Tag Archives: Azure

Windows Azure Training Kit (April 2013)

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Windows Azure Training Kit was recently released and is available for download here.

There have been a number of improvements in this release alongside the refresh to the Infrastructure Services content including:

  • New Presentations: Windows Azure Mobile Services and Android & Introduction to Windows Azure HDInsight Service
  • New Labs: Windows Azure Mobile Services for Android and Windows Phone
  • Updated ITPro Content + Agenda
  • Updated Presentations for new feature support Windows Azure Overview, Windows Azure Web Sites,  Windows Azure Virtual Machines & Windows Azure Mobile Services.
Windows Azure

Speaking @ Global Windows Azure Boot Camp

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I will be speaking at Global Windows Azure Boot camp tomorrow. This is going to be hosted by Singapore’s Azure UG (which is run by my good friends and ex-fellow MVPs Wely and Faizal).

Windows Azure (State Of The Union)

I will be opening the event by giving a “State of the union” on Windows Azure in which I intend to cover all-up status of Windows Azure. Some of the key things that I will cover include:

I don’t intend to (in the interest of time) cover HD Insight, Business Analytics, and Media Services etc.

Windows Azure Mobile Services

Apart from the key-note style opening session, I will also do a detailed session on Windows Azure Mobile Services. I will talk about the overall architecture and development paradigm for Mobile Services and will show you how easy it is to build mobile apps that can leverage on scalable backend. The talk is aptly titled, “When Mobiles Fall in Love with the Cloud”.

We plan to record the sessions for your VOD viewing pleasure and are scrambling for resources to set it up.

As usual I will share the action items (Go-Do’s) as well as pointers to slide decks and learning resources later on.

Developing Multi-tenant Applications for the Cloud, 3rd Edition (Free)

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Along with Moving Applications to the Cloud on Azure, Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices team has also published the 3rd edition of “Developing Multi-tenant Applications for the Cloud”.  This guide focuses on green field projects (whereas the Moving Applications to the Cloud covered brown field ones). Its a highly recommended read if you are planning to build a new multi-tenant app service on Windows Azure.

Developing Multi-tenant Applicatoins for the Cloud

Here is a quick summary from MSDN Patterns and Practices:

The cloud platform provides you with access to capacity on demand, fault tolerance, distributed computing, data centers located around the globe, and the capability to integrate with other platforms. Someone else is responsible for managing and maintaining the entire infrastructure, and you only pay for the resources that you use in each billing period. You can focus on using your core domain expertise to build and then deploy your application to the data center or data centers closest to the people who use it. You can then monitor your applications, and scale up or scale back as and when the capacity is required.

Yes, by locating your applications in the cloud you’re giving up some control and autonomy, but you’re also going to benefit from reduced costs, increased flexibility, and scalable computation and storage. This guide shows you how to do this.

This guide is the second volume in a series on Windows Azure. It demonstrates how you can create from scratch a multi-tenant, Software as a Service (SaaS) application to run in the cloud by using the latest versions of the Windows Azure tools and the latest features of the Windows Azure.

For more details visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff966499.aspx

Moving Applications to the Cloud on Azure – 3rd Edition (Free Download)

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We recently published the 3rd edition of “Moving Application to the Cloud “. Just like other Patterns and Practices books this books is also available for free download and the source code samples are available as well. I strongly recommend our customers and partners (and audiences :) ) to read this if they considering to move apps to Windows Azure.

Patterns and Practices

Quick summary taken from MSDN is:

 

How do you build and deploy applications to be scalable and have high availability? Along with developing the applications, you must also have an infrastructure that can support them. You may need to add servers or increase the capacities of existing ones, have redundant hardware, add logic to the application to handle distributed computing, and add logic for failovers. You have to do this even if an application is in high demand for only short periods of time.

The cloud offers a solution to this dilemma. The cloud is made up of interconnected servers located in various data centers. However, you see what appears to be a centralized location that someone else hosts and manages. By shifting the responsibility of maintaining an infrastructure to someone else, you’re free to concentrate on what matters most: the application.

This guide is the third edition of the first volume in a series about Windows Azure. It discusses the hosting options available in Windows Azure and demonstrates how you can adapt an existing, on-premises ASP.NET application to one that operates in the cloud. It introduces a fictitious company named Adatum that modifies its expense tracking and reimbursement system, aExpense, step-by-step so that it can be deployed to Windows Azure using a range of different hosting options.

The guide is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services that are appropriate for the cloud. It is primarily written for people who work with Windows-based systems. You should be familiar with the Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Studio, ASP.NET, SQL Server and Microsoft Visual C#.

You can download the free e-book here.

Sample Source code is available here.

41 HOLs and 35 Presentations on Windows Azure

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Windows Azure Training Kit has been updated and was released earlier today. This is one of the best resources out there for learning Windows Azure. This particular release delivers 41 HOLs (Hands On Labs), 35 Presentations including new content on Windows Azure SQL Database, SQL Federation, Reporting and Data Sync as well as Security and Identity.

