Windows Azure: CTP Participant Reminder
All Windows Azure Community Technology Preview (CTP) accounts in the twenty-one launch countries are set to expire on January 31st, 2010. If you have not yet converted your CTP account to a paid subscription, your CTP applications and storage accounts will be disabled after January 31st, 2010. To convert your account to a paid subscription, please follow the upgrade process described here. Please contact Microsoft Online Customer Support if you require further assistance.
CloudCamp 2010 Seattle
This year, CloudCamp Seattle is on a week night. It starts at 6pm this Wednesday (February 3rd) - downtown at the Grand Hyatt (thank you to the Open Group for providing space. There will again be pizza and beer, starting right at 6pm, then the Lightning Talks, Unpanel and Open Space discussions like last year. There is limited space, so please be sure to register soon. There will be a repeated event later on this February.
Interesting Mission-Critical Applications Survey Results
Microsoft has just collected the results from a “Mission Critical Applications” study, which was conducted by IDC, of corporate IT departments to assess current practices towards mission critical applications. The survey gathered data from over 900 enterprise customers across the United States, France, UK and Germany.
This survey data demonstrates the leadership of the Microsoft platform across several product categories, and provides strong evidence that customers today are betting their businesses on the Microsoft platform and developer tools. You can find a quick summary of the survey methodology and key findings below:
· Windows Server has #1 server OS share (52.7%) for deployed mission-critical applications
· Windows Server and .NET are the #1 (54.1%) deployed application server
· .NET usage exceeds Java across all sizes of enterprises
· Windows Server is the #1 OS used (46%) by deployed mission critical Java applications
· SharePoint leads (over IBM WebSphere) as the #1 portal used by enterprises’ primary mission-critical application
· SQL Server leads (over Oracle) as the #1 database used by enterprises’ primary mission-critical application
· BizTalk Server leads (over Oracle) as the #1 process integration technology used by enterprises’ primary mission-critical application
Microsoft leads as the #1 (58.6%) vendor for service oriented architectures
(Did you hear we are providing Cloud Computing too??!!)
Just Published: Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance
The Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance consists of compact “cheat sheets” for Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 and Visual Studio (VS) 2010, addressing the core problem of teams in the field who are unaware of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server capabilities or have little time to invest in detailed education. The artifacts include an overview document and poster that allows you to quickly focus on individual areas like testing, by providing crisp and compact guidance sheets and quick reference posters. You can take these to your 5-min coffee break discussions or use them as a stepping stone to the more detailed and in-depth guidance you will find on MSDN.
Where feasible, we elaborate on features using quick reference posters and whitepapers, or refer to more detailed documentation and guidance on MSDN or other sources. I really enjoyed being part of the Visual Studio Rangers team who generated this content!
Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit
This week, we released a new Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. This is a downloadable version of our training content used in Metro Training Workshops and includes 17 presentations, 21 Demos and 26 Hands-on Labs. The January preview adds content for Office, SharePoint and Application Lifecycle Management!
The content in this training kit has been tested with Beta 2 and is ready for you to use.
This VM includes everything you need to learn the ALM capabilities of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (with the exception of Lab Management – the product team is hard at work on a solution for configuring Lab Management in a VM). This VM is available in the virtualization platform of your choice (Hyper-V, Virtual PC 2007 SP1, and Windows [7] Virtual PC). Hyper-V is highly recommended because of the performance benefits and snapshot capabilities.
The lab also works with 7 hands-on-labs that are included in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit.
Download:
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (Hyper-V)
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (Windows [7] Virtual PC)
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (Virtual PC 2007 SP1)
All passwords are: P2ssw0rd
Have fun and Enjoy!
Thanks to RemyP, for pointing out some great posts on how to get started using Windows Azure to host videos, and using Silverlight with Windows Live Writer to post videos to your blogs.
http://blogs.msdn.com/david_sayed/archive/2010/01/07/hosting-videos-on-windows-azure.aspx
Although this is not true smooth streaming at the moment, you can use blob storage CDN functionality and have a great experience with your videos around the globe. I originally had to host my own MVC ASP.NET applications to embed content, and LiveWriter gives me some cool flexibility to post to other places.
