Did you know that data stored in Windows Azure Table storage can be accessed through an OData feed? Does that question even make sense to you? If you answered no to either of those questions and you are interested in learning more, then read on. In this post I'll show you how to use the OData SDK for PHP to retrieve, insert, update, and delete data stored in Windows Azure Table storage.

He shows how to create a class that matches the table structure (complete with hints in the comments) and is used along with the service account/key information to create a table, insert an entity, remove them, updating an entity, deleting it and, finally, deleting the table.

I did write a post a few weeks ago that described how to enable anonymous access to SQL Azure OData feeds (Consuming SQL Azure Data with the OData SDK for PHP), but I had a few things to learn about AppFabric access control before I felt comfortable writing about authenticated access to these feeds.

He starts from the Azure side, creating a sample OData feed and adding permissions to only allow access to a specific (database) user for the feed. You'll use a set of data to connect to the feed - a username, a secret key, an issuer name and the OData endpoint address. Then, using the OData SDK he shows how to generate the needed classes with the automatic tool and use them to connect to the endpoint and retrieve data from the feed. He also includes a little snippet for those that might not want to use the SDK - an example using curl to connect and authorize the session.

The SQL Azure OData Service incubation (currently in SQL Azure Labs) provides an OData interface to SQL Azure databases that is hosted by Microsoft. Another way to think about this is that SQL Azure OData Service provides a REST interface to your SQL Azure data.

He shows you how to create the SQL Azure Server, make a SQL Azure database and creating the SQL Azure OData service. Then, with that all set up, you can use this other tutorial to connect your script to this new service.

Microsoft has some catching up to do in terms of standards compatibility, but they are also doing some good things with this browser. They are bringing some much needed web-standards compatibility, in addition to some JavaScript performance enhancements.

Handy new features include better HTML5 support, CSS3 support, XHTML parsing, Javascript compilation and an overall trend towards a more standards-based approach that Microsoft hasn't worried about in a good while now. He also mentions the OData toolkit that lets your web applications speak the same "language" according to Microsoft's more unified specification.

This week I will go one step farther and look at how to perform CREATE, UPDATE, and DELETE operations (CRUD operations) with the generated classes. Of course, this means that I need access to a read-write service, so before writing PHP code for CRUD operations, I'll walk you through the steps for creating a service that implements the OData protocol.

He shows how to create the oData service (with a few screenshots), making the proxy classes for the connection and using methods like "AddObject", "UpdateObject" and "DeleteObject" to work directly with the data feed.

I'll start with an over simplification: OData is a protocol for creating data services that make it possible to retrieve and edit data using HTTP. More specifically, OData enables you to define a data model that lets clients address data as resources by using URIs. Data is retrieved and updated by using the HTTP actions of GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and MERGE.

He shows how to use the OData SDK for PHP to connect to a data source, build out some pre-generated classes and pull down the information from the Northwind service based on a customer ID.