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So a couple of weeks ago I posted this blog post on how to upload files to blob storage through Mobile Services. In it, I described how one could do a Base64 encoded string upload of the file, and then let the mobile service endpoint convert it and send it to blob storage.

The upsides to this is that the client doesn’t have to know anything about where the files are actually stored, and it doesn’t need to have blob storage specific code. Instead, it can go on happily knowing nothing about Azure except Mobile Services. It also means that you don’t have to distribute the access keys to your storage together with the application.

I did however mention that there was another way, using shared access signatures (SAS). Unfortunately, these have to be generated by some form of service that has knowledge of the storage keys. Something like a Azure compute instance. However, paying for a compute instance just to generate SASes (plural of SAS…?) seems unnecessary, which is why I opted to go with the other solution.

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Ok, so it is time for another Mobile Services post I believe. My previous posts about the subject has covered the basics as well as authentication when it comes to Mobile Service. But so far, I have only been doing the most simple tasks, such as added and read data from a SQL Database. However, I have mentioned that Mobile Services is supposed to be sort of a layer on top of more of Microsoft’s cloud offering like for example the Service Bus, storage etc. So in this post, I want to demo how you can utilize Mobile Services to upload files to blob storage.

There are probably a lot of different ways to do this, but 2 stood out for me. The one I am about to describe, using public containers, as well as using shared access signatures (SAS). So before going about it “my way”, I am going to explain SAS, and why I don’t like it even though it might be a “cleaner” way to do it.

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In my previous post about Mobile Services, I talked about how to get started with the service. I also promised that I would follow up with a post about how to authenticate the users, so that is what this post is going to be about.

You currently have 4 different options when it comes to authentication, Microsoft ID (previously Live ID), Facebook, Twitter and Google. They are all 3rd party services, and requires your users to have accounts with one of the providers. Luckily, most users already do. And the neat thing about using 3rd party authentication is that you don’t have to care about handling sensitive data such as usernames and passwords. And leaving that to someone else is making your life a lot less complicated. Not to mention that having Mobile Services handle all of the actual interaction with them makes your life ridiculously simple, as you will see.

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At the time of writing, Mobile Services is still in preview, so I believe that you have to “request” access to it. But as soon as you have, you get a new icon in your menu in the Azure management portal, which is all cool. But what is Windows Azure Mobile Services (Mobile Services from now on)?

Well, Mobile Services is basically a “layer” on top of Microsofts cloud offering. Initially, it is a great abstraction for SQL Databases, but the idea, as I have understood it at least, is that it will grow as the amount of Azure services expand, giving the users a simple API to work against. And in doing so, will make us as developers much more productive. But as I said, today, it is basically a very nifty layer on top of SQL Databases. However, that layer is really cool, simple to work with, and supports very rapid development.

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