Accessing Cloud Data with Windows Azure Marketplace

Working in the cloud is becoming a major initiative for application development departments. Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud incorporating data and services. This lab will guide the reader through a series of exercises that creates a Silverlight Web Part that displays Windows Azure Marketplace data on a Silverlight Bing map control.

Overview

Working in the cloud is becoming a major initiative for application development departments. Windows Azure is Microsoft’s cloud incorporating data and services. This lab will guide the reader through a series of exercises that creates a Silverlight Web Part that displays Windows Azure Marketplace data on a Silverlight Bing map control.

Objectives

This lab will demonstrate how you can consume Windows Azure data using SharePoint 2010 and a Silverlight Web Part. To demonstrate connecting to Windows Azure data the reader will

• Subscribe to a Microsoft Windows Azure Marketplace dataset
• Create a Business Data Catalog model to access the dataset
• Create an external list to expose the dataset
• Create a Silverlight Web Part to display the data
• Deploy the Web Part.

System Requirements

You must have the following items to complete this lab:

• 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
• Bing Silverlight Map control and Bing Map Developer Id
• Silverlight WebPart
• Internet Access

Setup

You must perform the following steps to prepare your computer for this lab...

1. Download the 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine from http://tinyurl.com/2avoc4b and create the Hyper-V image.
2. Install the Visual Studio 2010 Silverlight Web Part. The Silverlight Web Part is an add-on to Visual Studio 2010.
3. Create a document library named SilverlightXaps located at http://intranet.contoso.com/silverlightxaps. This is where you will store the Silverlight Xap in SharePoint.
4. Create a Bing Map Developer Account.
5. Download and install the Bing Map Silverlight Control.

Exercises

This Hands-On Lab comprises the following exercises:

1. Subscribe to a Microsoft Windows Azure MarketPlace Dataset
2. Create a Business Data Catalog Model to Access the Dataset
3. Create an External List to Consume the MarketPlace Dataset
4. Create a Web Part to Display the MarketPlace Data
5. Deploy the Web Part

Estimated time to complete this lab: 60 minutes.

Starting Materials

This Hands-On Lab includes the following starting materials.

• Visual Studio solutions. The lab provides the following Visual Studio solutions that you can use as starting point for the exercises.
  • <Install>\Labs\ACDM\Source\Begin\TheftStatisticsBDCModel \TheftStatisticsBDCModel.sln: This solution creates the Business Data Catalog application.
  • <Install>\Labs\ACDM\Source\Begin\TheftStatisticsWebPart \TheftStatisticsWebPart.sln: This solution creates the Silverlight Web Part and Silvelright application that will consume data using an external list.
  Note:

  Inside each lab folder, you will find an end folder containing a solution with the completed lab exercise.