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DataLab Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) v4 Wiki

Here you will find instructions on how to build and deploy the DataLab / OGDI Framework to your own Windows Azure instance.

Clone the Project

In order to get a copy of DataLab for yourself, clone the repository to your local machine using the following command:

git clone [email protected]:openlab/DataLab

You can also download it to a specific folder on your machine:

git clone [email protected]:openlab/DataLab C:\DataLab

Or, download the source code as a zip file

Prerequisites

There are a few things you'll need before getting underway with a version of DataLab of your very own.

Operating System and Applications (development environment)

• Windows 7 (Home Premium or Greater); or Windows Server 2008 (SP2 or Greater)
• Powershell 2.0
• Visual Studio 2010 (Express or Greater)
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
  • ASP.NET MVC
  • Windows Azure SDK
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (Express or Greater)

Windows Azure Services (production / deployment location)

OGDI DataLab requires Windows Azure services for both Compute Instance (hosted service) and Storage (Windows Azure Storage). For more info see the OGDI DataLab Services page

For more context on the Service Topology of the OGDI Framework refer to the OGDI Windows Azure Service Topology.

Third Party Assemblies

Some of the utilities used by OGDI must be downloaded and installed manually. This helps minimize the size of the framework and allows for bug fixes in the third party tools to be incorporated at the time of an OGDI deployment.

Adding Assemblies to a project could potentially cause a break in functionality. Only upgrade to a newer version of the component if the release notes state that there are to be no breaking changes.

• Newtonsoft.Json _{[version 3.5]}
• AjaxControlToolkit _{[version 3.0]}
• CSharpFormat _{[version 2.5]}
• CSSFriendly _{[version 1.0]}
• Fluent Ribbon Control Suite _{[version 1.3]}
• LumenWorks.Framework.IO _{[version 3.7]}

These components are installed separately and will require some instruction, consult the Installing Third Party Components (Manually) and the Installing Third Party Components (Automatically) pages for more information.

Deploying a Service to Windows Azure

In order to deploy the OGDI Framework to Windows Azure please complete the following:

Build DataLab

Building DataLab can be done using either MSBuild (which is included with .NET 4 Framework) or Visual Studio 2010.

Using MSBuild

Open a console window, run the following command:

%OGDI_ROOT% is the directory in which you have cloned the project to.

cd %OGDI_ROOT%
build.cmd 

Using Visual Studio

1. Building OGDI Data Service
2. Building OGDI Interactive SDK
3. Packaging OGDI Data Service
4. Packaging OGDI Interactive SDK

Update the Configuration Settings

Configuring DataLab is one of the most important step. [Note: Read more on Configuration Values]

The two main configuration values which need to be set are:

• DataConnectionString
• DiagnosticsConnectionString

These ConnectionStrings are used to connect to Windows Azure Storage. They consist of a protocol, a storage account name and a storage account key. To make things convenient there are replacement characters for the two values that need to be added.

• [StorageName] (Windows Azure Storage Account Name)
• [StorageKey] (Windows Azure Storage Account Key)

Deploy DataBrowser to Windows Azure

Once these steps have been completed following the instructions for How to Create a Hosted Service on the MSDN Website will provide you the appropriate steps for deploying an Application to Windows Azure.

For more context on the Service Topology of the OGDI Framework refer to the OGDI Windows Azure Service Topology.