I have a WPF desktop application which currently outputs diagnostic logs using NLog to a local file system. I would like to have the option of putting those logs on the Azure cloud in some kind of logical storage system.
Can someone point me to to resources for this? I found this link, but not quite sure if this is the way to go, using a BLOB storage container. Is there a big cost associated with this? The logs will be pretty sparse. i cannot see more than a few KB per day per workstation in terms of log storage. This is just text information, such as errors, key events, etc.
I found this link, but need to make sure it is applicable to what I'm trying to do:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/storage/blobs/storage-quickstart-blobs-dotnet
Thanks
Mike
Blob storage is really cheap if you are not using much. You are probably looking at pennies a day.
For the instrumentation consider using Application Insights.
See this SO answer: Application Insights for WPF Application
Related
I am working on a project that I intend to host using Firebase. It will have a database incorporated in it which will have pictures and mp3 files as entries.
I have a couple of questions regarding this project:
Will there be any concerns I should look into in terms of the security?
Would storing mp3 files in the database pose an issue?
Edit:
Thank you for replying. I will look into Storage for storing my mp3 files. As for the first question, I will be uploading pictures and audios and was concerned if those will be secure or like hacked and misused. Would I need to get a SSL certificate to prevent that?
To be honest, one should not upload pictures that has some value or could be worth if stolen ss a default Firebase database has no security, it's the development team's responsibility to correctly secure the database prior to it storing real data.
In Google Firebase, this is done by requiring authentication and implementing rule-based authorization for each database table. The configuration and security controls for any sensitive data also need to be checked using vulnerability scanners and pen test tools to verify that they have been implemented effectively. Clearly, there are plenty of projects that fail to implement these critical stages before releasing their applications.
Coming on the mp3 part, so yes it could be uploaded but firebase gives us a daily limit of free data usage that is 1GiB/day also there are other few things which firebase gives in the free tier.
So if after each loading of your website, if the mp3 in total consumes the 1GiB limit then the mp3 video will not work for the rest of the day, until unless the day gets over and the second day's quota gets started.
At last
Yes you should look into terms of security.
After the limit is reached, it will pose an issue.
I want certain data from a iot endpoint or desktop implementation of app to be seen on mobile version of an app and visa versa. All endpoints should be able to access and change data as they see fit.
What are the ways that you can make data available to all endpoints? For instance I have a list of tasks that i make on the application on my desktop. Then I leave my house turn off my desktop and pull up the mobile version of the application. I want to see that same list. What are the ways to do this? I have considered a cloud hosted database but it kinda seems like overkill to have a database to store maybe 10kb of data as well as the cost associated with using their service.
Things I have considered but discarded because they dont fit-
google drive with a shareable googlesheet
The issue is that it is read only. Also speed and functionality is limited.
database running on desktop that syncs to mobile app.
The issue is that mobile app needs to be running at same time as desktop. also any changes the mobile makes to the data will not be saved to database if desktop version is not on.
Is there a way to do this without having a personal server running all the time to serve out data? Is there any database hosting that is free? Or is there something more lightweight than a database that would allow me to access and modify the data from any endpoint that has internet?
Depends on many factors so a little hard to give you the "This is clearly the best option" answer.
Easiest? Probably kick up a hosted database in a Cloud provider. I'm partial to Firebase/Firestore (Google) for mobile. They're extremely low latency, so any changes are reflected pretty much instantly, and they have an awesome SDK that makes it really easy to get up and running quickly. It's equally as easy on mobile and desktop. It does require a Google Cloud Platform account to use it, but the free tiers are super generous, so unless you're doing a ton of updating, it's probably free to host it (and you get $300 free credits for the first year of GCP).
https://firebase.google.com/
I have an AppEngine application that currently has about 15GB of data, and it seems to me that it is impractical to use the current AppEngine bulk loader tools to back up datasets of this size. Therefore, I am starting to investigate other ways of backing up, and would be interested in hearing about practical solutions that people may have used for backing up their AppEngine Data.
As an aside, I am starting to think that the Google Cloud Storage might be a good choice. I am curious to know if anyone has experience using the Google Cloud Storage as a backup for their AppEngine data, and what their experience has been, and if there are any pointers or things that I should be aware of before going down this path.
No matter which solution I end up with, I would like a backup solution to meet the following requirements:
1) Reasonably fast to backup, and reasonably fast to restore (ie. if a serious error/data deletion/malicious attack hits my website, I don't want to have to bring it down for multiple days while restoring the database - by fast I mean hours, as opposed to days).
2) A separate location and account from my AppEngine data - ie. I don't want someone with admin access to my AppEngine data to necessarily have write/delete access to the backup data location - for example if my AppEngine account is compromised by a hacker, or if a disgruntled employee were to decide to delete all my data, I would like to have backups that are separate from the AppEngine administrator accounts.
