Windows Service to Azure?

Question

I've written a Windows Service in C# that does a whole bunch of background admin tasks on the database. Now my customer wants to migrate the whole shebang to Azure. I know next to nothing about Azure, and my customer says you can't run a Windows Service on Azure. I've googled for this topic and come out with a few very specific case studies of what somebody did to move their Windows Service to Azure, assuming a fairly high level of understanding of how Azure works, but no general articles about whether or not Windows Services can run under Azure, or what to do to adapt them.

I would really like to see a clear answer and explanation to the first question (can you run a Windows Service under Azure?), and if the answer is no, I'd love to find a step-by-step guide for converting a Windows Service to something Azure-compatible.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes you can do that - for a simple walkthrough see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mwasham/archive/2011/03/30/migrating-a-windows-service-to-windows-azure.aspx

Other links with relevant information:

• Getting a Service to Run Inside of an Azure Worker Role
• http://www.codeproject.com/KB/azure/WCFWorkerRole.aspx

Answer 2

You can run whatever you want, including a Windows Service.

I think you'd be happier converting to a WorkerRole, though, which should be very straightforward.