Does VSTO run on Windows Azure?

Question

I have a Web application which will be deployed to Windows Azure and I'm looking for alternatives to generate Excel spreadsheets.

Can I use VSTO to programatically generate an Excel spreadsheet in a Web Role running on Windows Azure?... If yes, how should I deploy the application to Windows Azure? What assemblies should I include?

Answer 1

Joni and Joe are correct. VSTO will not run on Azure.

I believe you're looking for the Open XML SDK. That lets you create Excel or other Office files from .NET without using Office automation.

Edit: Here's one option I have considered for those times when the Open XML SDK just doesn't have the functionality I can get from accessing an Office app's object model directly. Set up a machine outside of Azure that operates just as an Azure worker role would by processing messages from an Azure Queue. Since the app on that machine could be setup to execute tasks sequentially, you should be able to get away with things that wouldn't be advisable if you were trying to execute an Office app from a web role. This machine could be in your data center, or you could use an Azure VM so that you could install Office. If that VM was creating and/or reading Excel documents, then just use Azure Blob storage to store the documents.

If the machine running Office is outside of Azure, you will incur additional bandwidth costs for all the data coming in and out of Azure.

Answer 2

I tested this and apparently it won't work, VSTO requires Office to be installed.