Community report-Melbourne Azure UG May

Last month during the Windows Azure user group there were 2 main presentations.

The first one gave a quick 15minute overview of the latest news in the Windows Azure community

https://vimeo.com/44444090

The 2nd talk by Aidan Casey (@aidanjcasey) talked about how you can build Node.js apps on top of Windows Azure.

• He gives an introduction on what Node.Js is
• Reviews the tooling that is provided by Windows Azure
• Demonstrates how to build and deploy a simple chat application
• And finally explains in what situations Node.Js should be used

https://vimeo.com/44452495

By David Burela

My first book has been published Azure & Silverlight integration

It is with GREAT pride and pleasure that I am able to finally announce that my first book has been published and is available to be purchased right now!

Microsoft Silverlight 5 and Windows Azure Enterprise Integration details how enterprise Silverlight applications can be written to take advantage of the key features of Windows Azure to create scalable applications.

It is available as as eBook,  in print format and is available on the Kindle, Nook, etc.  It can be purchased from the following websites:

• Packt Publishing: http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-silverlight-5-enterprise-integration-on-windows-azure/book
• Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1849683123/
• Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1849683123
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/microsoft-silverlight-4-and-windows-azure-enterprise-integration-david-burela/1105647030
• Safari books: http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9781849683128

By David Burela

Video of my DDD Melbourne talk, New development workflow

On the weekend I talked at DDD Melbourne http://www.dddmelbourne.com/
It was a VERY VERY well organised community conference and I have a lot of respect for the organisers who made everything run smoothly.

The talk I put together was titled “New development workflow”. In it I decided to explore and demonstrate a new way you could build a website using newer tools & methodologies. Here is the blurb:

In the last few years there have been a number of new technologies released, which when used together can greatly simplify a developer’s life. For this session, I explore what kind of workflow we could create for the modern .Net developer. The session will show an end to end example of creating a new project: Modern ways of using source control, managing assemblies, testing, pushing to the cloud, etc.

The order of things demonstrated in the video are:

• Overview of the ‘current way’ people develop software
• Overview of how it could be done with newer tools
• What is DVCS
• How to use Mercurial with TortoiseHg
• Create a new ASP.Net MVC3 HTML5 semantic app
• The evolution of going from a coupled data service to using IoC/DI (Inversion of Control / Dependency Injection)
• What is NuGet
• Using NuGet to install Ninject to enable DI throughout the MVC3 framework
• Using NuGet to install nSubstite to create mocks to enable unit testing
• Hosting source code in http://BitBucket.org
• Hosting the application in http://AppHarbor.com
• Enabling continuous deployment to AppHarbor

http://www.vimeo.com/24536954

The slides for my talk can be found here DDDMelb – New development workflow slides

Here are the updated slides from the DDDSydney talk: DDD Sydney – New development workflow slides

By David Burela

New Windows Azure Training Kit & 1.4 SDK available

There is a new release of the Windows Azure training kit, and also an update (and subsequent refresh) of the Azure SDK available.

New training kit

The training kit in my opinion is always the best way to learn the newest features that are available in SDKs. This latest update brings a new hands on lab explaining how to authenticate users from a Windows Phone 7.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/04/28/now-available-windows-azure-platform-training-kit-april-update.aspx

 

Windows Azure SDK 1.4 released

A new version of the Azure SDK is now available. The biggest feature is a new way for developers to push out new development builds to an Azure server, without having to repackage and waiting for it to be spun up on new machines. The feature is called “web deploy” and details can be found in the update link below
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/04/15/now-available-windows-azure-sdk-1-4-refresh-with-webdeploy-integration.aspx

There was an issue with the 1.4 release which has been fixed. If you downloaded the SDK before April 25th you will be required to download the new version. If you are installing it for the first time then you are fine
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/04/27/windows-azure-sdk-1-4-refresh-issue-resolved.aspx

By David Burela

Azure training kit–January update is now available

The Azure training kit is one of the best ways to quickly bring yourself up to speed on Windows Azure. The latest update is now available for download http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/01/31/now-available-january-update-for-the-windows-azure-platform-training-kit.aspx
It is called the January update, but was released 31st Jan. Perhaps they should have just waited one more day and called it the February update

Most of the updates to the kit are around bug fixes and enhancements to installing snippets, but there is some new content being made available. The most interesting sounding one is a hands on lab for combining windows phone 7 and ‘the cloud’.

By David Burela

Azure free to trial for 30 days

If you currently have an MSDN account (paid for or a Bizspark account), then you should be taking advantage of the 750 free compute hours you get each month. Just look at your subscriber benefits.

However if you still haven’t been able to give Windows Azure a try, you are now able to get a 30 day free trial https://blogs.technet.com/b/webtech/archive/2010/11/24/it-s-back-30-days-windows-azure-platform-no-credit-card-required.aspx

By David Burela

Community report: Melbourne cloudcamp 2010 – OrionVM

The final lightning talk at the 2nd Melbourne Cloudcamp for 2010 was done by OrionVM and it was a very technical session. Here they discuss the actual technology that they used to create their cloud computing platform! OrionVM is Sydney based cloud computing provider, they have build their own infrastructure and technology from scratch, it is very interesting indeed.

The talk is great, they were asked 15 minutes before if they would like to do a lightning talk and quickly threw some slides together. Unfortunately they did their slides on a Linux machine with Open Office , so it didn’t want to play nice with Microsoft office, meaning they had to improvise.

http://www.vimeo.com/15912692

 

Here is my interview with them earlier in the year

http://www.vimeo.com/14902921

By David Burela

Community report: Melbourne cloudcamp 2010 – Microsoft

In this lightning talk, Graham Elliot (@grahamelliott) from Microsoft discusses ways you can cloudify your application.

It is a very useful guide on ways that different service models (IAAS, PAAS, SAAS) and how it will effect how you charge for you application. It is a must watch for any seriously considering creating an online application they plan to charge other people for.

http://www.vimeo.com/15911427

By David Burela

Windows Azure code samples collection

J.D. Meier has just posted a great article that lists all of the best Windows Azure code samples from MSDN, codeplex, etc.

They have been categorised into sections for easy reference. This is a great way to quickly skim over and see which topics you need to brush up on. Great work J.D!

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmeier/archive/2010/10/31/windows-azure-code-samples-collection.aspx

By David Burela

Community report: Melbourne cloudcamp 2010 – Quest software

Here is another lightning talk from the 2nd Melbourne cloudcamp for 2010. It was done by Guy Harrison (@GuyHarrison) from Quest software www.quest.com/toad

This is a repeat of his Sydney talk where he talked about how they are changing their SQL tool ‘Toad’ to work well with the new cloud databases and  how they enable doing cross database queries and migrations.

http://www.vimeo.com/15896858

By David Burela