Ben Riga's Deep Shift : Windows Azure

Windows Azure Lessons Learned: GoGrid

benriga — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:23:50 GMT

One question that is often asked is how hosters can benefit from the Windows Azure Platform. While the platform can be used to deploy many types of web apps we expect many partners including hosters to develop on top of the Windows Azure platform infrastructure. In this episode of Azure Lessons Learned I chat with Paul Lappas, VP Engineering at GoGrid and Mehul Shah and Madhavrao Pachupate from Blue Star Infotech. GoGrid has been working on a hybrid solution that builds on the GoGrid infrastructure to assist in development and load testing of Windows Azure applications.

Channel 9: Windows Azure Lessons Learned: GoGrid

For more information on the GoGrid solution for Windows Azure have a look here: http://www.gogrid.com/azure/

Technorati Tags: Azure Lessons Learned,Windows Azure,Hosting,Load testing

Windows Azure Lessons Learned: Invensys

benriga — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:36:27 GMT

In this episode of Windows Azure Lessons Learned I chat with Paul Forney, System Architect for Invensys and Aleksey Savateyev, Senior Architect in Microsoft’s Global ISV group working with Invensys. Invensys is well known for industrial automation and control systems. They’ve been working to develop a system for the power industry to manage the large network of smart meters that will be used to build out smart grids delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers. To do this Invensys is using Windows Azure AppFabric (formerly called “.NET Services”). The AppFabric Service Bus is the magic that allows this type of application. It allows those meters not only to connect across the cloud to on-premises systems but also does it a way that can scale to the millions of homes and businesses that will form the smart grids.

Channel 9: Windows Azure Lessons Learned: Invensys

Technorati Tags: Azure Lessons Learned,Windows Azure Platform,Windows Azure,Windows Azure AppFabric,.NET Services,Service Bus

Windows Azure Lessons Learned: Kelley Blue Book

benriga — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:19:35 GMT

As I mentioned, over the past few months I’ve been working on a number of activities related to the Windows Azure Platform. In particular, I’ve been working with several partners as we prepared for the PDC’09 conference. While we were preparing for the conference we welcomed a few partners to a deep-dive event in Redmond where they did some architectural reviews and met with various members of the product team in the final sprint to releasing solutions. While they were in Redmond I took advantage to record a few videos for Channel 9.

Kelley Blue Book stands out as they were featured on the main stage during Bob Muglia’s keynote on day 1 of PDC (Andy comes on at about 1:27). In this video with Andy Lapin, Director of Enterprise Architecture spent a few minutes showing off the site and then discussing some of the lessons the KBB team learned as they ported their site from a hosted facility to the Windows Azure Platform.

Channel 9: Azure Lessons Learned: Kelley Blue Book

Technorati Tags: Azure Lessons Learned,SQL Azure,Sync Framework,Windows Azure Platform,Windows Azure

Catching Up and PDC’09: So many sessions; so little time

benriga — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:57:17 GMT

I’ve been busy. For the past 5 months or so I’ve been working on something completely different. I moved out of the Dynamics world :( and into the Azure world :) .

In July I was asked to help out with the PDC planning. David Aiken’s team were doing a great job with technical evangelism so I was mainly responsible for supporting the Microsoft field evangelists by engaging with key projects, helping to recruit target customers/partners, engaging customers and partners with feedback on business models and managing the all-up engagement pipeline across the TAPs, Metro and Bizspark. As you can imagine with a mandate that wide I did a lot of cross-group work. One of the key tasks was helping with partners in the PDC day 1 keynote (see my video of backstage PDC). Another was helping with the partner-specific sessions (i.e. the Lunch sessions).

PDC was a blast. I spent so much time with partners that in the end I only had time to get to 2 sessions (and that includes the one where I was speaker). The time I spent meeting with partners was fantastic. I shot almost 17GB of video for a Channel 9 series I’m putting together (more on that soon).

Here’s a video I shot of a discussion I had with a couple of partners (Rob Fraser of Risk Metrics Group and Richard Prodger of Active Web Solutions) about what they found interesting about PDC this year.

Catching Up and PDC’09: So many sessions; so little time

Since I didn’t get a chance to get to many of the sessions I’ll be watching them online. All the sessions include full streaming or downloadable video and slide decks. Here’s the complete list of Windows Azure Platform sessions:

Getting Started

Windows Azure

Codename “Dallas”

Enrich your Applications with Data from Microsoft Project Code Name “Dallas”

SQL Azure

Identity

Customer & Partner Showcases

As always comments are welcome below or directly via the contact form.

