We just pushed out a small May update (0.5.4) to the Azure SDK for Node.js, with which we now deploy:

• node.js 0.6.17
• iisnode 0.1.19

Here are the important changes and additions in this release:

• The updated node.js version addresses the recently announced node.js security vulnerability. The vulnerability affects all server-side deployments using versions prior to 0.6.17. If you have deployed a node.js application on Azure using our tooling, you are probably using a version of node.js that is vulerable. Please redeploy your application using the updated tooling to ensure your deployment is secure.
• This is not completely new, but a few weeks ago we also released a refresh (0.5.3) of the npm package for Azure, adding support for accessing the Azure role service runtime. That enables you to: get role configuration settings, work with local role resources (including local storage), get information about the current role instance, as well as other role instances in your application. We have a nice example of this functionality posted here. 
• iisnode 0.1.19 brings improved configuration support using YAML files. For a lot of scenarios, you may now be able to configure your app by deploying an iisnode.yml file, instead of messy XML inside your Web.config.

~~~ yaml

The optional iisnode.yml file provides overrides of

the iisnode configuration settings specified in web.config.

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Thanks to everyone who attended my talk, here are the slides, as promised.

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Here is the video of my talk on node.js in Azure and links to some of the resources I reference:

• One-stop shop to get started with node.js on Azure
• node.js libraries for Azure services on GitHub
• node.js deployment tooling for Azure on GitHub
• The sample I showed

Here are my slides:

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I’ll be speaking on Node.js at tomorrow’s Microsoft patterns & practices Symposium 2012, and you still have time to register. It’s free and it will be streamed live on Channel 9, so you can watch it regardless of where you are. My talk is at 13:30 tomorrow (04/23/12), see you there!

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In more conference-related news, I’ll be speaking on Future Insights Live’s newly announced Cloud Track! Registration is still open… see you in Las Vegas!

Writing Node.js apps for Windows Azure
Friday, May 4th: 2:05pm – 2:55pm

Server-side JavaScript? On Windows Azure? Has hell frozen over? Learn about how Azure is quickly turning into an open cloud platform that supports a variety of runtimes: .NET, Java, PHP, and even Node.js! In this session, we will show how to build exciting realtime apps in JavaScript, and how to run them in the cloud. We will take advantage of features such as storage, caches, and queues to make our app scale without a hitch. We will also share the team’s plans for future Windows Azure improvements and give you a chance to voice your opinion.

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Visual Studio 11 Beta went out a few days ago, and with it we have a refreshed RIA Services SP2 version that supports all VS 11 goodness:

• Universal Providers
• Support for the new Metro UI
• Miscellaneous small changes to adapt to changes in project system, msbuild, and the designer.

However, there are some kinks that you should be aware of… it is a Beta after all:

• If you try to use the Data Binding picker from the Properties pane to bind a property (for example the text in a TextBlock) to a property on a Domain Data Source, you’ll see it is not available. We are looking at addressing this issue.
   
• Universal Providers have a known issue where Windows Authentication and Role Providers don’t work as you might expect. If you switch your web app containing your Domain Service to Windows auth, be sure to make the change shown below. Having to do this is a limitation that will go away after Beta.

~~~ xml

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