Buck Woody : Learning

The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK)

BuckWoody — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:40:40 GMT

Windows Azure is a platform that allows you to write software, run software, or use software that we've already written. We provide lots of resources to help you do that - many can be found right here in this blog series. There are two primary resources you can use, and it's important to understand what they are and what they do.

The Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK)

Actually, this isn't one resource. We have SDK's for multiple development environments, such as Visual Studio and also Eclipse, along with SDK's for iOS, Android and other environments. Windows Azure is a "back end", so almost any technology or front end system can use it to solve a problem.

The SDK's are primarily for development. In the case of Visual Studio, you'll get a runtime environment for Windows Azure which allows you to develop, test and even run code all locally - you do not have to be connected to Windows Azure at all, until you're ready to deploy.

You'll also get a few samples and codeblocks, along with all of the libraries you need to code with Windows Azure in .NET, PHP, Ruby, Java and more.

The SDK is updated frequently, so check this location to find the latest for your environment and language - just click the bar that corresponds to what you want:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/downloads/

The Windows Azure Training Kit (WATK)

Whether you're writing code, using Windows Azure Virtual Machines (VM's) or working with Hadoop, you can use the WATK to get examples, code, PowerShell scripts, PowerPoint decks, training videos and much more. This should be your second download after the SDK. This is all of the training you need to get started, and even beyond. The WATK is updated frequently - and you can find the latest one here:

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/other-resources/training-kit/

There are many other resources - again, check the http://windowsazure.com site, the community newsletter (which introduces the latest features), and my blog for more.

Windows Azure End to End Examples

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:45:59 GMT

I’m fascinated by the way people learn. I’m told there are several methods people use to understand new information, from reading to watching, from experiencing to exploring.

Personally, I use multiple methods of learning when I encounter a new topic, usually starting with reading a bit about the concepts. I quickly want to put those into practice, however, especially in the technical realm. I immediately look for examples where I can start trying out the concepts. But I often want a “real” example – not just something that represents the concept, but something that is real-world, showing some feature I could actually use.

And it’s no different with the Windows Azure platform – I like finding things I can do now, and actually use. So when I started learning Windows Azure, I of course began with the Windows Azure Training Kit – which has lots of examples and labs, presentations and so on. But from there, I wanted more examples I could learn from, and eventually teach others with. I was asked if I would write a few of those up, so here are the ones I use.

CodePlex

CodePlex is Microsoft’s version of an “Open Source” repository. Anyone can start a project, add code, documentation and more to it and make it available to the world, free of charge, using various licenses as they wish. Microsoft also uses this location for most of the examples we publish, and sample databases for SQL Server.

If you search in CodePlex for “Azure”, you’ll come back with a list of projects that folks have posted, including those of us at Microsoft. The source code and documentation are there, so you can learn using actual examples of code that will do what you need. There’s everything from a simple table query to a full project that is sort of a “Corporate Dropbox” that uses Windows Azure Storage.

The advantage is that this code is immediately usable. It’s searchable, and you can often find a complete solution to meet your needs. The disadvantage is that the code is pretty specific – it may not cover a huge project like you’re looking for. Also, depending on the author(s), you might not find the documentation level you want.

Link: http://azureexamples.codeplex.com/site/search?query=Azure&ac=8

Tailspin

Microsoft Patterns and Practices is a group here that does an amazing job at sharing standard ways of doing IT – from operations to coding. If you’re not familiar with this resource, make sure you read up on it. Long before I joined Microsoft I used their work in my daily job – saved a ton of time. It has resources not only for Windows Azure but other Microsoft software as well.

The Patterns and Practices group also publishes full books – you can buy these, but many are also online for free. There’s an end-to-end example for Windows Azure using a company called “Tailspin”, and the work covers not only the code but the design of the full solution. If you really want to understand the thought that goes into a Platform-as-a-Service solution, this is an excellent resource.

The advantages are that this is a book, it’s complete, and it includes a discussion of design decisions. The disadvantage is that it’s a little over a year old – and in “Cloud” years that’s a lot. So many things have changed, improved, and have been added that you need to treat this as a resource, but not the only one. Still, highly recommended.

Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728592.aspx

Azure Stock Trader

Sometimes you need a mix of a CodePlex-style application, and a little more detail on how it was put together. And it would be great if you could actually play with the completed application, to see how it really functions on the actual platform.

That’s the Azure Stock Trader application. There’s a place where you can read about the application, and then it’s been published to Windows Azure – the production platform – and you can use it, explore, and see how it performs.

I use this application all the time to demonstrate Windows Azure, or a particular part of Windows Azure.

The advantage is that this is an end-to-end application, and online as well. The disadvantage is that it takes a bit of self-learning to work through.

Links: Learn it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684 Use it: https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/

Book Review (Book 10) - The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

BuckWoody — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:24:00 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for March 2012 was: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here.

Why I chose this book:

My personal belief about computing is this: All computing technology is simply re-arranging data. We take data in, we manipulate it, and we send it back out. That’s computing. I had heard from some folks about this book and it’s treatment of data. I heard that it dealt with the basics of data - and the semantics of data, information and so on.

It also deals with the earliest forms of history of information, which fascinates me. It’s similar I was told, to GEB which a favorite book of mine as well, so that was a bonus.

Some folks I talked to liked it, some didn’t - so I thought I would check it out.

What I learned:

I liked the book. It was longer than I thought - took quite a while to read, even though I tend to read quickly. This is the kind of book you take your time with. It does in fact deal with the earliest forms of human interaction and the basics of data.

I learned, for instance, that the genesis of the binary communication system is based in the invention of telegraph (far-writing) codes, and that the earliest forms of communication were expensive. In fact, many ciphers were invented not to hide military secrets, but to compress information. A sort of early “lol-speak” to keep the cost of transmitting data low!

I think the comparison with GEB is a bit over-reaching. GEB is far more specific, fanciful and so on. In fact, this book felt more like something fro Richard Dawkins, and tended to wander around the subject quite a bit. I imagine the author doing his research and writing each chapter as a book that followed on from the last one. This is what possibly bothered those who tended not to like it, I think.

Towards the middle of the book, I think the author tended to be a bit too fragmented even for me. He began to delve into memes, biology and more - I think he might have been better off breaking that off into another work. The existentialism just seemed jarring.

All in all, I liked the book. I recommend it to any technical professional, specifically ones involved with data technology in specific. And isn’t that all of us? :)

Book Review (Book 8) - The Elements of Persuasion

BuckWoody — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:57:23 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for January 2012 was: The Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman.

Why I chose this Book:

As I mentioned in a previous review, I think good storytelling is an essential part of any career. Communication is basic in not only our professional but personal lives, and everyone I’ve met responds well to stories, from children to executive audiences. Not only that, learning to tell a story helps you formulate concepts about the topic, which is yet another way of learning.

I heard about this book from a couple of folks, and it landed within search of “storytelling” and “business”. Whenever I just search for “Storytelling” I either end up with lists of stories (which is fine) or lists of children’s books on storytelling (which is also fine) but neither of these are quite what I’m looking for.

A quick search on Amazon and I located the book, and then a quick check of my various e-library offerings and I downloaded it to my laptop for reading.

What I learned:

This is a “selling” book, but not like you might think. It’s not a book of a quick sale like at a car-lot or a “quick-sale” environment. It’s more along the lines at the executive level and longer-term sales - those involve stories as well.

Sadly, this is another “business book” - the kind I normally don’t like much. There are typical case-study layouts with lots of examples, but in my mind not enough didactic information to actually help you develop a good story-telling mantra.

Even so, I learned some interesting things about the process these authors use. Some of the case studies are interesting, and I did pull out that a story should work towards a single, defining sentence. This isn’t unique to this book, but it is a reinforcement of what I’ve learned elsewhere. Although nothing to do with storytelling, I did like the reference to Lockheed’s “14 Rules”, which I hadn’t read before. They also break down the storytelling process into five elements, which is actually covered better (in my mind) in a book called “20 Master Plots” , which may actually be the storytelling book I’ve been searching for.

Or perhaps I should just write the one I’m looking for.

