorer queries Windows Azure at regular intervals to determine the status of your deployment and displays any changes. To force the Windows Azure Compute node to refresh, open the shortcut menu for the Windows Azure Compute node and choose Refresh.

Remove a Deployment Environment from Server Explorer

Viewing IntelliTrace Logs

If you deployed your Windows Azure application as a cloud service from within Visual Studio and enabled IntelliTrace for the deployment, you can download the IntelliTrace logs for a role instance from the Windows Azure Compute node in Server Explorer. Open the shortcut menu for the instance name and choose View IntelliTrace Logs. For more information about how to debug with IntelliTrace, see Debugging a Published Cloud Service with IntelliTrace and Visual Studio.

Warning
The IntelliTrace logs might contain exceptions that the framework generates and subsequently handles. Internal framework code generates these exceptions as a normal part of starting up a role, so you may safely ignore them.

See Also