On top of all the Azure learning goodness, this release also includes an agenda for Azure Dev Camps with 7 new branded presentations.

Enough with the blogging,  More details on the MSDN download page at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8396:

 

For direct download from any of your following favourite sources:-

 

Windows Azure Training Kit on GitHub In addition to downloading the training kit contents, you can also browse through the content, report any issues with the content, and make your own contributions on GitHub.   You can find the training kit content on GitHub at http://windowsazure-trainingkit.github.com

Windows Azure Training Kit – Full Package (WATK-August2012.exe) The full package enables you to download all of the hands-on labs and presentations to your local machine.  To use the full package, simply download and run the WATK-August2012.exe.  This file is a self-extracting executable that will extract all of the training kit files to the directory you specify.   After the content is extracted, the starting page for the training kit will be displayed in your default browser.  You can then browse through the individual hands-on labs, demos, and presentations. Download here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/7/C/A7CF725D-A215-4294-B0DC-2C01BDB01397/WATK-August2012.exe

Windows Azure Training Kit – Web Installer (WATK-WebInstaller.exe) The Web Installer allows you to select and download just the specific hands-on labs and presentations that you need.  The Web Installer is a much smaller download so it is recommended in situations where you cannot download the full package.  To use the Web Installer, simply download and run WATK-WebInstaller.exe.   The Web Installer will then display a list of the content in the training kit.   You can then select the hands-on labs and presentations to download.  After selecting the content proceed through the steps in the application to download the files to the directory that you specify.   Download it here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/7/C/A7CF725D-A215-4294-B0DC-2C01BDB01397/WATK-WebInstaller.exe
Enjoy!

Top Rated Speaker/Session at Singapore TechDays

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Guess what? My Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus was the top rated session at Singapore Tech Days. Clemens Vasters will be happy to know this, I am sure about it ;) .

Here is the link for the video, if you want to watch it.

How to Run Middleware in the Cloud? Story of Windows Azure AppFabric from SpiffyTV on Vimeo.

Windows Azure AppFabric–The Middleware for the Cloud– Slides + Code Demo

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Singapore TechDays was super awesome. From the keynotes to the breakouts, rooms were jam packed. Developers and IT Pros were super enthusiastic. We got good positive feedback from one and all. So all in all it was a great event. Now we have to top it up next time around.

I did a session on Windows Azure AppFabric where I talked about how we can use AppFabric as a platform for middleware services. Since I was running the Platform track, I had the honor to introduce myself :) . I think overall the talk went well, I had 4 code demoes to share and I covered Caching and Service Bus for the most  part. All the code in demoes was based on SDK samples that come with Windows Azure AppFabric v 1.5 and can be downloaded (along with the SDK) here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27421

Slides are available here.  https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=29B42AB82635B61D&resid=29B42AB82635B61D%216431

You can also view them via Slide Share:

Middleware in the cloud platform-v2

To learn more about AppFabric Service Bus please view the following sessions from Clemens Vasters.

I did some changes to the code (mostly configuration related) so that the demo does not prompt for namespace, issuer and token when connecting to the Azure AppFabric. Should you wish, you can download the code samples from here http://bit.ly/ohR1hO.

Speaking at Microsoft Singapore’s TechDays 2011

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If you are in Singapore and consider yourself a Developer or an IT Pro then this is the must attend event. We are covering number of topics from the Cloud Computing to the HTML5 and lots and lots in between. For a detailed agenda take a look here.

Amongst much more illustrious speakers you can find me here. If Cloud Computing is of interest to you and you want to know about some common messaging patterns for Middleware integration then I will definitely recommend you to attend my session.

How to Run Middleware in the Cloud? Story of Windows Azure AppFabric

Hammad Rajjoub, Architect Evangelist, Microsoft Singapore
IT Pro – Level 200

Don’t worry about the “IT-Pro” audience. This session is definitely aimed at Developers and Architects. Level will range between 200-300 depending on the folks we have in our conference room.

Also, i will be more than happy to discuss your integration scenarios offline as well.

Service Composition: Connecting On-Premise and Cloud Services

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I am invited to speak at IASA (International Association of Software Architecture) Singapore’s chapter evening on 10th of Feb 2011.
I will be talking about Service Composition using Windows Azure and Windows Server AppFabric, covering composition scenarios and capabilities on Microsoft platform using Windows Server AppFabric on-premise and Windows Azure AppFabric in the cloud.

I will be sharing the slides with you after the session.

For more details and back ground information on Windows Azure AppFabric and Windows Server AppFabric please visit:-

App fabric hybrid computing

Another presentation on Windows Server AppFabric

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I was invited to present Windows Server AppFabric at .Net Center Of Excellence (in Bank Of America) yesterday. The event was attended by 120+ developers and architects. I presented on Windows Server AppFabric where we talked about the architecture of Windows Server AppFabric and took a peek under the hood. Talked about how the hosting, management and caching works. Followed it with demoes on AppFabric Caching for Windows Server 2008.