Abstract: An idempotent and asynchronous application programming interface (API) that can not rely on a reliable network is used by a cloud manager to receive and process requests. The cloud manager system is a central coordination service that receives requests using the API to perform update operations and get operations relating to the online service. For example, the API includes methods for deploying machines, updating machines, removing machines, performing configuration changes on servers, Virtual Machines (VMs), as well as performing other tasks relating to the management of the online service. Receiving and processing a same API call multiple times results in a same result.

Abstract: A machine manager controls the deployment and management of machines (physical and virtual) for an online service. Multi-tier server groups are arranged in farms that each may include different configurations. For example, their may be content farms, federated services farms and SQL farms that are arranged to perform operations for the online service. When the multiple farms are upgraded, new farms are deployed and the associated content databases from the old farms are moved to the newly deployed farms. During the upgrade of the farms, requests may continue to be processed by the farms. The farms may be automatically load balanced during an upgrade. As content becomes available on the new farm, requests for the content may be automatically redirected to the new farm.

Abstract: An online service includes managed databases that include one or more tenants (e.g. customers, users). A multi-tenant database may be split between two or more databases while the database being split continues processing requests. For example, web servers continue to request operations on the database while content is being moved. After moving the content, tenant traffic is automatically redirected to the database that contains the tenant's content.

Abstract: In an implementation of data association, a data item has a data item property with an associated value and a user interface element has an element property with a value that can be defined by an association to the data item property. A binding definition associates the element property of the user interface element with the data item property such that an application program which generates a user interface for display can be developed independent of the data item, and such that the data item can be developed independent of display-related information corresponding to the user interface element.