Windows Azure Mobile Services has been updated with support for Android platform. Microsoft has also released Android Client SDK which is available on GitHub under Apache 2.0 license including the availability of mobile services to the East Asia region in order to reduce latency for applications with customers in Asia.
The recently released update provides an ability to create and manage SQL Reporting Services from within the Windows Azure Management Portal, which enables you to upload pre-created reports, view metrics over reports that you manage, manage permissions for users accessing reports, data sources and folders.
With the help of the updated management portal, you can integrate Active Directory which enables you to create and manage user accounts, sync users from an on-premise Active Directory, establish single sign with Azure using Active Directory Federation Services including the ability to make use of phone based two factor authentication.
"Remember to deploy your Mobile Service and Windows Azure SQL database to the same data center in order to minimize latency," says Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Server and Tools Business.
The latest update enables you to monitor the availability of your web applications that enables you to understand the response time using HTTP codes and availability of your web application from different locations around the world. However, this feature is only available for websites and mobile services in reserved mode, cloud services in production environment and for virtual machines.
Microsoft has also added significant enhancements to Service Bus such as more dashboard metrics for Queues, Topics and Subscriptions including additions to operation and error counts. Moreover, additional content has been added to the quick start page with the ability to download sample solutions that demonstrate the application development which makes use of Service Bus Queues, Topics and Relays.
The recent update enables you to download blob storage files directly from within the Windows Azure Management Portal. It also includes enhancements to Windows Azure Media Services that enables you to easily stream video on-demand directly from Azure without having to setup your own streaming server with the ability to monitor metrics from within the dashboard.
In addition to the above mentioned enhancements, Windows Azure Management Portal also provides an ability to upload public key of the certificate such as *.cer certificate file. Moreover, the portal includes support for five new languages such as Russian, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese Simplified and Traditional. Microsoft has also expanded the availability of Windows Azure Store to 22 more countries.
Brent Simmons, noted iOS expert and creator of NetNewsWire (now taken over by Black Pixel) has published a series of videos tutorials which examines the iOS application development with Windows Azure Mobile Services.
