Its out, its live! Eric Nelson and I, in our all new Monthly Azure podcast.
Eric and I discuss the work of Microsoft UK around Azure, along with a 15 minute interview with Azure early adopter Active Web Solutions who make great use of Windows Azure and AppFabric.
Full show notes and an article on the same topic can be found at http://bit.ly/msdnpodcast020
Earlier this week I meet up with the founders of Sharpcloud, a start-up and member of the Microsoft BizSpark program, to find out how they build their newly launched Sharpcloud application, which is a visual, social and analytical environment that allows users to discuss and view information to help their strategic planning. The user interface is very rich, very dynamic, and is based on Silverlight, whilst all the backend processing and storage runs on Windows Azure. Watch the video to find out why they chose Azure and Silverlight, and how they have architected their solution:
See the application in action at www.sharpcloud.com
Now that Windows Azure and SQL Azure have launched, one of the questions that crops up when I meet with partners is “Who else is using Azure?”. The answer is “Lots” and now that we have commercially launched Azure, more Azure offerings are being launched.
One of them has been developed by Factonomy, and when I was in Edinburgh at the Microsoft offices last week, hosting an Azure briefing, I had the chance to talk to Graeme Bryce on video. I asked him about the framework they have built on the Azure platform, which is being used by MoneyDashboard.com, and find out what first attracted their company to the Azure platform, what design choices they made around Windows Azure and SQL Azure storage, and what approaches they have taken to handling upgrades and maintenance.
Here in the UK our team has launched a campaign entitled “Microsoft .NET do MORE” which is designed to highlight the strength and flexibility of the platform, particularly in light of the recent commercial launch of the Azure platform.
Its got lots of useful links, so check it out.
Over the last year, since Azure’s announcement at the 2008 PDC, when AWS first talked about their work with Azure and the RNLI, I’ve spend a lot of time with them, especially Richard Prodger and Rob Blackwell.
Whilst we were all out at the PDC this year, Ben Riga shot a short video about their work, to accompany the session they gave at the PDC. Check out the video and Ben’s blog entry to find out about the great work they have done, which has already saved the lives of 9 fishermen.
My latest post PDC slide deck designed to provide an overview of Azure:
I took my video camera to the PDC to meet some of the Azure team who are responsible for building Azure and deciding the features make it into the product set
This video is a great chance to hear some of the team talk about their areas of focus across Azure, including:
- The Azure developer experience
- What the Azure fabric controller is and how it works
- What the new Codename “Dallas” project is about
- The newly announced Appfabric and how it relates to .NET Services
- The role of the newly released Windows Identity Foundation
And last, but by no means least, take a tour round one of the new Azure storage containers that was on display at the show.
(There is a bit of background noise in some of the interviews, but that’s the buzz from all the folk attending the PDC, but we hope it doesn’t detract from the video interviews).
This is very cool – on Bing Maps you can now overlay the London Tube!
Microsoft runs occasional Azure Deep Dive events, with a small numbers of customers and partners, to help accelerate their progress building real world solutions on the Azure Platform, and providing feedback to the product team. This video looks behind the scenes at one of these 5 day Azure Deep Dives, meets the Microsoft folk mentoring the sessions, and the customers and partners building their solutions.
Check out the video to see the deep dive our team ran
- The features in the Azure Platform that early adopters are finding most compelling
- The emerging architectural patterns being used, such as the use of queues for durable messaging
- Discussion of recently released features for Windows Azure, and some hints for new features being announced at the PDC
- Real customer and partner solutions that are being built on the Azure Platform.
Our team - the Microsoft Developer and Platform Group - are offering a limited number free half day Fasttrack Architectural / developer Reviews focused on the Windows Azure platform for partners. These will take place at the Microsoft offices in Reading, and will run from Monday 30th November to Friday 4th December, 2009.
What does a Windows Azure Fasttrack Architecture Review consist of?
A fasttrack review is an opportunity for a partner to lay out their technical, business and architectural problems in front of some Microsoft experts, and gain advice and guidance on choosing the best path for their future development. These are interactive, conversational engagements which typically last for around 3 to 4 hours, and have proved very successful and useful for participants in the past. For these specific sessions, the focus is on Cloud computing, and in particular Windows Azure, SQL Azure and the Azure platform.
