Installing OGDI DataLab version 5 on Azure

Configuring a Windows Azure Account

The following is a walkthrough for the setup of a Windows Azure account you will use to install the OGDI DataLab platform. It will explain how to setup a Cloud Service, which will host the OGDI web and worker roles. It will also explain how to create the two **Storages **needed for the configuration tables and the data storage itself.

To be able to install OGDI DataLab on Azure you need to setup one Cloud Service and two Storages. If you do not have your Azure account, you need to sign up for it using a Windows Live ID.

For our walkthrough we will use a trial account of Windows Azure, which provides the same functionality as a paid one, except it is time-limited. All screens below are shown as examples and you should use your own information to create the required services and accounts. Please note that all screenshots are based on Visual Studio 2010 and Windows Azure Management Portal released in 2012: https://manage.windowsazure.com/

Creating the Cloud Service

The Cloud Service will run the data provider accessible to the public, which will expose the catalogues (datasets) to any consumer – client app or a direct http request.

To create a Cloud Service:

1. Start the Windows Azure Management Portal.
2. Select Cloud Services on the left sidebar.
3. Click New on the left corner of the bottom toolbar.
4. In the New menu, select Cloud Service, Quick Create, and then type a URL of your new site. Note: This will be the public URL users will see unless you have a domain name to assign it to.
5. Select a region or affinity group so that all your storages and cloud services are in the same geographic location. This will decrease data traffic and speed up your services. If you do not have an affinity group already, you will not see any in the drop-down selection.
6. Click Create Cloud Service and wait for the process to complete. After a few seconds you will see the newly created Cloud Service in the list.

##Creating the Storage For OGDI DataLab v.5, you need two storages:

• A configuration storage, where the OGDI project keeps the data endpoints;
• A data storage, where the actual data is stored, which will be available for the public.

To create a Storage:

1. Start the Windows Azure Management Portal.
2. Select Storage.
3. Click on New on the left corner of the bottom toolbar.
4. Select Storage and then Quick Create.
5. Enter a URL prefix that will be used to connect to the account. Note: We suggest using the word config in it, so you can easily recognize this account later.
6. Select the same region or affinity group in which you put the Cloud Service.
7. Click Create Storage Account.

Perform the same steps for creating Storage for the data, which will hold the publicly exposed catalogues. However, use data as the URL prefix instead (as in step 5). In our example we used myopencityconfig and myopencitydata.

These are public URLs and if the names are already taken, the Management Portal will notify you and ask to enter a different name.

When completed, the Storage panel will display the two new accounts (config and data) you have just created.

Installing Dependencies

The following will prepare the OGDI DataLab for compiling and publishing on the Windows Azure instance. When you download the files, you will be missing the 3rd party dependencies for some of the projects in the package.

Prerequisite: you need to have completed all the steps on setting up the Windows Azure account, storages, and service.

To install the OGDI DataLab dependencies

1. Once you have downloaded OGDI DataLab – version 5, you can decompress it in a folder and open it in Visual Studio 2010. Note: Run VS 2010 as administrator (right-click the VS 2010 icon while holding the Shift key and select Run as administrator from the context menu).
2. Some components may be out of date. To get the latest versions of these 3rd party components, use the Installing NuGet.
3. Expand the DataBrowser.WebRole project, right-click the References branch, and select Manage NuGet Packages
4. In the NuGet window, search for “OGDI DataLab” and you will see the four dependency packages that are named according to the project names they relate to.
5. Select the OGDI DataLab DataBrowser.WebRole Dependencies item and click Install.
6. Once the installation is complete, follow the same process to install: OGDI DataLab DataService.WebRole Dependencies, OGDI DataLab DataLoaderGuiApp Dependencies, and OGDI DataLab DataLoader Dependencies.
7. To verify that all dependencies were installed correctly, build the solution and make sure there are no errors. If you notice any error messages, ensure you install the necessary dependency packages for each of the errors.

Configuring the Roles

The following walkthrough configures the web role and the worker role projects so you can publish them on your Windows Azure Cloud service. This configuration is necessary to connect the catalogue data with the metadata of the endpoint. They will provide the data to any client that visits your site.

