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“Big Data” is undeniably one of the more prevalent buzzwords of the last year or two, and given the scalability inherent to the cloud, it’s a natural fit for Windows Azure. Microsoft's specific foray into this burgeoning technology is the HDInsight service (previously known as Hadoop on Azure). With...

One of the many values of the cloud is the ability to leverage services that on-premises would require non-trivial hardware and software configurations and to be able to tap into those services in a just-in-time and pay-as-you-go manner. SQL Reporting Service is just such a capability, offering a feature...

The latest episode of Practical Azure covers the topic of networking in Windows Azure : a means to connect disparate cloud services you’ve deployed as well as to join on-premises assets with the cloud services you’re hosting in Windows Azure in one big happy, virtual network! Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod...

It was incredibly hard to distill a feature as powerful and versatile as the Windows Azure Service Bus into a 10 minute-ish segment, but I gave it a shot. Hopefully this latest episode of the Practical Azure series on MSDN DevRadio provides a few usage scenarios that will resonate in your own projects...

Over the past few months, I’ve been working with a lot of student and professional developers enabling them to take advantage of promotions for building applications for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, such as the ongoing Keep the Cash .  If your head’s a bit more in the cloud – like the Windows Azure...

For the clouderati, today was a banner day for Microsoft with the Windows Azure team announcing the general availability of its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering. Azure Virtual Machines and virtual networking capabilities have actually been around for a while, and many have been leveraging...

The latest segment of my MSDN DevRadio series, tackles the topic of identity in the cloud and how to leverage Windows Azure Active Directory to federate on-premises user credentials or host your own in the cloud. Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod, Zune HD) High Quality MP4 (iPad, PC) Mid Quality MP4 (WP7, HTML5...

Ever since Microsoft announced Windows Azure Traffic Manager , for me the term conjures up an image of the dancing traffic cop in Providence, Rhode Island.  While Traffic Manager may not have Tony’s visual impact, there are certainly some similarities in the roles: keep the traffic, whether it be...

We looked at Windows Azure Virtual Machines in the last episode from the perspective of creating a VM from a base operating system image, installing software (the Mongoose HTTP server ) and configuring some settings, such as the firewall to enable HTTP traffic. In this follow-on episode , I take that...

Three seems to be a popular number in Windows Azure – three data center regions, three types of storage, three replicas of your storage maintained at all times, and three ways to deploy an application. In past episodes of MSDN DevRadio , I covered Web and Worker roles (the Platform-as-a-Service model...

Although Windows Azure Queues are part of the Windows Azure Storage trifecta (along with Blobs and Tables ), they play their primary role as a means of scaling processing in the cloud, by enabling Web Roles and Worker Roles to operate in a decoupled, asynchronous fashion. It’s a key pattern for building...

“I feel the need. The need for speed" sums ups the role of caching in distributed applications. When your application involves database lookups or service calls, every millisecond of latency adds up, particularly for high demand, “internet scale” solutions. Do you really need to execute a database...

Web Roles and Worker Roles, they’re the yin and yang of high performing Windows Azure applications. I covered Windows Azure Web Roles in the last session of Practical Azure , and now it’s time to dive into its workhorse sibling: Worker Roles . Whereas Web Roles are the public face of your application...

One of the awesome things about Windows Azure is choice. When you deploy an application to the Microsoft cloud you can leverage one of three models, Virtual Machines (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), Cloud Services (Platform-as-a-Service) and Web Sites . For the next several episodes of Practical Azure...

Kick off that New Year’s Resolution to learn something new with the Points to Learn Sweepstakes ! Over the next eight days, I’ll be giving away nearly $2000 worth of Microsoft Points , and all you have to do is sign up for Generation App , a free, 30-day, self-paced learning program that could end with...

Cabaret not withstanding, it’s data that makes the world go ‘round, and one of the incredibly awesome capabilities you have when using SQL Server and SQL Database in Windows Azure, is the ability to move rather seamlessly between on-premises assets and the cloud. In previous episodes, I covered the concepts...

The cloud is all about scale, and when it comes to Windows Azure SQL Database you can have your ‘relational cake’ and eat it too. SQL Database Federations , an implementation of the sharding pattern, is the way to go not only for large data requirements, but also for building multi-tenant applications...

It’s the return of Roshambo in the Cloud! The Rock, Paper, Azure team is back with the latest version of the on-line competition and a six-week sweepstakes where you could win one of five $50 Gift Cards weekly and even a Microsoft Surface at the end of the six-week run! How’s it work? The Rock, Paper...

This, the latest installment of DevRadio Practical Azure , should have something everyone can – ahem – relate to… Join me for an overview of Windows Azure SQL Database (“the feature formerly known as SQL Azure”) to find out how it’s both the same and different from the SQL Server you know and love –...

Windows Azure Table Storage provides massively scalable, durable storage in the cloud with NoSQL and RESTful semantics... and as of yesterday, it's up to 28% cheaper , so you can't afford not to try it out at this point! In my fifth installment of DevRadio Practical Azure , I'll give you some insight...

Content Delivery Networks are key to delivering great experiences in media and content-rich applications regardless of your end users’ locations, and in Windows Azure it’s dead simple to use. Check out the fourth episode of my DevRadio Practical Azure series to find out how! Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod,...

As they say, a picture can be worth a thousand APIs (or something like that), so I’ve pulled together a few of the very cool posters ( Windows Azure , Windows Phone API , and Server 2012 Hyper-V ) that some of the product teams have come up with. Feel free to download and frame for your own “geek cave...

Here’s a great chance to go deep in Windows Server 2012 from both a lecture and hands-on perspective! My IT Pro colleagues are doing a post-Thanksgiving swing through the Northeast with stops at the following locations: Troy, New York on November 27th ( Register now! ) Manchester, New Hampshire on November...

In part three of my continuing series, I cover Windows Azure Drives, an abstraction of Windows Azure Blob storage designed to provide a durable layer of storage with the same file I/O semantics of a local drive. Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod, Zune HD) High Quality MP4 (iPad, PC) Mid Quality MP4 (WP7, HTML5...

As I kick off the coverage of the Windows Azure platform in earnest, join me on Channel 9 for this episode focusing on the use of blob storage in Windows Azure. Download: MP3 MP4 (iPod, Zune HD) High Quality MP4 (iPad, PC) Mid Quality MP4 (WP7, HTML5) High Quality WMV (PC, Xbox, MCE) And here are some...