Technorati Tags: PDC09,Windows Azure Platform,Partners

Dynamics Duo: Silverlight and Jazz Hands

benriga — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:12:11 GMT

Ok; so maybe I got a little overexcited in the final installment to this 5-part series. <Jazz Hands!> This time around we spend time talking about how to use Silverlight to build experiences that will compel users to want to come back again and again while differentiating your application from those of your competitors.

In this episode we spend most of our time in the part of the demo related to the conference attendee portal. The portal is meant to be the place where returning attendees go to review information about the conference (maps, weather, schedule, travel ,etc). This would be similar to a SharePoint page but built with a consumer in mind so including animations, drag and drop and generally having more sizzle. <Jazz Hands!>

Channel 9: Dynamics Duo: Silverlight and Jazz Hands

The information in the modules is coming directly from Dynamics CRM Online via web service calls. That information is data-bound to the Silverlight controls we used to allow users to display and manipulate that information. The ecosystem around Silverlight is exploding and as result there is a wide variety of controls that can be used to accelerate the design and development of solutions. In our case, much of the UI work on the attendee portal is based on a control built by a team led by Martin Grayson. Have a look at the various other controls available in the suite on the Blacklight showcase site. The full source code is available on CodePlex. Nice work on these, Martin! <Jazz Hands!> As we discussed in the last episode the separation of code and UI makes is easy for developers and designers to work together to build something cool really fast.

Girish promised to share the code for this on his blog here.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Silverlight-and-Jazz-Hands/

This episode is part of a 5-part series. In this series we’ve tried to explain how you can combine the Microsoft Web Platform with Dynamics CRM to quickly build and deploy self-service solutions. The full set of videos include:

Both Girish and I enjoyed recording this series. We hope you enjoyed them as well. If you have comments or suggestions for other topics, feel free to add comments below or email Girish or me (Ben) directly.

Sorry if I went a little over the top with all that Jazz Hands thing. <Jazz Hands!> :)

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight

Dynamics Duo: Composition with Third-Party Web Services

benriga — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:46:34 GMT

In this episode we talk about a variety of topics including using Silverlight for UI, composing using 3rd party web services and storing complex information in Dynamics CRM.

We spend most of our time on the flight booking page. This page was built using Silverlight to demonstrate some of the simple experiences that can be designed. In this case the UI was built in Expression Blend. Designers and developers work together closely on projects. In fact, developers and designers work on the exact same project files but stay in their own environments; Developers stay in Visual Studio, Designers stay in Expression. We’ll talk a lot more time about Silverlight in the final episode of this series tomorrow.

Dynamics Duo: Composition with Third-Party Web Services

In our example we use a third party web service run by ezGDS to present the conference attendee with a list of flight options. ezGDS takes care behind the scenes to retrieve that flight fare information from various global distribution systems including Amadeus, Worldspan, Sabre and others. The attendee sees none of that complexity since we’ve built all of that directly into our system. Even though the information coming back can be very complex, including ticket information and various inbound and outbound flight segments, Dynamics CRM easily handles storing this information in a custom entity.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Composition-with-Third-Party-Web-Services/

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight,Visual Studio,Microsoft Expression,Web Services

Dynamics Duo: Wide World Importers Code

benriga — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:03:15 GMT

In this episode we dive into some of the real code behind Wide World Importers Conference site. Girish walks us through the code-behind for the contact/profile and conference registration options pages.

There’s not really a lot of magic here. In fact, I would say it’s quite simple to understand. If you’ve used ASP.NET before it’s not much different when you’re writing for Windows Azure as we are here.

Dynamics Duo: Wide World Importers Code

The only difference is that here we’re sending the data to Dynamics CRM using the SDK. That’s infinitely more useful for your customers as the information becomes actionable immediately. We should mention that, in this case, we’re using a 3rd party toolkit by Microsoft Gold Partner, ADXSTUDIO. Shan McArthur and his team at ADXSTUDIO helped us to put this site together and their toolkit naturally uses the CRM SDK. It abstracts the SDK it out a little more to make writing and reading the code even simpler.

We use the Live ID token that we’re getting from the Live ID service, as we discussed in the previous episode, to allow the user to retrieve and update their profile information. It’s the unique key, of sorts, to their record in the CRM data store.

