What is the best way to provide Azure Table data to a Silverlight 5 client?
We are building an application that will initially target Silverlight 5 but will eventually need to provide data to several clients including asp.net, Android devices, Windows 8, etc. The examples we are seeing mainly use WCF RIA with an EF data model. We are using VS2012 and .Net 4.5. I am assuming oData via a WCF service is the way to go but the examples I am seeing are old and assume a SQL backend with an EF model. Could someone point me to some online material that will help? Thanks!
As your requirement if to server multiple clients of different type your best option is to use WCF service running in a web role which can talk to your Azure Table Storage using OData and serve any client request. This way you would not need to to worry about Table Storage security and any client can connect to WCF service will be work either, Andrid, SL, Win8 etc. So in my understanding you do have correct choice and on right direction.
If you just want to test WCF Service reading Azure Table storage using oData, I found a good old sample which I migrated to .net 4.0 and Azure SDK 1.7 in few minutes and get it working so you sure can give a try as POC. The sample code is located here.
Next if you decide to use WCF based webrole connecting to Azure Table Storage using oData, you currently have .net 4.0 supported Windows Azure SDK only. As you want to use .net 4.5 this is not currently a supported runtime for Windows Azure and there is no immediate info on Windows Azure SDK support with .net 4.5. You may need to wait a little to get .net 4.5 fully supported with a Web Role.
If you cant wait, just use a Windows Azure Virtual Machine (still in preview) and have your WCF/oData/.net4.5 based application running on it.