This library enables programmatic control of the Windows Azure Storage Emulator from .NET. This can be useful during integration testing, or anytime you need to work with the Windows Azure Storage Emulator from .NET code.

• .NET Framework 4.5
• Windows Azure Storage Emulator installed
  • It's been tested with Windows Azure Storage Emulator 4.1.0.0 locally by @kendaleiv and the build passes with Windows Azure Storage Emulator 3.3.0.0 on a build agent -- it may work with other versions, or, it may not.

Install the RimDev.Automation.StorageEmulator package from NuGet:

PM> Install-Package RimDev.Automation.StorageEmulator

To start the Windows Azure Storage Emulator:

new AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation().Start();

You can also do some other things, like:

var automation = new AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation();

automation.Start();

AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation.IsEmulatorRunning(); // should be true

automation.ClearAll();

// Or, clear only certain things:
automation.ClearBlobs();
automation.ClearTables();
automation.ClearQueues();

automation.Stop();

AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation.IsEmulatorRunning(); // should be false

AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation implements IDisposable. The Dispose method will only stop the Windows Azure Storage Emulator if it was started by the AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation instance. We're nice and don't close it if it was opened by a different instance (or, a user opening it manually on their machine).

An example IDispoable implementation might look like:

using (var automation = new AzureStorageEmulatorAutomation())
{
    automation.Start();

    // Work with the running Azure Storage Emulator here.
}

// Outside the scope of the using, if the Azure Storage Emulator was
// started by `automation.Start();` above, then it should be shut down.
// If it was already running, it should remain running.

In certain scenarios the Storage Emulator might not be initialized yet, for example running tests on a hosted build agent. In those cases, Start might time-out and you will encounter this error in your log:

No available SQL Instance was found.
One or more initialization actions have failed. Resolve these errors before attempting to run the storage emulator again.
Error: The storage emulator needs to be initialized. Please run the 'init' command.

In that case, make sure you call Init once before calling Start:

    automation.Init();
    automation.Start();

Thanks to Ritter IM for supporting OSS.