Are you developing Silverlight apps that would like to talk directly to Windows Azure APIs? That is perfectly legal, using the REST API. But if you want to use the handy-dandy Windows Azure Managed Libraries – such as Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.dll to talk to Windows Azure Storage – then that’s not available in Silverlight.

As you may know, Silverlight assembly format is a bit different than straight-up .NET, and attempting to use Add Reference from a Silverlight project to a plain-old-.NET assembly just won’t work. Instead, you’ll see something like this:

If you pick a class from the StorageClient assembly – let’s say, CloudBlobClient – and check the documentation, it will tell you where this class is supported:

Okay – so maybe it doesn’t exactly – the Target Platforms list is empty – presumably an error of omission. But going by the Development Platforms list, you wouldn’t expect it to work in Silverlight.

There’s Always REST

As mentioned, you are always free to directly do battle with the Azure REST APIs for Storage or Management. This is a workable approach. Or, even better, expose the operations of interest as Azure services – abstracting them as higher level activities. You have heard of SOA, haven’t you? 🙂