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Using Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC with Azure CosmosDB

Microsoft's Azure CosmosDB is a fully managed service, providing a NoSQL database for application development.

This tutorial shows how to add Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC to an application configured for Azure CosmosDB and use the Grid to perform remote CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Destroy) data operations. Refer to this Microsoft tutorial for a step-by-step guide on creating an Azure CosmosDB account, a CosmosDB table, and an application consuming it.

Prerequisites

Before you start using the Grid with CosmosDB, you will need:

Configuring the Application

To set-up an application that uses Azure CosmosDB, follow Microsoft's step-by-step tutorial. Alternatively, you can directly clone the source code from the tutorial available on the Azure Samples repository on GitHub.

Once you have an application prepared to use Azure CosmosDB and a Cosmos DB table as demonstrated in the tutorial, add the URI and account key to the appsettings.json of the application.

{
  "Logging": {
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Warning"
    }
  },
  "AllowedHosts": "*",
  "CosmosDb": {
    "Account": "<Endpoint URI of your Azure Cosmos account>",
    "Key": "<PRIMARY KEY of your Azure Cosmos account>",
    "DatabaseName": "Tasks",
    "ContainerName": "Item"
  }
}

Refer to this section of the MSDN documentation for more information on where to find the URI and account key.

For clarity, this tutorial demonstrates how to store the endpoint URI and account Key in the appsettings.json. For production applications hosted on Azure, it is strongly recommended to store sensitive data in Azure Key Vault.

Adding Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC to the Application

Follow the guidelines for adding Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC to an existing application:

  1. Set up the Private NuGet feed
  2. Add reference to Kendo.Mvc.dll
  3. Add the client-side resources

Adding a Grid and Configuring the CRUD Endpoints

  1. Add the Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC Grid to the View.

        @{
            Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
        }
        @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
    
        @(Html.Kendo().Grid<todo.Models.Item>()
            .Name("grid")
            .Columns(columns =>
            {
                columns.Bound(p => p.Name).Width(100);
                columns.Bound(p => p.Description).Width(100);
                columns.Bound(p => p.Completed).Width(100);
                columns.Command(command => { command.Edit(); command.Destroy(); }).Width(172);
            })
            .ToolBar(toolbar => toolbar.Create())
            .Editable(editable => editable.Mode(GridEditMode.InLine))
            .Pageable()
            .Sortable()
            .Scrollable()
            .HtmlAttributes(new { style = "height:430px;" })
            .DataSource(dataSource => dataSource
                .Ajax()
                .PageSize(20)
                .Events(events => events.Error("error_handler"))
                .Model(model => {
                    model.Id(p => p.Id);
                    model.Field(f=>f.Id).Editable(false);
                })
                .Create(update => update.Action("Create", "Item").Data("forgeryToken"))
                .Read(read => read.Action("Read", "Item").Data("forgeryToken"))
                .Update(update => update.Action("Update", "Item").Data("forgeryToken"))
                .Destroy(update => update.Action("Destroy", "Item").Data("forgeryToken"))
            ) 
        )
    
        <script type="text/javascript">
            function error_handler(e) {
                if (e.errors) {
                    var message = "Errors:\n";
                    $.each(e.errors, function (key, value) {
                        if ('errors' in value) {
                            $.each(value.errors, function() {
                                message += this + "\n";
                            });
                        }
                    });
                    alert(message);
                }
            }
    
            function forgeryToken() {
                return kendo.antiForgeryTokens();
            }
        </script>
    
  2. Use the already defined service and create the server-side CRUD endpoints to consume it.

        public class ItemController : Controller
        {
            private readonly ICosmosDbService _cosmosDbService;
            public ItemController(ICosmosDbService cosmosDbService)
            {
                _cosmosDbService = cosmosDbService;
            }
    
            [ActionName("Index")]
            public ActionResult Index()
            {
                return View();
            }
    
            public async Task<ActionResult> Read([DataSourceRequest] DataSourceRequest request)
            {
                var data = await _cosmosDbService.GetItemsAsync("SELECT * FROM c");
                return Json(data.ToDataSourceResult(request));
            }
    
            [AcceptVerbs("Post")]
            [ActionName("Create")]
            [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
            public async Task<ActionResult> CreateAsync([DataSourceRequest] DataSourceRequest request, Item model)
            {
                if (model != null && ModelState.IsValid)
                {
                    model.Id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
                    await _cosmosDbService.AddItemAsync(model);
                }
    
                return Json(new[] { model }.ToDataSourceResult(request, ModelState));
            }
    
            [AcceptVerbs("Post")]
            [ActionName("Update")]
            [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
            public async Task<ActionResult> UpdateAsync([DataSourceRequest] DataSourceRequest request, Item model)
            {
                if (model != null && ModelState.IsValid)
                {
                    await _cosmosDbService.UpdateItemAsync(model.Id, model);
                }
    
                return Json(new[] { model }.ToDataSourceResult(request, ModelState));
            }
    
            [AcceptVerbs("Post")]
            [ActionName("Destroy")]
            [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
            public async Task<ActionResult> DestroyAsync([DataSourceRequest] DataSourceRequest request, Item model)
            {
                if (model != null)
                {
                    await _cosmosDbService.DeleteItemAsync(model.Id);
                }
    
                return Json(new[] { model }.ToDataSourceResult(request, ModelState));
            }
        }
    
        public class CosmosDbService : ICosmosDbService
        {
            private Container _container;
    
            public CosmosDbService(
                CosmosClient dbClient,
                string databaseName,
                string containerName)
            {
                this._container = dbClient.GetContainer(databaseName, containerName);
            }
    
            public async Task AddItemAsync(Item item)
            {
                await this._container.CreateItemAsync<Item>(item, new PartitionKey(item.Id));
            }
    
            public async Task DeleteItemAsync(string id)
            {
                await this._container.DeleteItemAsync<Item>(id, new PartitionKey(id));
            }
    
            public async Task<Item> GetItemAsync(string id)
            {
                try
                {
                    ItemResponse<Item> response = await this._container.ReadItemAsync<Item>(id, new PartitionKey(id));
                    return response.Resource;
                }
                catch(CosmosException ex) when (ex.StatusCode == System.Net.HttpStatusCode.NotFound)
                { 
                    return null;
                }
    
            }
    
            public async Task<IEnumerable<Item>> GetItemsAsync(string queryString)
            {
                var query = this._container.GetItemQueryIterator<Item>(new QueryDefinition(queryString));
                List<Item> results = new List<Item>();
                while (query.HasMoreResults)
                {
                    var response = await query.ReadNextAsync();
    
                    results.AddRange(response.ToList());
                }
    
                return results;
            }
    
            public async Task UpdateItemAsync(string id, Item item)
            {
                await this._container.UpsertItemAsync<Item>(item, new PartitionKey(id));
            }
        }
    

See Also

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