The format is that of an informal meeting - some chairs, a table, a couple of whiteboards and a lot of imagination and honest speaking. The conversations are all about problems and solutions, and if you come with an open mind then you should leave with a lot to digest and think about, and a good idea of your next steps.
If you think it would help to give us demonstrations of your products, then come along with it (but not PowerPoint, please), then that's what we can do. If you'd rather draw diagrams, or talk, or listen, or sit in silence for the entire length of the session, then that's what we can do. The experience is totally driven yourselves - though obviously we have some suggested structures developed out of experience that can help things flow best, if you'd rather fall back on those.
What makes a good Fasttrack Architecture Review?
The best Fasttrack Architecture Reviews tend to happen at the stage when a partner is looking at a specific upcoming new project or software release, and is starting to think about what features or capabilities around Cloud Computing and Azure might influence their own plans (e.g. "Can we offer both on-premise and off-premise solutions?", “How do make sure we can scale up?”). An open mind and a willingness to discuss ideas are essential.
Conversely, a few things can prevent a good Fasttrack Architecture Review session. If you have already made your mind up and are simply looking for more detailed discussions, then this is possibly not the right forum - let us know and we can suggest the best routes forward. Similarly, if management are not behind the changes, or you are unable to bring a senior decision maker to the meeting, or there are no specific time scales for a new version, then these sessions can be less then optimum, and we urge you only to apply when the time is right for you.
How to apply for a Windows Azure Fasttrack Architecture Review
If you have been looking thinking about Windows Azure and cloud computing, and you think your company has a great idea, or interesting problem that would benefit from one of these sessions, then please get in touch with us, and we'll let you know if we think a fasttrack review session would be suitable. Please note that we mainly deal with architectural discussions, rather than deep technical support.
We typically get more applications than we have space for, so to make sure we get the right companies at these session, please take a little time to tell us about yourselves, and what you want from the session. You *must* provide us with a 'draft agenda' for the fasttrack review by emailing details about the following topics for discussion:
Azure Fasttrack review
1 - What are the top one or two key things you want to get out of the meeting?
2 - Are there any specific problems, issues or opportunities are you currently facing?
3 – In addition to Azure, are there any other key technologies will you want to cover in the review – e.g. SQL Server, Silverlight/WPF, SharePoint, etc?
4 - Who do you plan to bring along to the reviews (2 to 4 people is typically ideal, at least one technical person)
Technology background
5 - What technologies are you currently using?
6 - What are your timescales for considering Azure? What are your experiences with Azure to date? Are there any specific aspects of Azure you anticipate using?
Company background
7 - The size of your company and the development team
8 - Company/Product URLs
To get in touch, just email this information to ukdev@microsoft.com and state any dates that week that you would be unable to attend. If we're unable to help with a review, we'll try to point you towards some useful resources that should help to some degree.
I work with Keith Burns, and as far as I can tell, he knows pretty everything there is to know about SQL Server, which in turn means he knows pretty much everything there is to know about SQL Azure too.
As some folk are still getting to grips with SQL Azure, this seemed a great time to sit down and chat with and get him to show me a few demos. The video is up on Channel 9.
When David Chappell came to London, during his recent world tour, I got the chance to sit down and discuss with him Windows Azure, its importance and role in the ISV and partner ecosystem, and other cloud players, such as Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com, VMware, and well as a few other things.
If you want to find out why he states “If I ruled the world, I would make the phrase ‘private cloud’ illegal”, then check out the video – its less than 15 minutes, and David is, as always, an excellent and insightful speaker.
From time to time I end up doing some photography and filming at some of the events that we run at Microsoft. Recently this involved me hanging around and meeting some TV celebrities, in particular James Caan (Dragon’s Den) and George Alagiah (BBC News):
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I have been giving a few high level technical briefings to architects and systems designers on Windows Azure, to help them better understand what Azure is, the philosophy around it, and most importantly, how it could potentially fit in their own product roadmaps and plans.
I’ve posted the current slides I have been using on Slideshare:
