Azure and Cloud Computing with DataSnap

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Warning: DSAzure API is deprecated and has been replaced by Data.Cloud.AzureAPI. You are encouraged to use the new API when developing cloud computing applications. See Cloud Computing with DataSnap for more information.

Microsoft Azure (not to be confused with SQL Azure) allows you to store and manage Blobs, Queues of messages, and Tables of data on the Azure cloud. Once you have created a Microsoft Azure account, you can use components that are shipped with RAD Studio for working with your Microsoft Azure account.

Installing the Microsoft Azure Components

The RAD Studio installation folder contains a package that provides the Microsoft Azure components, but this package is not installed in RAD Studio by default.

To install the Microsoft Azure components, install its component package, "dclWindowsAzureManagement190.bpl", that you can find in the "bin" folder of the RAD Studio installation folder. For example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\18.0\bin\dclWindowsAzureManagement190.bpl.

Now you can use the corresponding components found under the Microsoft Azure section of the Tool Palette. The available Azure components are: TAzureTableManagement, TAzureQueueManagement, and TAzureBlobManagement. There is also a component called TAzureConnectionString that takes into consideration information for connecting to your Microsoft Azure account. All these components use the Microsoft Azure REST API to manage the features that come with each of these services.

Microsoft Azure Components

Azure components are useful for any developer who wants to make an application that manages a Microsoft Azure account. If used programmatically, the application itself could use information from the end-user's Azure account.

Microsoft Azure API

An API corresponding to each of the above components is also available. With this, you can programmatically interact with the Microsoft Azure cloud, performing all of the same actions that are available in the visual components. The API can be found in the DSAzure unit and includes the classes extending TAzureService.

Note that, when using the service classes, you will need to call TAzureService.SetUp at least once before trying to connect to the cloud. Also note that you need a TAzureConnectionString to use the API.

See Also