Windows Azure and a third-party Windows Service

Question

I am developing a website that I intend to run within Windows Azure using a single Web Role. The site will make use of the Sphinx Search engine which will need to run as a Windows Service. So, my question is this...is it possible to install the Sphinx Search Windows Service inside of a Web Role.

From my initial research into Azure I am thinking "yes" for the reason that the Web Role is a VM running IIS. Therefore I should be able to remote in, install the service, and it should work. :)

Does this sound right?

Answer 1

After reading your answers, and thinking about it a bit more, I think dropping the idea of installing a service would be the best course of action. I've been looking at the API for Lucene.NET (this may be the same for Sphinx) and it's possible to encapsulate the writing/managing of indexes, etc, within in code and therefore no need for a service.

For the Azure, there is a library for managing index files using both local and Azure storage which could be of use. Scenarios I've read about show that it's then possible to have a Web Role that will process HTTP requests and perform the searches and a Worker Role to accept DB changes via a queue and have it write them to the indexes.

Answer 2

Installing software via RDP is not a viable solution with Web/Worker role instances, as these changes won't persist. You need to install it either from a startup script or from OnStart(). Since you want to install as a service, that would imply startup script, since it would need elevated permissions. Note: The installer must support unattended mode, where all parameters are specified via command line with no human interaction.

What about scalability? If you have more than one instance of your web role running, can sphinx run across two instances? From what I read, it supports ODBC-compliant databases, and you might be able to use it against Windows Azure SQL Database. If that's the case, can two sphinx engines run on two different machines accessing the same data store? If so, this sounds like a viable solution.

If installation cannot be automated, or you need something additional like MySQL, you may want to consider placing the sphinx search engine inside a Virtual Machine (new in June 2012). Now you can spin up a Windows 2008 Server, RDP into it, configure it exactly how you want it.

Answer 3

Strictly speaking yes, you could do that. However this makes the assumption that you would be running on one VM instance and also that the instance would never need restarting.

You should consider looking at Azure worker roles for any functionality that would normally exist as a windows service.