Enjoy!
You may have downloaded the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit, and if not, you should check it out.
The kit installs a bunch of material and then opens your web browser to a nice UI interface where you can start learning all about the platform:
One of the first things you may notice when you go to check out one of the many labs, is that the kit seems to require Visual Studio 2008 as a dependency. Now your mileage may vary here, as I have Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 installed, and still would like to partake of the goodies.
So, when you go to run the setupLab.cmd file from the Visual Studio Command Prompt, the wizard will run it’s dependency checker and you will get a screen like this:
EEK. Well, I know I have Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (I have 168 days left..) and well, I certainly have the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio installed to boot.
Luckily, the setupLab.cmd file simply calls some tasks via PowerShell, and the DPE guys were kind enough to leave us an "out”.
(Thanks Ryan, David and all the rest of you Microsoft DPE folks!)
In the lab files .\Source\Setup folder, you will find next to your setupLab.cmd file a dependency.xml file, so you simply need to crack that puppy open, and change the optional=”false” to “true” for both the CheckVS2008.ps1 and CheckAzureTools.ps1 tasks, as highlighted below:
Now I can re-run the setupLab.cmd file, and the wizard will show optional, and allow me to continue the install.
Now, your particular mileage may vary here, but it seems to work for me, and now I can get on to checking out some of the new AppFabric and Identity labs.
Have fun!
Here are some recently released resources now available for individuals who enjoy Windows Azure as much as I do:
New Windows Azure Platform Book:
Learn to build flawless cloud services using the four components of the Azure Services Platform. Best practices and techniques for using Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services are supported by a thorough overview of architectural concepts to ensure you make use of the platform to its full potential. Written by Tejaswi Redkar, whom is a both a colleague of mine and a subject matter expert for our enterprise customers adopting Windows Azure.
Windows Azure Platform by Tejaswi Redkar | Apress | ISBN-13: 978-1-4302-2479-2 | 624pp. | $44.99 | eBook available
January 2010 MSDN Magazine Articles:
Cloud Patterns: Designing and Deploying Services for Windows Azure by Thomas Erl; Arman Kurtagic; Herbjörn Wilhelmsen To better understand how SOA patterns can be applied to Windows Azure deployments, the authors walk you through a scenario in which a bank moves its services to the cloud.
Cloud Storage: Fueling Your Application's Engine with Windows Azure Storage by Kevin Hoffman and Nathan Dudek Yes, you can run background processes in the cloud. In this article, the authors use a shopping cart example to demonstrate how to build an application engine as well as implement asynchronous messaging and processing using Azure Storage. Cloud Security: Crypto Services and Data Security in Windows Azure by Jonathan Wiggs Many early adopters cloud platforms have questions about security. The article reviews some of the cryptography services and providers in Windows Azure along with some security implications for applications in the cloud.
Launch of Cerebrata’s Cloud Storage Studio:
After 6 months of beta-testing, and over 10 iterations, Gaurav Mantri announced the commercial launch of Cloud Storage Studio, a cool WPF-based client that assists in managing Windows Azure Hosted and Storage Services. You can download a free 30-day trial version and find out details by visiting their website, at http://www.cerebrata.com/Products/CloudStorageStudio/Default.aspx The application will automatically switch to “Developer” edition after 30 days, and you will only be able to manage development storage. You can purchase a “Professional” edition license for the introductory price of only $49.99 (USD) per desktop, and Cerebrata is also offering volume discounts.
JetBrains ReSharper 5.0 Beta:
While improving its traditional analysis functionality, ReSharper is at the same time targeting a wider audience, thanks to its new, comprehensive approach to web development, and providing new features that are useful at solution/project level (in addition to class level) to benefit not just individual developers but whole teams.
Compared to previous versions, ReSharper 5.0 has evolved in four major directions:
foreach
for
Other enhancements include extended IntelliSense, bookmarking, native NUnit support, and more.
You can download ReSharper 5.0 Beta right now.