Microsoft 70-486: Design and implement the Azure role life cycle

Exam Objectives

Identify and implement Start, Run, and Stop events; identify startup tasks (IIS configuration [app pool], registry configuration, third-party tools)

Quick Overview of Training Materials

Exam Ref 70-486: Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications - Objective 1.3
MSDN - Channel 9 Cloud Services Tutorial
MSDN - Channel 9 Windows Azure Jump Start (03): Windows Azure Lifecycle, Part 1, Part 2

MSDN - Use AppCmd.exe to Configure IIS at Startup
MSDN - Windows Azure Start-up Tasks Part 1, Part 2
MSDN - Run Startup Tasks in Azure, Best Practices
MSDN - RoleEntryPoint Methods
MSDN - The Right Way to Handle Azure OnStop Events
MSDN - Azure Cloud Service Tutorial

Microsoft 70-486: Design a distributed application

Exam Objectives

Design a hybrid application (on-premises versus off-premises, including Azure), plan for session management in a distributed environment, plan web farms, **integrate web services

Quick Overview of Training Materials

Exam Ref 70-486: Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications - Objective 1.2
Programming ASP.NET MVC 4 (OReilly) - Chapters 7 (Web API), 2 (State mgmt)
How to add Web API to existing MVC 4 project
MSDN - WCF Services and ASP.NET

Web API Study: The Benefits of APIs in the App Economy
Web API Design : Crafting Interfaces that Developers Love 
MSDN - .NET On-Premises/Cloud Hybrid Application Using Service Bus Relay

MSDN - Getting Started with the Azure Tools for Visual Studio

MSDN - ASP.NET State Management Overview

MSDN - ASP.NET Session State Overview, Session-State Modes
MSDN - Technet - About Server Farms, Server Affinity Page
Make an ASP.NET MVC application Web Farm Ready
Out-of-Process Caching in ASP.NET

MSDN - Azure Cache

MSDN - Differences between On-Premises AppFabric 1.1 Caching and Azure Managed Cache Service

Comparing ASP.NET MVC tutorials: OdeToFood, Nerddinner, and MVC Music Store

I worked through three ASP.NET MVC tutorials: NerdDinner, OdeToFood, and MVC Music Store.  All had their pro's and con's, and I definitely learned much from them.  The pluralsight tutorial OdeToFood was, far and away, the best put together tutorial of the bunch, and if you had to pick one, that would be the one to do.  NerdDinner wasn't bad but is showing it's age as it was developed using MVC2 (though I thought I saw something about updates...). The MVC Music Store tutorial also had a lot of interesting stuff but I would have to consider it the weakest of these three tutorials.