Girish promised in this episode to publish the code so expect to see that soon on his blog. We’ll have to hold him to that. :)

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://blogs.msdn.com/benriga/archive/2009/06/16/dynamics-duo-wide-world-importers-code.aspx

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,ASP.net,Web Services,Windows Live Id,ADXSTUDIO

Dynamics Duo: Everybody needs an Identity

benriga — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:12:28 GMT

In yesterday’s episode we very briefly touched the identity and authentication part of the demo where, on the self-service site, the attendee registers using Windows Live ID. In this episode we go a lot deeper.

Identity and authentication is hard. Simple, scalable and secure login capabilities require a great deal of experience to build and a great deal of effort to maintain and keep running. Windows Live ID provides you a proven solution for building identity-aware applications and is used today by over 460 million users.

In our case, since we’ve integrated Live ID into the system, we let Microsoft manage all the details related to identity and authentication. Live ID assigns each of our users a token that is specific to our site. That means Microsoft lets us know that the person coming to the site is the same person that registered. That token is unique to our site so that from the perspective of the user their privacy is protected (e.g. they cannot be tracked across multiple web sites). In fact, the token is the only thing the site will see. So even though the user may use an email address and password to login to Live ID the site never sees that unless the user explicitly provides that information (as in our example by typing it into a profile page).

Dynamics Duo: Everybody needs an Identity

The simplicity of this is just amazing. As a developer I just have to register my site with Windows Live ID and then redirect my users to the Live ID login page whenever I need them to be authenticated. Live ID handles the authentication and then redirects back to a page that I’ve registered. You can even brand the Windows Live ID login page that your users will see so that it will appear as if it is your own login page. Nice!

While Windows Live ID does a great job of helping me as a conference organizer to identify and authenticate my conference attendees, we also need to authenticate the Windows Azure site to the Dynamics CRM site so that they can exchange information. We’re obviously not going to have CRM licenses for all our self-service users (the thousands of conference attendees in this case) so we use a certificate on the Windows Azure site to ensure that only that site has access to the CRM data. Once the certificate is on my Azure site, we use a Live ID service account to handle the authentication between the two servers.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Everybody-needs-an-Identity/

Technorati Tags: Authentication,Azure Services,Dynamics CRM,Identity Access,Windows Azure,Windows Live ID

Dynamics Duo Rides again

benriga — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:16:38 GMT

Girish and I dropped in to the new Channel 9 Studio (formerly Monaco) to record a few Channel 9 episodes around some demo code we’ve been working on for a few months.

In this series we’ll focus on self-service and specifically on building self-service sites that use Dynamics CRM on the back-end to enable customers, employees, citizens, etc. to get the information or perform the tasks they want without having to interact with a representative.

We’ve talked previously about using Dynamics CRM as a platform to build general purpose line-of-business applications. Typically these are for users that are behind the firewall. When we’re talking about self-service we mean the wide range of users that are out on the internet that need access to that same information in the CRM data store.

Channel 9: Dynamics Duo Rides Again

In this episode we walk through the demo in some detail. The Wide World Importers Conference site we use here is the main site for a fictitious conference. The self-service part of this is entirely hosted on Windows Azure. As we walk through the registration process the information is retrieved and stored directly in Dynamics CRM Online. Naturally, as we’ve said in the past, Dynamics CRM is great at managing both contact and transactional information. We also look at how, by using 3rd party web services, we can compose new capabilities into our system. In this case we show how to integrate an internet flight booking service into the attendee registration process and then store that complex flight booking information in the Dynamics CRM data store. Finally we show how to use Silverlight to build a compelling user experience for a self-service portal. This one is pretty slick.

Dynamics CRM was customized here for the requirements of a conference organizer. In our case we used Dynamics CRM Online but it could easily have been CRM in an on-premises deployment (or hosted by any of the hundreds of Microsoft hosting partners) as long as CRM is set up in an internet facing deployment mode (IFD).

The self-service site is running on Windows Azure so we walked through the Windows Azure Portal for the site to show how Azure helps us to deploy, configure and manage the site. The interesting part comes when we talk about how to scale up or down a site to handle large or small numbers of end-users (depending on the need of the application). Here Girish and I got into a discussion of running a site like this from the perspective of capital expenditures (capex) versus operating expenditures (opex). There are many scenarios like the conference one where the site will go through peak periods of high demand but then drop back down to very low demand. In those cases buying the equipment to handle the peaks means you have a lot of expensive equipment running idle during the low periods. Azure solves that problem by giving the power you need when you need it for as long as you need it. Unlimited scale for rent, I guess you could say.