At any rate, not sure I would recommend this book to others - perhaps as a check-out, but not a purchase, at least if this is for the same reason I looked it up.

Raw Notes:

As I read, I take notes - it’s called “reading with a pencil”. These are the notes I made to myself, in no particular order and with no context other than the book itself:

Stories are interesting to us all.
Describes five elements in a story, but in fact this is for only one type of story. Other books describes more story types.
Very standard business book, but there are good tips in some of the chapters.
Explained how to connect with the audience, good points Spends a lot of time referring to other books The book of five rings Work towards a single, memorable sentence.
Changes partway through into stories about stories. This is better.
A mix of storytelling and sales, although this was touted for sales, feels much more like selling than storytelling, advertisements.
Interesting story about memory championships, where contestants memorize cards. They use unusual stories.
Look up Lockheed and the 14 rules

Azure Design Patterns

BuckWoody — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:34:21 GMT

I have a lot of learning resources you can find here at my blog, but I wanted to point one out this morning. It's a Silverlight application called "Azure Design Patterns". You can find it at http://azuredesignpatterns.com/, and it's an interesting way of looking at concepts and patterns for Azure interactively.

I use this quite often even in presentations to show definitions of terms, and to explain concepts within Azure. You can do the same when you're asked to explain a Platform as a Service like Azure. Explore the site to create a "map" of what you want to cover. The advantage of this approach is that you can leave your listeners with not only the material you cover, but other information they might want to learn.

Of course, it's not just for presentations. You can use this information for many of the technical concepts within Azure for your own learning, but you should be aware that it is not a "book-like" experience, meaning that you should probably use this site as a great reference less than a sequential learning plan.

Book Review (Book 2) - Rhetoric by Aristotle

BuckWoody — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:27:16 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for July 2011 was Rhetoric, by Aristotle. You can read it here for free: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8rh/

Why I chose this Book:

I read this long ago, but I would like to re-read it to learn how to more clearly formulate my arguments and help my writing skills to improve. This book is the foundation for arguing a point - which we all do, or at least need to do, every day. Arguing does not imply an adversarial relationship; it merely means you’re trying to persuade someone to see your point of view.

What I learned:

Even though this work is thousands of years old - boggles the mind to think of what has occurred in that time - people are largely still the same. During this work Aristotle talks about everything from psychological motivations for good and bad to politics and power. And it seems his observations are still dead-on. What that taught me is that people deep down have very common descriptors, even across cultures. Knowing those motivators gives you an “edge” in a discussion. If you know someone’s position in war, a game, or in a negotiation, you have a powerful tool to help them understand your position, potentially getting what you want.

This all sounds rather manipulative, but it isn’t. Aristotle starts out by stating that your own motives and positions need to be evaluated before you even attempt the argument to ensure you’re on solid footing. And he states that your argument should be to change behavior for the better, not for evil. He even defines what those things mean.

It’s all done in a very syllogistic (logical argument, A+B=C kind of thing) fashion, which is very direct if not a little too black and white. And of course he is a bit chauvinistic in places and some of the examples are not easily translated - but if you can overlook those things you can learn to be a better communicator, whether that is at a 1-1 level or speaking to large crowds. A very recommended read.

Raw Notes:

I take notes as I read, calling that process “reading with a pencil”. I find that when I do that I pay attention better, and record some things that I need to know later. I’ll take these notes, categorize them into a OneNote notebook that I synchronize in my Live.com account, and that way I can search them from anywhere. I can even read them on the web, since the Live.com has a OneNote program built in. Note that these are the raw notes, so they might not make a lot of sense out of context - I include them here so you can watch my though process.

