Using Windows Azure Connect

Windows Azure Connect provides a way to create a secure, IPSEC protected virtual network that connects computers inside an organization with role instances in a Windows Azure hosted service. An obvious use for Windows Azure Connect is to allow a hosted service to access a Microsoft SQL Server database resident behind a corporate firewall. This allows a service to benefit from the elasticity of a hosted service for the frontend while keeping data tightly controlled in a corporate datacenter.

Windows Azure Connect is a pluggable module that, like Windows Azure diagnostics, must be imported into a role by adding an Import element as a child to the Imports element of the service definition file, ServiceDefinition.csdef. For example:

<Imports>
   <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" />
   <Import moduleName="Connect" />
</Imports>

There are a number of Windows Azure Connect configuration settings in the service configuration file, ServiceConfiguration...