Prerequisite: you need to have completed all the steps on setting up the Windows Azure account, storages, and service, as well as installed all 3rd party dependencies.

To configure the web role

1. Locate the Solution explorer, and find the DataBrowser.Cloud project.
2. Expand the branches under the project and look for the Roles folder, where you will find the two roles: DataBrowser.WebRole and DataBrowser.WorkerRole.
3. Double-click on the DataBrowser.Webrole to open the configuration table.
4. Select the **Settings **tab on the left.
5. In the newly opened window, locate the Service Configuration drop-down box and select Cloud. This way, all changes you make will affect only the configurations for the Azure cloud installation.
6. Click DataConnectionString and select ConnectionString in the column Type. This will display a browse button at the end of the same row.
7. Click the browse […] button to open a Connection String form.
8. Once it opens, select Enter storage account credentials. These settings will allow you to connect to the storages you created.
9. In the Account name field type the name of the storage account you chose to use for the configuration database.
10. In the Account key field enter the access key for config storage. You can get it from the Windows Azure Management panel. Locate the Storages panel, select the configuration storage.
11. In your Azure Portal, on the bottom toolbar you will see Manage Key. Clicking it will display the Primary access key and the Secondary access key. Note: They both have access rights but we suggest using the second one. Keep the first for administration purposes and the second for the OGDI DataLab installation itself. This way at a later point you will be able to change it and cancel access to everyone that is not an administrator.
12. In Visual Studio and paste the key into the Storage Account Connection String form.
13. Click OK to save the settings and close the Storage Account Connection String form.
14. Repeat the same process for the DiagnosticsConnectionString setting of the web role project (starting from step 5), using the same storage name and key.
15. Select the Cloud Services screen on the Windows Azure Platform portal.
16. Click the service you created in the first part of this article and locate the URL column to the right.
17. Copy the DNS Prefix.
18. Paste the DNS Prefix followed by cloudapp.net into the serviceURI field in the *Settings tab in Visual Studio. Note: All standard Azure DNS names finish with .cloudapp.net so the service URI you will use starts with the DNS prefix you copied and finishes with cloudapp.net:8080/v1/.

After you have completed edited the three settings, the table with settings should look similar to this:

To configure the worker role

Configure the same three settings for the DataBrowser.WorkerRole, so follow the exact same steps from above (starting from step 3) but instead double-clicking on the DataBrowser.WorkerRole in the Solution Explorer. The values for all settings are the same.

Once you are done, the screen will look similar to this:

Publishing the DataBrowser Project

The following will show you how to upload the DataBrowser.Cloud project, which includes the web role and the worker role, to the Windows Azure instance you have created. These roles will become your webpages where users will have access to the data in your catalogue.

Prerequisite: you need to have completed all the steps on setting up the Windows Azure account, storages, and service, installed all 3rd party dependencies, and configured the web and worker roles.

To publish the DataBrowser Project

1. After you have set the connection strings as described above, go to the Solution Explorer, right-click on the DataBrowser.Cloud project, and click Publish.
2. If you are publishing the project for the first time, you will see no subscription in the drop-down box. In the Publishing Wizard, click on Sign in to download credentials and the wizard will open a web browser window for you and ask you to sign in with your LiveId, which you used to open a Windows Azure account. If you were already signed in, you will not see the login screen.
3. After a few seconds, the browser will download a configuration file with publishsettings extension. Save it on your hard drive.
4. In the Publishing wizard, click Import and browse to the downloaded settings file. When you open it, you will see the drop-down box change to the name of your subscription.
5. Click Next.
6. The next screen will show all settings you received through the settings file you imported. Verify that you have selected Release built configuration and Cloud service configuration. Click Next.
7. The Summary page will show you the way the project will be published on your hosting account. Click Publish to start the automatic upload process.

This process will take several minutes. During this time, you will be able to see the progress in the Windows Azure Activity Log screen in Visual Studio.

You will also be able to see the uploading on the management panel as well.

When publishing is complete, the hosting service with the DataBrowser roles will be started.

Note: You will not have any data in the database and you do not have any catalogues defined in it. That is next. For now, check that your Cloud service is running on Azure and read our next part.