Comments on: Windows Azure Development Deep Dive: Working With Configuration

By: Azure@home Part 2: WebRole Implementation - Jim O'Neil - Developer Evangelist - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:02:14 +0000

[...] and obviated the need for the SetConfigurationSettingPublisher in the OnStart method. Recommendation: For a deeper dive into the mechanics of SetConfigurationSettingPublisher check out Neil Mackensie’s blog as well as Steven Nagy’s. [...]

By: Steven Nagy

Steven Nagy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:18:42 +0000

Hi Mike,

No of course not. I’ve also added this article as a code project article too, might be better to link to that version: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/azure-configuration.aspx

In relation to the events, thanks for that pickup. I’ll fix up my posts ASAP. And using it for debugging information level is a great example of the kind of configuration you would want to move into service configuration file.

Steve

By: Mike Kelly

Mike Kelly — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:56:20 +0000

Yes, it works in cloud fabric. Thanks for the post – this approach is super useful. I’m writing an MSDN article on diagnostics in Azure for the June magazine and used your approach to move the verbosity switches to ServiceConfiguration.cscfg from app.config/web.config so I can change them at run-time without recycling the role.

One minor tweak – there is RoleEnvironmentChanging which gets called first before the change is in effect and then RoleEnvironmentChanged which is called afterwards. So your code above where you query the value in RoleEnvironmentChanging won’t actually work – it will get the OLD value. You have to have the code in RoleEnvironmentChanging to suppress the role recycle, then have similar code in RoleEnvironmentChanged (which you also have to register) to read the new value and apply it.

Do you mind if I give you a shout-out for this help at the end of my MSDN article?

By: Steven Nagy

Steven Nagy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:11:50 +0000

Hi Mike,

Yes it looks like this is actually an issue with the DevFabric. Check the link at the bottom to Jim Nakashima’s post on changing config in the dev fabric – it states near the bottom the following:

“not terribly useful in the July CTP as the role instances restart when the service configuration file changes”

Hopefully they will fix this up in a later release of the tools. But please test it actually works in the Azure fabric, I’m pretty sure it will.

Steve

By: Mike Kelly

Mike Kelly — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:18:45 +0000

Thanks for this info – I tried this in my Worker role to allow for changes in debugging switches without recycling the role. When I do a
csrun /update:169;ServiceConfiguration.cscfg to simulate a change in the configuration in the cloud fabric (after I change an entry in the config file), I see the code correctly go through and set e.cancel to false, but I still see Azure tear down the role.
Here’s the log output; note that it shows role environment is changing but then it stops the role even though I’ve confirmed in the debugger I’m returning e.cancel = false.

Any ideas?

===================
[fabric] Role state Started
[runtime] Role environment is changing
[fabric] Role state Stopping
[fabric] Role state Stopped
[fabric] Role state Teardown
[fabric] Role state Destroyed
[fabric] Role state Created
[fabric] Role state Suspended
[fabric] Role state Busy
[fabric] Role state Started