To Debug a COBOL Microsoft Azure Service Locally

  1. Run Visual Studio as administrator.
  2. Open the solution for your COBOL application.
  3. Optionally, add some trace messages to your source code such as the following:
    invoke type Trace::WriteLine("Working", "Information")
  4. Ensure the application can locate your data, by configuring the connection strings for the storage service.

    For example, in the AzureBookDemo sample, DataConnectionString is set to UseDevelopmentStorage=true

  5. Build the solution and start debugging. To do this in one step, click Debug > Start Debugging.
  6. Display the storage emulator UI. To do this, right-click the Microsoft Azure Emulator icon in the Windows taskbar or notification area, and click Show Storage Emulator UI.
  7. In the storage emulator, monitor your application while it is running and start and stop it as necessary. You can see your trace messages in the compute emulator and verify the application's basic functionality.
  8. Display the storage emulator UI, in a similar way to displaying the storage emulator UI. In the storage UI, you can monitor your Microsoft Azure storage, and you can display the cloud drive in Windows explorer.