Using Cerebrata's Cloud Storage Studio To Download IIS logs from Multiple Instances of Windows Azure

December 18 2009

I've written before about the most excellent tool Cloud Storage Studio by Cerebrata. I use exclusively for uploading blobs to Windows Azure as well as downloading my IIS log files. I just hit an issue as far as IIS logs which (fortunately) easily resolved. By default, Cloud Storage Studio does not preseve path settings when downloading files. This presents a problem if you have multiple instances of your application on Windows Azure, because, when you go to download the log files, there will be duplicate log file names (aka "u_ex09121403.log") from your different instances.

The fix is easy. Go into options and see if the "Preserve directory path information in blob name when downloading files & directories" setting checked or not? You can check this setting either under "Configuration Settings --> Container/Blob Setting" or under "Download Window --> Download Settings" By default it is unchecked. If it is checked, then Cloud Storage Studio will preserve the folder hierarchy. You may need to restart the app after you set it as it didn't pick up my configuration changes after I set it. (They need to implement INotifyPropertyChanged!)

Comments (3) -

12/30/2009 10:47:54 PM #

Looks like they changed the default in the final release so you don't have to worry about it.

Karsten Januszewski

1/21/2010 4:38:57 PM #

My first look at your Cloud Storage Studio is very encouraging - all my proof of concept data show up as expected. This will make putting my real data model up on Azure so much easier. I was expecting to have to write my own utilities, but this is so much nicer than what I would have taken the time to do. I will let you know what I think of as I use it.

One thing that I have been wondering (but not put much thought into yet), is how to handle data migration when I want/need to do a schema change to a table. I expected to write a utility to pull all the data back from the Azure table, delete the table, create a new table with the new schema, and copy the date back up to the table (transforming it as needed to fit the new schema). I don't know if something like this is in your plans, but just thought I would mention it.

Storage king

11/6/2011 1:58:49 PM #