16.12. Table Storage

Azure table storage is the third Azure storage option; it allows you to store .NET objects (entities in Azure terminology) and access them in a manner compatible with WCF Data Services. Azure table storage also requires that your entities have three additional fields:

  • PartitionKey

  • RowKey

  • TimeStamp

PartionKey and RowKey are combined as a composite key to uniquely identify a row, so it is important the combination of the two must be unique (Figure 16-20). The PartitionKey can be used by Azure to divide data onto different servers for load-balancing purposes, while TimeStamp is used for conflict resolution.

Figure 16.20. Visualization of an Azure table

I think it's fair to say that table storage is probably not the most intuitive ...

Get Introducing .NET 4.0: with Visual Studio 2010 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.