(There are actually three books in this one work, but I’ve only posted the notes from Book 1 here)
1. An interesting read overall – but I think it deals mostly with the speaker, and not enough with the medium and methods to influence the receiver. It does, however, explain the motivations of the listeners, so you can form your own way of dealing with this.
2. I often read about the book before I read the book – (How to Read a Book - definitely check this one out)
3. Considered a series of notes by his students more than a purpose-written book
4. Reading it because it is considered the foundation of persuasion, one of the many goals of communication
5. In fact, persuasion is touted as the only goal of debate.
6. Learned more about enthymemes, which are aimed more at persuasion than demonstration.
7. Beginning was a definition of terms – very nice. (Book 1)
8. In defining an argument, “non-essentials” should not be allowed. This avoids many logical fallacies.
9. Wow – he prescribes that the law should be carefully defined, and not left to judges to interpret. Objectivity is the goal, and is not entirely possible with human beings.
10. The discussion of judges at the fore seems to indicate that the argument’s decider is the most important decision. Good take-away.
11. Reading with a good dictionary is essential. Do not skip over any part of a word you do not understand.
12. He teaches that speakers are the representative of truth – if truth does not prevail, it is the fault of the speaker.
13. Not everyone learns in the same way, so studying rhetoric is a way of obtaining multiple ways of teaching.
14. You must understand both sides of an argument in order to fully argue your position.
15. Great good, and harm, can come of skill in speaking than in skill at arms.
16. Medicine is not just to make you healthy again, it can also be used to make you as well as possible.
17. Three influencers of persuasion: personality, audience preparation, and proofs.
18. There are many divisions of topics into numeric orders – I do this a great deal as well. Not sure of the meaning of that, if any.
19. Reading classical works is interesting – the breakdown of sentences is like a syllogism itself.
20. Amazing – in chapter four, he details the effects of political speech, and even details some of our current systems by name, such as “Ways and Means” and “National Defense”.
21. Chapter four deals with political knowledge required to argue effectively, but this can be extended to all facets of life. Basically he says “know yourself, know your enemy, know your environment.” Sage advice indeed, and far too often ignored by the dim lights we continuously put into office.
22. Chapter five says that happiness is “prosperity with virtue” – and further defines it as “independence”. Amazing how much of that we are willing to give away.
23. Definitely some elitism espoused.
24. Chapter 6 deals with what is "good", or "right". This is a foundation for arguing a position, since your argument is easily lost if it is not deemed within the realm of "rightness". Aristotle seems to base what is good on what is found in nature, although it is interesting that fairness, which most consider good, is not a natural construct.
25. In Chapter 7 Aristotle makes good use of building logical arguments, classically using syllogisms to do so, as you might expect
26. In Chapter 8, Aristotle continues the theme that the more knowledge you have, the better your arguments will be. In fact, it seems to follow that perhaps you will settle your own internal arguments as you learn more, and perhaps not need to argue a particular point at all.
27. He states that the impetus of most arguments is no impetus at all - that is, most of the time the primary goal is the continuation of the established order.
28. He explains the various forms of government to complete Chapter 8.
29. Chapter 9 begins with a discussion on how to be empathetic in your arguments, that is, to make the other person agree with your point, so that it is as much their idea as yours.
30. To accomplish this goal, Aristotle feels that your argument should be noble and virtuous, and explains what both of these means. In essence, he states their meaning is the most good for the most people.
31. He also states the passive form of the Golden rule, as well as the Active form.
32. Wow – he gets a bit chauvinistic in this chapter, stating that a man’s actions will be more noble than a woman’s!
33. Part of getting the agreement of point of view is to basically flatter or call out the good in another person.
34. Chapter Ten covers figuring out more about those that do “wrong”, and in true philosophic fashion, he defines the term wrong first.
35. He states that we do “wrong” based on the nature of our character. That is, whatever your character weakness is, the wrongdoing will be exposed along that fault line. So it follows that knowing someone’s character can aid you in arguing with them.
36. Character, then, leads to predictive analysis. He has not discussed the danger of this type of activity.
37. It is quite interesting to evaluate my own actions based on some of the “motivators” Aristotle puts forth in this chapter. Knowing yourself – however uncomfortable a process that might be – is also key to winning your argument.
38. Chapter 11 covers a range of human emotions and a very Epicurean view, but I do like this quote: “Where there is competition, there is victory.” Sums up the human condition quite nicely. We have to compete, it is our nature. Shying away from it will not help.
39. Chapter 12 deals with the ways that people try to avoid punishment for their actions, especially the wealthy and politically connected. Not much has changed, it seems. ?
40. He also explores the darker side of rhetoric, and how some use it to avert judgment.
41. In chapter 13 he explains the differences between specific law, written down, and “universal law”, which he deems to be inherent. This is not a reasonable position, in my mind. Each person interprets that differently.
42. Chapter 14 deals with the results based on acting on these laws, both justly and unjustly.
43. Chapter 15 explains other means of persuasion, including contacts, promises and even torture. An interesting take on convincing folks to see things your way, and once again, quite timely! Seems in 2000 years of human history, we have not learned a great deal.

