The Windows Azure Mobile Services (WAMoS) Preview’s initial release enables application developers targeting Windows 8 to automate the following programming tasks:

1. Creating a Windows Azure SQL Database (WASDB) instance and table to persist data entered in a Windows 8 Modern (formerly Metro) UI application’s form
2. Connecting the table to the generated data entry front end app
3. Authenticating application users
4. Pushing notifications to users

This walkthrough explains how to obtain a Windows Azure 90-day free trial, create a C#/XAML WASDB instance for a todo application, add a table to persist todo items, and generate and use a sample oakleaf-todo Windows 8 front-end application. During the preview period, you can publish up to six free Windows Mobile applications.

Prerequisites: You must perform this walkthrough under Windows 8 RTM with Visual Studio 2012 Express or higher. Downloading and installing the Mobile Services SDK Preview from GitHub also is required.

Note: The WAMoS abbreviation for Mobile Services distinguishes them from Windows Azure Media Services (WAMeS).

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1. Navigate to http://www.windowsazure.com:

 

2. Log in with your Windows Live or Office 365 ID and sign up for a 90-day free trial if you don’t have an account:

If you already have an account, skip to step 7.

3. Click next to open the Verify Your Account form: area code

4. Replace the default with the numbers (no special characters) of your mobile phone area code and number, click the Send Text Message button and type the verification code from the text message you receive in the text box:

6. Click Next and complete the credit card form:

Note: Your credit card won’t be charged for usage in excess of free quotas unless you explicitly authorize usage charges in the Billing Portal.

7. Open the Management Portal’s Account tab and click the Preview Features button:

8. Click the Mobil Services’ Try It Now button to open the Add Preview Feature form, accept the default or select a subscription, and click the submit button to request admission to the preview:

9. Follow the instructions contained in the e-mail sent to your Live ID e-mail account, which will enable the Mobile Services item in the Management Portal’s navigation pane:

Note: My rogerj@sbcglobal.net Live ID is used for this example because that account doesn’t have WAMoS enabled. The remainder of this walkthrough uses the subscription(s) associated with my roger_jennings@compuserve.com account.

10. Click the Create a New App button to open the Create a Mobile Service form, type a DNS prefix for the ToDo back end in the URL text box (oakleaf-todo for this example), select Create a new SQL Database in the Database list, accept the default East US region.

Note: Only Microsoft’s East US data center supported WAMoS when this walkthrough was published.

11. Click the next button to open the Specify Database Settings form, accept the default Name and Server settings, and type a database user name and complex password:

Note: You don’t need to configure advanced database settings, such as database size, for most Mobile Services.

12. Click the Submit to create the Mobil Service’s database and enable the Mobile Services item in the Management Portal’s navigation pane. Ready status usually will appear in about 30 seconds:

13. If you click the Mobile Service’s URL, https://oakleaf-todo.azure-mobile.net/ for this example, the following page opens:

Clicking the Tell Me More button opens the WAMoS landing page. 

14. Click the name (oakleaf-todo) button to open the Create Application page:

15. Click the Create a New Windows 8 Application button to open the Get Started page. Click the Create Todoitem Table button to create a table to persist todo items:

16. Accept the default C#, click download, open and extract the oakleaf-todo.zip file for a Windows 8 XAML front-end application generated from a WAMoS template to an appropriate location:

17. Open the oakleaf-todo.sln file in Visual Studio 2012 Express or higher, expand Solution Explorer’s node, and open MainPage.xaml.cs to display the namespaces used:

18. Press F5 to compile and run the front-end program. Type a few TodoItems in the text box, clicking the Save button to add each to the Query and Update Data list:

Note: Click the Refresh button to display active list members when reopening the page. The XAML code for the Query and Update Data description has been modified to add a newline between sentences.

19. Mark the check box of completed TodoItems to delete them from the table.

20. When the Developer License form opens:

Click the I agree button to obtain a 30-day license and display this form:

You will use the Visual Studio project you created here as the foundation for the two later walkthroughs.