An excellent release which somehow missed getting its due attention is the Windows azure Management Tool!!
This tool can be used to manage not only your configurations but also enable logging, analyse reports in excel, increase, decrease your role instances , Manage your certificates and monitor your storage including some simple Partition key based querying!!. And it also allows you to add to the functionality using MEF plugins!!
Here is a brief from its homepage!!..(Straight from the horses mouth:-))
Windows Azure Management Tool (MMC)
The Windows Azure Management Tool was created to manage your hosted services and storage accounts in Windows Azure. This tool provides a host of features:
| clip_image002 | Hosted Services | Upload, deploy, upgrade, and manage your hosted services in Windows Azure |
| clip_image004 | Diagnostics | Configure instrumentation for Windows Azure applications (diagnostics) per source (perf counters, file based, app logs, infrastructure logs, event logs). Transfer the diagnostic data on-demand or scheduled. View / Analyze / Export to Excel and Clear instrumentation results. |
| clip_image006 | Certificates | Upload / manage certificates for Windows Azure applications |
| clip_image008 | Storage Services | Configure Storage Services for Windows Azure applications |
| clip_image010 | Blob Storage | Add / Upload / Download / Remove BLOBs and Containers and connect to multiple storage accounts, including local dev storage |
| clip_image012 | Queues | Add / Purge / Delete Windows Azure Queues |
| clip_image014 | Tables | Query and delete Windows Azure Tables |
| clip_image016 | Extensibility | Create plugins for rich diagnostics data visualization (e.g. add your own visualizer for performance counters). Create plugins for table viewers and editors or add completely new modules! Plugin Engine uses MEF (extensibility framework) to easily add functionality. |
| clip_image018 | PowerShell-based backend | The backend is based on PowerShell cmdlets. If you don’t like our UI, you can still use the underlying cmdlets and script out anything we do |
Here are some screenshots of the app at work
We at Cennest definitely look forward to using this tool to keep track of our deployments!!
Cheers!!
Cennest