Installing OGDI DataLab version 5 on Azure

Configuring a Windows Azure Account

This set of articles will walk you through the setup of the 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 two Storages 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.