Sasha Goldshtein's talk about Node.js on Azure, including express, nstore, SQL Azure, MongoDB, Azure VMs, and more...

1. Node.js on Azure
Israel Windows Azure UG
Sasha Goldshtein
CTO, SELA Group
blog.sashag.net | @goldshtn

2. Agenda
• Introduction to Node.js
• Running Node.js on Azure
Azure Mongoose Ubuntu MySQL
WebMatrix PaaS Node.js MongoDB
Cloud9 Express Jade SQL Azure
nstore Web Sites IaaS

3. Why Am I Using a Mac?

4. The New Microsoft
• Open
• Flexible
• Competitive
You can run a Node.js web service on a Ubuntu (Linux) VM
on Windows Azure that uses Redis for caching, MongoDB
for sessions, and an SQL Azure database for most models.
Oh, and you can integrate it with a Windows 8 app.

5. What’s Node.js?
• JavaScript on the server on top of Google V8
• Hundreds of modules, vibrant ecosystem
– HTTP/HTTPS, TCP/UDP servers
– File system access, child processes
– DB bindings for just about anything
– MVC framework (Express)
– Everything is open source (mostly on Github)

6. What’s The Difference Between These
Two JavaScript Functions?
function f() { function g() {
return return {
{
ok: false ok: true
}; };
} }
Credit: Douglas Crockford, JavaScript Guru

7. Why Node.js?
• It’s The Hip Thing To Do™
• Makes adaptation easier for JavaScript front-
end developers
• Rapid development, POCs
• Easy to work concurrently without perils of
multithreading and parallelism
• Tiny footprint compared to most server-side
frameworks

8. I hate JavaScript. Why am I
From 0 to 100 this?!?!
doing in 60 Seconds
• Hello, World Node.js web server
var http = require(‘http’);
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, {‘Content-Type’: ‘text/plain’});
res.end(‘Hello, World!n’);
}).listen(8080);

9. Event-Driven Architecture
• Node uses a single event thread by default
• All I/O is asynchronous
node process
Event Queue
callback I/O Completions
Event callback
Thread
callback

10. Asynchronous Everywhere
• Almost no blocking APIs
– “Scaling Node.js for 100K concurrent requests”
– Suffers from nested async callbacks peril
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
var path = url.parse(request.url).pathname;
AllowedPath.find({ name: path }, function (e1, p) {
if (e1) ...
fs.readFile(p.full_path, function (e2, contents) {
if (e2) ...
res.end(contents);
});
});
});

11. What About Azure?
Web Sites
• Shared/reserved, free tier
• Your front-end on Azure
PaaS
• Cloud service
• Web role, Worker role
IaaS
• Bring your own VM
• Windows, multiple Linux flavors

12. Node.js, Meet Azure Web Sites
• Node.js Azure Web Site
– Put your main server code in app.js
– Deploy using Git or FTP
var port = process.env.port || 8080;
var http = require(‘http’);
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, {‘Content-Type’: ‘text/plain’});
res.end(‘Hello, World!n’);
}).listen(port);

13. Express Fundamentals
• Powerful middleware for Node
– Serves static files, renders views with templates,
parses POSTs, provides sessions and cookies,
supports authentication…
var app = express.createServer();
app.get(‘/hello’, function (req, res) {
res.sendfile(‘hello.htm’);
});
app.post(‘/echo’, function (req, res) {
res.end(‘You said: ‘ + req.body.message);
});

14. Data Store for POC Purposes
• The nstore module stores data in a flat file and
maintains an in-memory index
• Great for POC purposes
var messages = nstore.new(‘messages.db’, ...);
messages.save(msg.id, msg, function (err) ...);
messages.all(function (err, results) { ... });
messages.find({ user: ‘Sasha’ }, ...);

15. Node.js Deployment to Azure Web Sites
DEMO

16. Datastore Flexibility
• To minimize Azure Web Sites dependencies,
can use local files (nstore module)
• Even in an on-premise application, can use
Azure Table Storage
• On the VM, can use practically any DB
• With either, can use SQL Azure

17. Using Azure Table Storage
var azure = require(‘azure’);
var ts = azure.createTableService(account, key);
ts.createTableIfNotExists(‘messages’, ...);
var msg = {
PartitionKey: ‘partition’,
RowKey: uuid.v1(),
...
};
ts.insertEntity(‘messages’, msg, function(err) ...);

18. Use Table Storage from Node.js On-Premise Application
DEMO

19. Using SQL Azure
• Experimental node-sqlserver module;
requires SQL Server Native Client, Windows-
only, currently supports Node 0.6.x only
var sql = require(‘node-sqlserver’);
sql.query(conn_str, ‘SELECT * FROM Messages’,
function (err, results) {
if (!err) ...
}
);
sql.queryRaw(conn_str, ‘INSERT INTO Messages ...’);

20. Use SQL Azure from Node.js Azure Web Site
DEMO

21. Bonus: Windows Azure Mobile
Services
• Don’t bother writing HTTP requests from your
Windows 8 app
• Create a Windows Azure Mobile Service
var table = MobileService.GetTable<Message>();
var messages = table.Where(
m => m.User == ‚Sasha‛).ToList();
table.InsertAsync(new Message { ... });

22. Node.js, Meet Azure VM
• Azure VMs give you full flexibility – install
whatever you want
– Pick from Windows or multiple Linux distros
• We’ll use Mongoose (MongoDB ORM)
var db = mongoose.createConnection(...);
var Message = db.model(‘Message’, taskSchema);
Message.find(function (err, results) { ... });

23. Using Node.js with MongoDB from Ubuntu Server Azure VM
DEMO

24. WebMatrix vs. Cloud9
WebMatrix (Windows) Cloud9
• Free IDE for easy Web Site • Web-based IDE that
development, including supports deployment to
with Node.js Azure Websites
http://www.microsoft.com/we http://c9.io
b/webmatrix/

25. Using WebMatrix with Windows Azure Web Sites
DEMO

26. Summary
• Azure is open, flexible, and competitive
• Node.js is an awesome server framework
• “Better together”

27. Questions
http://s.sashag.net/RoIJLf
Sasha Goldshtein
CTO, SELA Group
blog.sashag.net | @goldshtn

28. Learn More
• Node.js download and documentation
• Node.js on Azure home (bunch of tutorials)
• Express
• Mongoose
• node-sqlserver