10 gigabytes for Silverlight applications for free!

As many people know, a significant event recently happened for Silverlight developers - the release of the third version of this RIA platform. Description of all the innovations Silverlight 3 takes several pages and will serve as material for many articles. But this article is not about that, but about the Microsoft Silverlight Streaming service , which offers you 10 gigabytes of free space for your silverlight applications!
The bottom line is that just a few minutes after creating the silverlight-application, you can use remote hosting to support it. You can embed links to it in your pages and projects without loading your servers with requests and traffic. A kind of CDN for silverlight applications. Fast, easy and free!

Start

At http://silverlight.live.com/ you are offered to register to gain access to a free hosting. If you have a Live Id , then registering will not require anything other than pressing a couple of buttons. You don’t even need to receive any confirmation letters. If there is no Live Id, you will have to get it, but it's worth it, because Live Id gives you access to dozens of useful services. After registration, you will see the next page. Here you will receive your public account identifier and private key, which should not be shown to anyone. After that, you can add new applications to your repository. To do this, go to Manage Applications . The application management page looks like this:



In order to download your silverlight application (xap file) click Upload an application . In the form that appears, enter the name of the project and click Create . Now you can download the xap file or application zip file complete with the manifest. Pay attention to the warning, if your application contains a video file, it should not be more than 105 megabytes and its bitrate should not be more than 1.4 megabytes. After you click Upload, a page appears asking you to configure manifest for the application. Click Create to create a manifest. In the form that appears, fill out all the required fields and click Update.
 


It's all! Nowhere is easier. Reading this article took you longer than creating your own repository and downloading your silverlight application onto a free CDN. On the page that appears after loading, you will be offered two options for implementing a link to the downloaded silverlight application in your projects. In addition, you can test the application on a special test page. To do this, click on the Launch Application Test Page . The service is extremely simple and convenient. You can manage your applications, update them. You can manage your video files. In addition, an SDK is available that offers an API for working with Silverlight Streaming.
 

Limitations

Of course, as with any service, there are limitations. According to the following text:

While the service is in beta, storage is free up to 10 GB and streaming is free up to 5 TB of aggregated bandwidth per user account per month. Videos should not exceed 10 minutes and have a maximum bit rate of 1.4 Mbps. As we move out of beta, unlimited streaming will also be available for free with advertising, or with payment of a nominal fee for use of the service without advertising.

service limitations are as follows: 10 gigabytes of free space for your applications, 5 terabytes of traffic per account per month. Video should not be longer than 10 minutes and have a maximum bitrate of 1.4 Mbps. After exiting the beta, the service will remain free with advertising or offer to pay a small amount for the lack of advertising.

Conclusion

Silverlight Streaming offers an excellent service for hosting silverlight applications with extensive features and minimal restrictions. While in beta stage hosting is free and does not contain ads. In the future, the service will be monetized, but the opportunities will remain exactly the same. In my opinion, a wonderful service that is definitely worth a try for everyone and everyone who creates silverlight applications.