To summarize, given that getting the data out of the cloud seems slow/painful, what I would like is a cloud-based backup solution that emulates the role that tape backups would have served in the past - if I were to have a backup tape, nobody else could modify the contents of that tape - but since I can't get a tape, can I store a secure copy of my data somewhere, that only I have access to?
Kind Regards
Alexander
There are a few options here, though none are (currently) quite what you're looking for.
With the latest release of version 1.5.5 of the SDK, we now support interfacing with Google Storage directly - you can see how, here. With this you can write data to Google Storage, but to the best of my knowledge there's no way to write a file that the app will then be unable to delete.
To actually gather the data, you could use the App Engine mapreduce API. It has built in support for writing to the App Engine blobstore; writing to Google Storage would require you to implement your own output writer, currently.
Another option, as WoLpH suggests, is to use the Datastore Admin tool to back up data to another app. With a little extra effort you could modify the remote_api stub to prohibit deletes to the target (backup) app.
One thing you should definitely do regardless is to enable two-factor authentication for your Google account; this makes it a lot harder for anyone to get control of your account, even if they discover your password.
The bulkloader is probably one of the fastest way to backup/restore your data.
The problem with the AppEngine is that you have to do everything through views. So you have the restrictions that views have... the result is that a fast backup/restore still has to use the same API's as the rest of your app. So the bulkloader (possibly with a few modifications) is definately your best option here.
Perhaps though... (haven't tried it yet), you can use the new Datastore Admin to copy the data to another app. One which only you control. That way you can copy it back from the other app when needed.
I'm working on a Silverlight app that would allow a user to upload a few gigs of files to a hypothetical cloud based file store, then allow the user to view some data about those files later (more functionality than a file store). Ideally I'd like to use a free, per-user store such as SkyDrive but I can't seem to find an API for that service (and read elsewhere on stack overflow that programmatic access violates their TOS). Do any services fit this bill? I've heard of Amazon S3 but I understand that'll cost some money - is anything free?
EDIT: Could Mesh be an option?
What is LiveMesh Object and its connection with Silverlight 3.0
You could look at using Azure as it offers a blob and table storage cloud infrastrucutre and will happily run silverlight applications in an azure web role. Currently there is no cost but this will change once it RTW's.
More info at http://www.azure.com/
AFAIK, nothing in this world is free when you're dealing with gigabytes of storage, plus the bandwith to put them in the cloud.
Amazon S3 is quite reasonable on its pricing.
I'm hoping you can help.
I'm looking for a zero config multi-user datbase that my winforms application can easily upload to a webserver folder (together with 1 or 2 classic asp pages) and am looking for some suggestions/recommendations.
The idea is that the database will be used to collect feedback entered by people filling in the asp pages. The pages will write to the database using javascript.
The database will subsequently be downloaded again for processing once the responses are in.
In Summary:
It will mostly run in MS Windows environments.
I have a modest budget for this and do not mind paying for such a database.
No runtime licensing costs.
Should be xcopy - Once uploaded to a website folder it should be operational.
It should not have a dotnet CLR dependency.
It should support a resonable level of concurrent access. Average respondent count would be around 20-30 but one never knows.
Should be a reasonable size so that uploads/downloads to and from the site will be reasonably fast.
Would appreciate your suggestions/comments
Many thanks
Abz
To clarify - this is a desktop commercial application for feedback management in a vertical market. It uses SQL Server as the backing store.
The application currently provides feedback management from email and paper feedback. I now want to add web feedback capability. Getting users to to make their SQL servers accessible to a website is not at option at this time as I am want to make getting up and running as painless as possible.
I intend to release a web based implementation of the software in the near future but for now am looking at the above as a pragmatic way to provide web based feedback collection.
SQLite comes to mind. It meets all of your stated requirements, is open source, and has a liberal license (public domain).
http://sqlite.org/
I would use 'normal' database (say MySql, Postgresql, Firebird, etc.) on server. Instead of copying files to server your winforms application would create custom tables (or even custom databases). After collecting data you could just get it back to your application using plain old SQL.
why reinvent the wheel ? If you want to collect feedback and stuffs from users of your app and if they are connected to internet, it might be a better idea - and in the long term cheaper - to use a service like wufoo. We recently switched from homegrown setup to wufoo and are very pleased. Check it out.
Otherwise you might want to take a look at sqlite orfirebird. Both of them are very robust, and have ADO.NET providers. Firebird scales from a single user to full blown client server system and has no .NET dependency.
If you really don't want a DB/SQL Solution, you could try simple text files and ftp/xcopy files down and parse them into the back-office server as needed. ASP/VBScript or ASP.NET can create the files to store the basic feedback comments. Need to consider security of course!