We’ll dive into each of the various pieces of the demo over the next few days so come back and have a look. Be sure to leave us your feedback below.

Watch in the embedded viewer above or on Channel 9:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/benriga/Dynamics-Duo-Rides-again/

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight,Dynamics Duo

Business Action Virtual Tour – Global Series of Events

benriga — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:21:24 GMT

We've had some great success with the Business Action World Tour events worldwide. We're now reprising that content virtually for those ISVs and developers who could not attend a physical event. Be sure to register via the links at the bottom of the post. Feel free to invite others… you know wake the kids, call the neighbors, etc. :)

We know that differentiating your line-of-business applications from those of your competitors has never been more important. If you’ve considered using Dynamics CRM as a line-of-business platform, Silverlight or WPF to build compelling experiences, Office or SharePoint to build on the familiar skills of your end-users or Partner-Hosting or Azure Services to extend you application to the cloud, well then this is the event for you. We’re hosting a series of 4 online events (across multiple time zones) that will help you understand how we can help you do that as a valued Microsoft Partner.

Because of the anticipated high-demand, we encourage you to register immediately to ensure your attendance at this valuable event. We’ve provided an overview below and the upcoming event dates and registration links at the bottom of this message. Be sure to register for all 4 online events.

A Line-of-Business Application Platform

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides the platform for getting your line-of-business applications to market fast. Clearly applicable in CRM-type scenarios, Microsoft Dynamics CRM also supports a wide range of business applications with the essentials required for building, delivering and maintaining them in multi-tenant Software+Services environments.

This event will demonstrate the power of Dynamics CRM as a platform for developing line of business applications. It will also cover how solutions built on the Dynamics CRM platform benefit from other Microsoft technologies to provide compelling experiences, build on familiar skills and give your customers the power of choice.

Compelling Experiences

Increase user productivity and accuracy by providing an attractive, easy to use application user interfaces on either the desktop or the web using one set of tools and knowledge. With Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) you’ll build the next-generation of Windows user experiences with deep support of data visualization, complex text content, rich media, dynamic interactive experiences, and branded or custom look and feel. With Silverlight you increase repeat visits and brand loyalty while dramatically reducing customer support costs through compelling, intuitive, high performance self-service web sites.

Familiar Skills

Increase the productivity of the users of your applications by providing a seamless and integrated end to end experience that empowers them to collaborate and get work done in familiar ways. Pull line-of-business processing directly into the Microsoft Office applications your users use day-in day-out. Unified communications across the Dynamics CRM and Office line of products, such as instant messaging, document sharing, and user presence, further promote and simplify ad hoc processes and keep people in the center of the workflow – where they belong.

Power of Choice

Whether you are deploying behind the firewall or internet-facing applications, build and deploy those applications quickly and easily by capitalizing on the same personnel, development tools investments, and knowledge that already power your organization. When you build on the Dynamics CRM platform you’ll be prepared to deploy your line-of-business applications on-premises, in partner-hosted facilities or in Microsoft own Dynamics CRM Online data centers. When you build the internet-facing self-service applications that integrate with your line-of-business solution, the Azure Services Platform helps reduce IT-related costs, freeing up time and capital to focus on your core business.

Be sure to register for all 4 events below.

	Line-of-Business Application Framework	Compelling Experiences	Familiar Skills	Power of Choice
Europe Middle East and Africa	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
North and South America	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
Asia/Pacific	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register	Click to Register
Note: You are free to register for any time zone you choose. The content is the same for all time zones. *Note that you can only register for events in the future.*

Europe, Middle East and Africa (Mon Apr 27-Thu Apr 30)

9:00 AM UTC - Dublin, London
10:00 AM UTC+1 - Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, Copenhagen, Rome, Berlin, Prague, Stockholm, Budapest, Warsaw, Oslo
11:00 AM UTC+2 - Cape Town, Athens, Helsinki, Istanbul, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut
12:00 PM UTC+3 - Moscow, Kuwait City
1:00 PM UTC+4 - Tehran, Dubai
2:30 PM UTC+5:30 - Bangalore
4:00 PM UTC+7 - Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta

North and South America (Mon Apr 27-Thu Apr 30)

9:00 AM UTC-7 - Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Redmond
10:00 AM UTC-6 - Calgary, Denver, Mexico City
11:00 AM UTC-5 - Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago
12:00 PM UTC-4 - Caracas, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Miami, New York
1:00 PM UTC-3 - Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo

Asia/Pacific (Tue Apr 28 - Fri May 1)