Head in the Clouds–Eyes on the Books

BuckWoody — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:43:00 GMT

I normally post technical topics here on this blog, but I’m extending this post a bit to include a little professional development. Don’t worry; there’s some tech (and Distributed Computing tech, no less) in this post as well.

I recently presented a few sessions on a “SQL Cruise” to Alaska (more on that here) and one of those sessions was on professional development. As part of that, I had everyone do some exercises on career building, and we created some deliverables we would be accountable to each other on. After all, one of my favorite business quotes (my version, others have said something similar) is:

What gets measured gets done.

One of the deliverables was to establish our career goal(s) for the next year, and then come up with a list of 12 books that would help us get there. We promised to read one book per month, and report back on our blogs a review of the book and how it applies to the career. So in no particular order, here is my list – I’m telling you all, so call me on it if I don’t post a review on one of them. I reserve the right to change my list as I learn more, but 12 books is the rule:

Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan: Learning about how to select applications suitable for Distributed Technology. (June )
Rhetoric, by Aristotle: I read this long ago, but I would like to re-read it to learn how to more clearly formulate my arguments and help my writing skills to improve. (July)
Favorite Folktales from Around the World, by Jane Yolen: Storytelling is at the heart of presenting well. ( August )
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely: Understanding the actions of others is key to my success. ( September )
The Cloud of Unknowing, Anonymous: The role of faith in life. ( October )
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott: I’ve heard a lot about this, and I’m not even sure I agree with it. But I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. ( November )
Think Stats: In my studies of "Big Data", the skill I find missing most of the time is Statistics - as part of the "Data Scientist" role I'm investigating, this is part of a kit you can get from O'Reilly. I actually replaced another book with this one. ( December )
The Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman: Another "storytelling" book. ( January )
Designing Data Visualizations by Noah Iliinsky and Julie Steele: Part of my "Big Data" focus. ( February )
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick: This is a book I've heard a lot about, and it's in a similar vein as GEB, one of my favorite books. ( March )
Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform: Using Microsoft products to solve a given problem. It includes Cloud strategies as well. ( April )
20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. Let's see. ( May )

As part of keeping each other accountable, I hereby tag a few of my fellow travellers – and you, of course, are invited to play along. Link back to this blog post and put your link in the comments below if you want us to follow your journey:

Tim Ford: http://thesqlagentman.com/
John Halunen:
Dev Nambi: www.devnambi.com
Grant Fritchey: http://www.scarydba.com/

SQL Azure Use Case: Web-based Applications

BuckWoody — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:38:40 GMT

This is one in a series of posts on when and where to use a distributed architecture design in your organization's computing needs. You can find the main post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx

Description:

Some applications lend themselves for the entire architecture to be placed on an outside provider such as Azure. And in some cases, you’re interested in using a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS):

Web application with fast meta-data search requirements
Web application requiring high levels of consistency and/or atomicity
Common-use data, shared among multiple web applications
Durable data storage for stateless applications

Unless you need the data to be kept local (see the hybrid application use-case), SQL Azure makes a good fit.SQL Azure shares the same logical “backbone” as Windows Azure, so an Azure application that needs structured storage, either exclusively or alongside Blob or Windows Azure Table storage (Key/Value pair, more akin to NoSQL in architecture than RDBMS).

