December, 2012

17th

6 comments

Running ASP.NET Web API with OWIN and Katana

Because you don't need IIS

One of the often repeated, and frankly, somewhat unfair, arguments against using .NET based technologies is that by doing so, you handcuff yourself to all kinds of various Microsoft tools and products.

If you choose to use ASP.NET Web API, by no means you are tied to IIS. Of course, one of the options is to self host it (and run the web service using the hardened WCF core), but if you want a true web host flexibility and independence, you can very easily host Web API using OWIN and Katana.

More after the jump.

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11th

6 comments

Using existing database with Azure Mobile Services

Because you don't have to start with a new database

One of the topics we like to come back to on this blog is Azure Mobile Services (ZUMO) – and rightfully so, because that’s a terrific service, capable of smoothly fueling your application’s backend in a hassle-free and scalable manner.

One thing you might have noticed about ZUMO though, is that pretty much all the online tutorials and materials related to it will show you how to work with it from scratch. One of the unknown facts about it, is that, with some slight modifications, you can actually plug in your existing SQL Server (or rather SQL Azure) database (provided you have earlier migrated it to Windows Azure of course), and serve it for your application utilizing the power of Azure Mobile Services.

Let’s a have a look at how you’d configure that.

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4th

10 comments

Web API alternative – self hosting HTTP services in native C++ code

Because sometimes the inherent efficiency of C++ is just too important

On this blog, I’ve been focusing pretty much exclusively on ASP.NET Web API, but today let’s step outside .NET, and explore how you could host RESTful HTTP services directly from the native unmanaged C++ code – and I hope, this is going to be a very interesting journey, especially as C++ is so much more efficient than any managed language.

If you haven’t done C++ before, or haven’t done any in years, don’t dread, modern C++ is quite different than what you might be used to of have heard of. Microsoft DevLabs and Niklas Gustafsson provide a terrific experimental library called Casablanca, which is a C++ SDK aimed at creating modern HTTP services in native code.

More after the jump.

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