Forms Authentication Provider for Azure MVC2 app?

Question

Ideally, I'd like to use Azure table storage as the provider, but SQL Azure will also work. Anything I've dug up so far is over a year old, using deprecated approaches. I.e., outdated code samples, SDKs and IDEs.

As the title states, this would be applied to an MVC2 app running in Azure. Examples, code, links, etc. do not necessarily have to be for MVC. Anything related to a .Net 4.0 web app using Forms Authentication on Azure will do.

Answer 1

I would not use ATS Forms authentication, because of transaction cost associated, if your site is going to have alot of authentication requests (even token authorization requires check against ATS)

I would use Forms Authentication against SQL Azure with standard SqlMembershipProvider

It works just fine. I've manually migrated necessary aspnet tables & stored procs over to SQL Azure from a local SQL server instance without problems. Just update the aspnet_schemaversions table to have this content:

common          1   1
membership      1   1
personalization 1   1
profile         1   1
role manager    1   1

Answer 2

Unfortunately, unless you role your own provider, the only sample I have seen is the outdated one you mentioned. For user authentication (RoleProvider), it is not too bad (i.e. no bugs I have heard about). However, for Session state, it has some issues. I don't think it does any sort of encryption however, so the passwords might be in plaintext. Worst case scenario, you could at least use it as starting point for your own.

A quick look around and I can't even find the 'Additional Samples' anymore. They might have been lost when Code Gallery did an update awhile back. I know it is still used in http://phluffyfotos.codeplex.com, so you could pull it from the source there at least.

Answer 3

Microsoft originally released a set of sample providers with the PDC08 SDK - but these definitely are not recommended for commercial use.

Recently this project has produced some new ones - http://azureproviders.codeplex.com/ - I'd recommend going with that one as it is "live code" - you might also be able to contribute something back to it.

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If you do use these providers, please be aware that Azure charges per transaction - at a base rate of $0.01 per 10000 transactions - and that the logic within these providers can cause "quite a few" transactions to occur. So if your site is busy and has a lot of membership activity, then it could work out quite expensive to operate.

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If you are using SQL Azure membership, then the membership SQL is standard - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2006191 - the only differences in the ASP SQL scripts is in the Session storage (since Session uses SQL Agent to clear sessions - and SQL agent is not supported on SQL Azure)

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Personally, I've use the Table storage for test/demo sites - but for anything "real" I've moved towards SQL Azure - it's easier to query, to run reports, to backup, etc