#Azure Action – Weekly Newsletter– August 30th 2011

Local Overview :

Cloud computing in Australian organisations revealed at TechEd Australia

Intelledox announced an extension of its cloud-based solution set - with the integration of the Windows Azure platform and Intelledox document automation.Learn more here

Family HQ – Keeping families connected launches on Windows Azure

Australian Tech Ed attendees who sign up for the Expanz beta program during the event will receive a 30 free day #Azure Platform...

Readiness & Resources:

Windows Azure:

• Azure Photo Mosaics program
• Creating a Windows Azure hosted service
• Memcached in Windows Azure
• Autoscaling Windows Azure applications

Tips

• Handling Continuation Tokens in Windows Azure – Gotcha
• Enabling WCF Tracing in Windows Azure WCF Web Role
• Avoiding WCF Service Throttling by increasing maximum concurrent connection count in WCF service Configuration
• Debugging a Random Crash in Windows Azure with ADPlus.exe

Deployment options:

• Run Ruby on Rails on Microsoft Windows Azure
• NodeJS on Windows Azure
• Deploying Ruby (Java, Python, and Node.js) Applications to Windows Azure

SQL Azure:

• Federations Migration Wizard Now Available!
• A Quick Look at Cloud and SQL Azure
• Checking Your SQL Azure Server Connection
• Exploring SQL Azure

AppFabric:

• Windows Azure Service Bus & Connect: Compared and Contrasted

Watch:

• Old school comedy – VM limited

Case Study:

• General Mills created a direct-to-consumer retail channel that is hosted on the Windows Azure platform. By working with solution provider BrandJourney Venturing, the new General Mills business channel—called Gluten Freely —has resulted in rapid consumer adoption and enthusiasm. Watch the Video
• Ariett’s leading travel and expense management cloud solutions leverage Microsoft Windows Azur to offer customers scalability, security and global access.

Tools:

Migration

• DAC SQL Azure Import Export Service Client V 1.2

Monitoring

• SCOM 2012 Beta Windows Azure Application Monitoring Management Pack
• Quest: Introduction to Spotlight on Azure video

Third party

• Moving Red Gate Tools to SQL Azure

Other

• Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games 1.0 RTM

Guidance:

Walkthrough:

• Fetching Web Roles details using Windows Azure Management API
• Creating X.509 certificate from Windows Azure BLOB
• How to Mirror Server Folders to Windows Azure

Architecture:

• Implementing Support and Monitoring For a Business-Critical Application Migrated to Windows Azure (overview)

Book:

• Windows Azure Free Ebook and Free Online Course 

In the news:

General:

• Cloud Provider Global Performance Ranking – July

• Cloud Wars: Windows Azure vs. Amazon AWS, an IaaS perspective in
• The Cloud and The Consumer: The Impact on Bandwidth and Broadband

Microsoft:

• Microsoft Tech.Ed 2011 proudly kicks off Australia's biggest annual geekfest
• WHY is it… that Microsoft is "evil" and Apple is "lovely"
• ImagineCup.com Sydney 2012 Registrations open
• Microsoft signs 'legal covenant' with Chinese Linux vendor
• Your cloud was never secure
• Microsoft Puts Stake in the Ground Versus Cloud Competitors
• Microsoft Public Cloud: A comparative look at Functionality, Benefits, and Economics
• Microsoft: cloud computing government demands "API democracy"

Windows Azure:

• Simplified Data Transfer Billing Meters and Swappable Compute Instances for Windows Azure
• Socially-enabled BI platform Necto from Panorma systems now interoperable with the Windows Azure

Events:

Local:

•  Sydney Azure User Group First Meeting - 8th September. Register  here
• BizSpark Azure Startup Camp – Sydney 9-11th of September
• Windows Azure Circle Architect Readiness (6-8th September, Sydney)

TechEd Australia sessions to watch:

• ARC-COS-MID208 | Architecting real-world Azure applications
• COS201 | Application Lifecycle Management for Windows Azure projects
• COS202 | Cloud Bursting using HPC and Azure for on Demand Analytics (Recommend)
• COS203 | Developing with SQL Azure: Tools & Frameworks In Action
• COS204 | Migrating your applications to Azure
• COS211 | To The Cloud! A lap around the entire Windows Azure platform.
• COS212 | Go Large with SQL Azure Federations (New)
• COS309 | A Windows Azure Acid Test!
• COS-MID305 | Connecting Cloud and On-Premises Applications
• COS-MID306 | Introduction to Windows Azure AppFabric Composite Applications (New)
• COS-WPH208 | Connecting Phone Applications to the Cloud
• DEV-COS315 | The Essential Windows Azure Developers Toolkit
• VOC-COS206 | Real World Windows Azure from GreenButton

Webinar:

• Webinar: Lap Around: Windows Azure and Kentico 6.0

Community:

Social:

• o Become a Facebook fan
• o Add yourself to the Azure Australia Twitter list
• o Keep up to date with our monthly CloudCast
• o Mailing list for OzAzure

Questions

Q:

Does Windows Azure allow you to deploy your Windows Services as part of your application or cloud-hosted service?

from Four 4 tips for developing Windows Services more efficiently

A:

Short Answer: Windows Azure is more than happy to run your Windows Services! While a more native approach is to use a Worker Role, a Windows Service can surely be deployed as well, and there are some very good use cases to recommend them.

More Detailed Answer: One good use case for deploying a Windows Service: you have legacy services and want to use the same binary on-premises and on-Azure. Maybe you are doing something fancy with Azure VM Roles. These are valid examples. In general – for something only targeting Azure – a Worker Role will be easier to build and debug. If you are trying to share code across a legacy Windows Service and a shiny new Windows Azure Worker Role, consider following the following good software engineering practice (something you may want to do anyway): factor out the “business logic” into its own class(es) and invoke it with just a few lines of code from either host (or a console app, a Web Service, a unit test (ahem), etc.).