The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 is designed to make it easier for you to build mobile applications that leverage cloud services running in Windows Azure.  The toolkit includes Visual Studio project templates for Windows Phone 7 and Windows Azure, class libraries optimized for use on the phone, sample applications, and documentation.  All this content is designed to be easily reused, simplifying your experience and optimizing your time when building your own phone applications leveraging cloud services.

In addition to support for Windows Azure storage services, this toolkit includes membership services to provide authentication and authorization for your phone applications and support for Microsoft and Apple push notifications.

For membership, you can choose between two different access control strategies: the toolkit can generate and include in your application a classic ASP.NET membership store, or it can outsource authentication to the Windows Azure Access Control Service (ACS). The latter enables your users to register and log in by reusing their existing accounts from identity providers such as Windows Live ID, Google, Yahoo and possibly from their Active Directory or Facebook.

Windows Azure

Windows Azure is a cloud-computing platform that lets you run applications and store data in the cloud.  Instead of having to worry about building out the underlying infrastructure and managing the operating system, you can simply build your application and deploy it to Windows Azure.  Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute, storage, networking, and content delivery capabilities.  For more information about Windows Azure, visit the Windows Azure website.  For developer focused training material, download the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit or view the online Windows Azure Platform Training Course.

If you’re looking to try out the Windows Azure Platform free for 30-days—without using a credit card—try the Windows Azure Pass with promo code “CloudCover”.  For more details, see Try Out Windows Azure with a Free Pass.

Content

• Setup and Configuration
• Toolkit Content
• Getting Started
  • Creating a New Windows Phone 7 Cloud Application
  • Running and Going Through the Windows Phone 7 Cloud Application
    • Starting the Application
    • Authenticating the User (ASP.NET Membership Authentication)
    • Authenticating the User (ACS Authentication)
    • Sending Microsoft Push Notifications
    • Sending Apple Push Notifications
    • Working with Tables, Blobs, and Queues
• User Authentication
  • How to Choose Between ASP.NET Membership and ACS
  • How to Obtain Namespace and Management Keys
• Troubleshooting
• Change Log
• Videos
  • Getting Started with the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7
  • Getting Started with ACS and the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7

Requirements

You must have the following items to run the project template and the sample solution included in this toolkit:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional (or higher) or both Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and Microsoft Visual Studio
• Microsoft ASP.NET MVC2
• Windows Phone Developer Tools (January 2011 Update)
  • Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update (WindowsPhoneDeveloperResources_[language]_patch1.msp)
  • Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix (VS10-KB2486994-x86.exe)
• Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit – Feb 2011
• Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7)
• Windows Azure SDK 1.4 (March 2011)
• Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (March 2011)
• Windows Identity Foundation Runtime
• Windows Identity Foundation SDK 4.0

Feedback

If you have questions or feedback, please send an email to waztoolkitwp7@microsoft.com.