Getting started with the Windows Azure activities
The Windows Azure activities enable interaction with Windows Azure Compute and Storage services from within a TFS build workflow. The activities expose the capabilities of the Windows Azure Service Management API, for managing deployment, configuration and the operational status of services, roles and instances.
Before you can make use of any of the TFS community build activities you have to make sure they are available for the build system and on your development PC. Instructions for this process can be found in the ALM Rangers build guide or in the getting started page of this wiki. This page assumes the Windows Azure activities are available in the developers build process workflow toolbox.
All of the activities require two common arguments for interacting with Windows Azure.
- SubscriptionId - the string identifier of the subscription which you would like to manage.
- CertificateThumbprintId - all operations against the Azure API are authenticated using a certificate which has been uploaded to the Azure Management Portal. This parameter identifies the thumbprint of the certificate which is located in the Personal store of the TFS build user.
It is advisable to include these settings as arguments to the workflow to allow for reuse against different subscriptions.
Many activities initiate the execution of an asynchronous operation within the Windows Azure infrastructure. Each of these activities will return an OperationId as the result of the activity. This identifier is a string returned by Windows Azure to be used to query for the status of the specific operation. Using this identifier, the GetOperationStatus activity can be used to poll periodically for the completion or termination of the originating operation. Because this is a common pattern, you will find the need to make a composite or other block similar to that shown below for handling asynchronous operations.
This workflow excerpt calls the SetDeploymentStatus activity to suspend the running instance in the staging slot of a service. It then polls every 30 seconds to find the status of the suspend operation. If the operation was not successful, it throws an exception to be handled elsewhere in the workflow.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetHostedService | Gets the service context for the specified hosted service. |
| GetHostedServiceProperties | Lists all hosted services in the specified subscription. |
| GetHostedServices | Sets the label and description of the specified hosted service. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetDeployment | Get the deployment context for a currently running service. |
| SwapDeployment | Swaps the deployments in the Production and Staging slots. |
| NewDeployment | Creates a new deployment (using an already uploaded package). |
| RemoveDeployment | Deletes a pre-existing deployment. |
| UpgradeDeployment | Initiates an in-place upgrade of the specified deployment. |
| ChangeDeploymentConfiguration | Updates the configuration of a running instance. |
| SetDeploymentStatus | Set a deployment to the running or suspended state. |
| UploadPackageToBlobStorage | Upload a packaged service to blob storage as a precursor to deployment. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| RebootRoleInstance | Reboots the specified role instance. |
| ReimageRoleInstance | Re-images the specified role instance. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetAffinityGroup | Lists the properties for the specified affinity group. |
| GetAffinityGroups | Lists all affinity groups in the subscription. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetCertificates | Lists the certificates for the specified hosted service. |
| GetCertificate | Retrieves a specified service certificate. |
| AddCertificate | Uploads a service certificate. |
| RemoveCertificate | Deletes the specified service certificate. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetStorageKeys | Displays the primary and secondary keys for the storage account. |
| GetStorageProperties | Lists the properties of the specified storage account. |
| NewStorageKey | Regenerates the primary or secondary storage key for the specified storage account. |
| GetStorageAccount | Lists all storage services in the specified subscription. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetOSVersions | Get a list of the versions of the guest operating system families that are currently available in Windows Azure. |
| GetOSVersions | Get a list of the versions of the guest operating system that are currently available in Windows Azure. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| GetLocations | Get a list all of the data center locations that are valid for a subscription. |