9:00 AM UTC+8 - Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai
10:00 AM UTC+9 - Perth, Seoul, Tokyo
11:00 AM UTC+10 - Sydney
12:00 PM UTC+11 - Auckland

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Microsoft Dynamics,Dynamics CRM,XRM,WPF,Silverlight,Office Business Applciations,Sharepoint,Unified Communications,Office Communications Server,Azure Services,Windows Azure

Gonna get me some Business Action

benriga — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:31:17 GMT

We recently kicked off a worldwide tour events to help ISVs understand the potential of Dynamics CRM as a Line-of-Business Application platform. We know that differentiating your line-of-business applications from those of your competitors has never been more important. If you’ve considered using Dynamics CRM as a line-of-business platform, Silverlight or WPF to build compelling experiences, Office or SharePoint to build on the familiar skills of your end-users or Partner-Hosting or Azure Services to extend you application to the cloud, well then this is the event for you. We’re hosting a seminar near you that will help you understand how we can help you do that as a valued Microsoft Partner.

Because of the anticipated high-demand, we encourage you to register immediately so you can ensure your attendance at this valuable event. To register, contact your your local Microsoft ISV Evangelist or Partner Account Manager.

I’ve provided an overview below and the upcoming event dates at the bottom of this message.

A Line-of-Business Application Platform

This is a half-day overview event which will demonstrate the power of Dynamics CRM as a platform for developing line of business applications. It will also cover how solutions built on the Dynamics CRM platform benefit from other Microsoft technologies to provide compelling experiences, build on familiar skills and give your customers the power of choice.

Compelling Experiences

Familiar Skills

Power of Choice

Dates:

Europe, Middle East, Africa

Istanbul, Turkey: Thu, Feb 26
Warsaw, Poland: Fri, Feb 27
Brussels, Belgium: Mon, Mar 02
Madrid, Spain: Wed, Mar 04
Munich, Germany: Fri, Mar 06

North America

Silicon Valley/Mountain View, CA, USA: Tue, Mar 03
Chicago, IL, USA: Thu, Mar 05
New York, NY, USA: Tue, Mar 10
Boston, MA, USA: Thu, Mar 12
Toronto, ON, Canada: Fri, Mar 13
Vancouver, BC, Canada: Fri, Mar 27

Asia/ Pacific

Auckland, New Zealand: Fri, Feb 27
Beijing, China: Fri, Mar 13

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,xRM,Line-of-business applications,Silverlight,WPF,Microsoft Office,SharePoint,Unified Communications,Partner-Hosting,Azure Services,Windows Azure

Self-Service Dynamics CRM solutions fly on Windows Azure

benriga — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:10:00 GMT

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been working with Shan McArthur from ADXSTUDIO to develop a demo that would illustrate how self-service web sites can connect directly to Dynamics CRM over the web to provide solutions that are both proactive and effective. The information gathered or transactions entered in the self-service applications are immediately available in the Dynamics CRM system; the obvious place to track actions and outcomes. The solution that we put together (OK so Shan and his team did most of the heavy lifting here :)) turned out fantastic.

Kirill Tatatinov kindly asked me to showcase the solution back in November. I showed it off during his keynote session at Convergence EMEA in Copenhagen. The solution can be deployed on-premises, hosted by a partner or, as in our case, hosted by Microsoft (i.e. Windows Azure). Naturally, Dynamics CRM can also be hosted in any of those modes as well. In North America you might use CRM Online. In Copenhagen we opted to use the great service of AlfaPeople. They provided us a rock solid Dynamics CRM hosted platform.

I just got the video for that from MS Studios so have a look. I’m using the Silverlight Streaming service so you should be able to view this full screen:

The solution really shows off the power that ISVs get when using Dynamics CRM as a line-of-business application platform. Not only do you get the platform that’ll get your app to market faster, you get to use the same skills to enhance that application and differentiate from competitors. That could mean building compelling user experiences with Silverlight or it could mean hosting on the Azure Services Platform. In this case, ADXSTUDIO is taking full advantage of the platform. Hosting the app in Windows Azure. Storing the content in SQL Data Services. Using Live ID for authentication. Performance, scalability, security and privacy with no capital expenditures. Scale up or down when you need to. Nice!

Update: Looks like the transcript for the entire keynote was posted here.

Technorati Tags: Dynamics CRM,Windows Azure,Silverlight,SQL Data Services,Windows Live ID,cloud computing,self-service,ADXSTUDIO,AlfaPeople,Microsoft Convergence,Kirill Tatarinov