cl-azure

Access Microsoft Windows Azure cloud services from Common Lisp.

Introduction

Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud hosting platform. This project is an incomplete, proof-of-concept implementation of a Common Lisp library for accessing the various features including:

Blobs, tables and queues; Access Control Service (ACS); Service Bus brokered messsaging; Media Services.

Instructions

Use Quicklisp to load cl-azure

> (ql:quickload "cl-azure")

You then need to specify your account details. One way to do this is to create a LISP file, say myaccount.lisp like this.

 (in-package #:cl-azure)

 (setf *storage-account* (list :account-name "YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME"
			:account-key "YOUR_ACCOUNT_KEY"
			:table-storage-url 
			"http://YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME.table.core.windows.net"
			:blob-storage-url 
			"http://YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME.blob.core.windows.net"
			:queue-storage-url 
			"http://YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME.queue.core.windows.net"))

From there you're ready to explore

 WA> (list-containers)
 ("$root" "azurerunme" "azurerunme-files" "certs" "drives" "dump" "old"
  "oldpackages" "packages" "printer" "public" "test" "wad-control-container")

 WA> (list-blobs "packages")
 ("AzureRunMe.cspkg" "AzureRunMe.cspkg.sun" "AzureRunMe.cspkg.xxxx"
 "AzureRunMe.cspkg.yyy" "PsTools.zip" "RobBlackwell.cscfg" "adplus.zip"
 "apache-tomcat-6.0.28-windows-x64.zip" "apache-tomcat-7.0.12-windows-x64.zip"
 "clisp-2.49.zip" "dictionarybk" "examples.zip" "jboss-as-web-7.0.0.Final.zip"
 "jdk1.6.0_21.zip" "jdk1.6.0_24.zip" "robblackwell.bat" "runme.zip"
 "telnetd.zip")

 WA> (list-queues)
 ("foo" "wibble" "worker-queue")

Management API

If you want to use the Windows Azure Management API, then you'll need a pfx certificate.

You'll need to convert it to PEM format like this:

   % openssl pkcs12 -in your.pfx -out your.pfx.pem

Then you can set it up like this:

 (setf *subscription-id* "YOUR_SUBSCRIPTION_ID")

 (setf *management-certificate* (list
			:certificate "/Users/foo/YOUR.pfx.pem"
			:key "/users/foo/YOUR.pfx.pem"
			:pass-phrase "YOUR_PASSWORD"))

Then you can use it like this:

 WA> (list-hosted-services)
 ("azurerunme" "catalina" "claptrap")	

Service Bus

Experimental support for Service Bus Brokered Messaging. N.B. It seems like the relay features are still proprietary and therefore .NET / WCF only.

 WA > (setf *servicebus-credentials* (make-servicebus-credentials "namespace" "owner" "key"))
 ...
 WA > (setf (getf *servicebus-credentials* :token) (get-token)) 
 ....
 WA> (servicebus-send-message "test" "hello world")
 T
 WA> (servicebus-read-and-delete-queue-message "test" )
 "hello world"

Media Services

Experimental support for Media Services.

CL-USER> (ql:quickload "cl-azure")
...
CL-USER> (setf cl-azure::*media-account* 
  		 (cl-azure:make-media-account "MY ACCOUNT"
			   "MY_KEY))
...
    CL-USER> (cl-azure:get-media-processors)
...
    CL-USER> (cl-azure:get-media-assets)
...
    CL-USER> (cl-azure:get-media-jobs)
...

Why?

This code was the result of some Christmas holiday hacking (2010/2011) inspired by the Land of Lisp book, the recent availability of Quicklisp and Zach Beane's open source code for Amazon Web Services.

I hope it demonstrates that Windows Azure is an open, cross platform cloud storage system that isn't tied to Windows or .NET.

It certainly shows that Common Lisp is still suitable for modern application development.

It's helped me to understand the Windows Azure API mechanisms, but more than that, it turns out to be a useful debugging and experimentation tool.

I always get a buzz out of standing up in front of a bunch of C# developers and demo'ing it ;-)

Any comments, feedback, constructive criticism or code contributions welcome!

Rob Blackwell

January 2012