Does the new Azure SDK 1.7 and enhanced publishing allow automating of publishing static files to blob storage?

Question

Does anyone know if there have been any changes in Azure publish to allow automatically putting static content (js, css, images) etc to blob storage as part of the publish operation?

This would make it significantly easier to publish applications as you wouldn't have to keep putting static files to blob storage. It makes sense to keep static files off the web role as it will help scale the application.

One of the major benefits Azure has over other development environments should be it's integration with Visual Studio and a good full stack experience

Answer 1

I've just published https://github.com/Plasma/AzureBlobUtility which is a command line utility to upload a file from local storage to blob storage, which I'm now using to have TeamCity upload cspkg's to blob storage in advance.

You may be find it useful to automate the uploading of your assets.

Answer 2

A slightly longer answer is that the CDN kind of makes the decision as between a web role and storage a moot point. At least for the commonly used static files that are used throughout a site.

You can use your hosted service as the Origin server for distribution out through the CDN. Take a look at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/scicoria/archive/2011/07/10/hosted-service-as-a-windows-azure-cdn-origin-tips.aspx

However, as David notes above there may be some benefits in terms of trimming down your release package size by moving these to blob storage during your packaging process. it's be easy enough to script as part of the automated build process and then do differential updates.

Answer 3

The short answer is no - nothing in the v1.7 tools or project type that includes Windows Azure Storage content as one of its elements. I do see the appeal though, in a dev environment. For production systems, I feel that automated tools are more appropriate.

Not that this is the answer you were looking for, but... There's a way you can automate storage upload, though. You can take advantage of PowerShell, combined with your automation tool of choice (whether you're using TFS/MSBuild 100% or mixing in Team City, CruiseControl.net or something else).

The REST API already covers storage management (including the ability to upload block and page blobs). The PowerShell cmdlets make this very easy to upload blob content, and this lets you decide when to execute the script (along with deployment, before deployment, as an update later, etc.).

One more thing to consider: Static content can be enormous in size. You may want to avoid a total upload, and focus on individual objects. Some of the partners I've worked with have hundreds of MB of static content (and several have GBs). Not very practical for pushing this content in one big batch. The PowerShell cmdlets help in these cases.