Diagnosing problems when using the Table service
The Windows Azure Table Service is cloud based. In the Windows Azure SDK, Microsoft provides a storage emulator which runs in the development environment and can be used for local development and testing. This emulator uses Microsoft SQL Server Express rather than the Distributed File System used by the Table service. The storage emulator can also be configured to use Microsoft SQL Server.
There are some circumstances in which the storage emulator and the Table service behave differently. Consequently, when problems are identified while developing with the storage emulator, it is often useful to check whether the problem exists when using the Table service. This is particularly true when there is a problem with an edge-case use of tables.
The Windows Azure Storage Service REST API is the definitive way to interact with the Table service. The Windows Azure Storage Client library is a high-level .NET library that sits on top of the Storage Service...
