13

Using MVC3 and I'd like to determine if I am running locally or deployed to the cloud?

David Makogon
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TonyG
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4 Answers4

24

RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable tells you if you're running in Windows Azure, but it doesn't differentiate between the real Windows Azure and the local development simulator.

I wrote a blog post that shows a trick to figure out whether you're running in real vs. simulated Windows Azure, when RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable == true - hopefully that provides what you're looking for.

EDIT: In case you want the down-n-dirty code I describe in the abovementioned post, without any explanation of why the technique works:

private bool IsRunningInDevFabric()

    {
        // easiest check: try translate deployment ID into guid
        Guid guidId;
        if (Guid.TryParse(RoleEnvironment.DeploymentId, out guidId))
            return false;   // valid guid? We're in Azure Fabric
        return true;        // can't parse into guid? We're in Dev Fabric
    }

EDIT 2: My answer is a bit outdated. There's now RoleEnvironment.IsEmulated, which is much more straightforward to use. MSDN documentation is here

David Makogon
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  • perhaps re word this to give more prominence to RoleEnvironment.IsEmulated over the old hack? – Simon Nov 12 '13 at 02:21
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    It should probably be noted that `IsAvailable` should still be examined, as `IsEmulated` will throw if the former is false (role environment not initialized). – Ohad Schneider Sep 17 '14 at 10:39
  • Is there a sample for c++ azure sdk as well, I dont really need to differentiate between local vs cloud but just AWS vs AZURE vs OnPrem deployments? – Anil Jun 22 '23 at 03:51
  • @Anil - please post a new question, with all relevant details (including your own attempts and issues). You're posting your comment to a question I answered 12 years ago, and this SDK call is specific to Web and Worker Roles (`RoleEnvironment`) - that doesn't apply anymore. – David Makogon Jun 22 '23 at 03:58
15

This is what I use

public static class Azure
{
    private static bool m_IsRunningAzure = GetIsRunningInAzure();

    private static bool GetIsRunningInAzure()
    {
        Guid guidId;
        if (RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable && Guid.TryParse(RoleEnvironment.DeploymentId, out guidId))
            return true;   
        return false;      
    }

    public static bool IsRunningInAzure()
    {
        return m_IsRunningAzure; 
    }

    private static bool m_IsRunningAzureOrDevFabric = GetIsRunningInAzureOrDevFabric();

    private static bool GetIsRunningInAzureOrDevFabric()
    {
        return RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable;
    }

    public static bool IsRunningInAzureOrDevFabric()
    {
        return m_IsRunningAzureOrDevFabric;
    }
}
skfd
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Craig
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2

You can do it the old-fashioned way, by looking for the existence of an Environment Variable.

Set the value of your environment variable in computer properties and read it using Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MyVariable").

On Azure, the variable won't be present, so the call will return null.

Steve Morgan
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2

There are a few suggestions here - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuredevelopment/thread/8fd96850-7a04-401b-89d5-ba153c1b4c51

  1. Environment variable
  2. deploymentID
  3. computer name
  4. Windows Azure Storage service endpoint

Looking at them, I think I'd be tempted to look at the AZURE_DRIVE_DEV_PATH environment variable - but there's no guarantee that this will work in future SDK versions.

Stuart
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  • I hadn't seen that msdn thread - thanks for posting that. Most valuable is the comparison of values returned when running in the dev environment vs. production. Option 4 is probably not very practical, since you can access either dev storage or real storage from the dev environment. I use Option 2, but as you noted about the disclaimer with future SDK versions for inspecting the environment variable, that also applies to inspecting deployment ID. – David Makogon May 29 '11 at 11:21