Implementation:

This is actually one of the easiest concepts to display for a SQL Azure architecture. It’s logically the same as keeping the application completely local, with the exception that you don’t have to install or maintain anything. Note that although Windows Azure applications are a common use, you can use any web program to access the SQL Azure database:

Considerations here include the decisions on when to use structured storage for a datum or some other storage. In many configurations, you might want multiple storage paradigms. Here is one such example architecture, although many others are possible:

In this diagram I’m indicating a simple shopping-cart application. A Windows Azure Web Role provides a “front end” or presentation layer to the client. A Worker Role provides computation functions, and the Queue maintains the state information so that the application is scalable. SQL Azure stores meta-data about the items in a catalogue of items a user can purchase, such as name, size, price and so on. This provides fast lookup, and allows re-use of code that existed on an on-premise SQL Server.

Once the item is located, a reference in a SQL Azure column (from a standard SQL query) locates the GUID for the object’s picture, stored in Windows Azure Blob storage, and displays that to the user. The Worker Role moves the information for the customer’s order from the Queue to a Windows Azure Table object.

Of course, you could architect all of these data elements into only one or another kind of storage. In this case, the cost, performance and other characteristics of each data requirement dictated this selection.

Resources:

Storage and their abstractions: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2010/05/10/windows-azure-storage-abstractions-and-their-scalability-targets.aspx

Windows Azure Emulators On Your Desktop

BuckWoody — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:39:00 GMT

Many people feel they have to set up a full Azure subscription online to try out and develop on Windows Azure. But you don’t have to do that right away. In fact, you can download the Windows Azure Compute Emulator – a “cloud development environment” – right on your desktop. No, it’s not for production use, and no, you won’t have other people using your system as a cloud provider, and yes, there are some differences with Production Windows Azure, but you’ll be able code, run, test, diagnose, watch, change and configure code without having any connection to the Internet at all. The best thing about this approach is that when you are ready to deploy the code you’ve been testing, a few clicks deploys it to your subscription when you make one.

So what deep-magic does it take to run such a thing right on your laptop or even a Virtual PC? Well, it’s actually not all that difficult. You simply download and install the Windows Azure SDK (you can even get a free version of Visual Studio for it to run on – you’re welcome) from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsazure/cc974146.aspx

This SDK will also install the Windows Azure Compute Emulator and the Windows Azure Storage Emulator – and then you’re all set. Right-click the icon for Visual Studio and select “Run as Administrator”:

Now open a new “Cloud” type of project:

Add your Web and Worker Roles that you want to code:

And when you’re done with your design, press F5 to start the desktop version of Azure:

Want to learn more about what’s happening underneath? Right-click the tray icon with the Azure logo, and select the two emulators to see what they are doing:

In the configuration files, you’ll see a “Use Development Storage” setting. You can call the BLOB, Table or Queue storage and it will all run on your desktop. When you’re ready to deploy everything to Windows Azure, you simply change the configuration settings and add the storage keys and so on that you need.

Want to learn more about all this?

Overview of the Windows Azure Compute Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432968.aspx

Overview of the Windows Azure Storage Emulator: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg432983.aspx

January 2011 Training Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en

Windows Azure Learning Plan - Other Features

BuckWoody — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:11:00 GMT

This is one in a series of posts on a Windows Azure Learning Plan. You can find the main post here. This one deals with the Application Fabric for Windows Azure. It serves three main purposes - Access Control, Caching, and as a Service Bus.

Overview and Training	Overview and general information about other Azure features - what they are, how they work, and where you can learn more.
General Introduction and Overview	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee922714.aspx
Access Control Service Overview	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg490345.aspx
Microsoft Documentation	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windowsazure/netservices.aspx
Learning and Examples	Sources for online and other Azure feature training
Application SDK	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=39856a03-1490-4283-908f-c8bf0bfad8a5&displaylang=en
Caching Service Primer	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/appfabriccat/archive/2010/11/29/azure-appfabric-caching-service-soup-to-nuts-primer.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0
Hands-On Lab: Building Windows Azure Applications with the Caching Service	http://www.wadewegner.com/2010/11/hands-on-lab-building-windows-azure-applications-with-the-caching-service/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WadeWegner+%28Wade+Wegner+-+Technical%29
Architecture	Azure Internals and Architectures for Scale Out and other use-cases.
Azure Features Architecture Guide	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/yasserabdelkader/archive/2010/09/12/release-of-windows-server-appfabric-architecture-guide.aspx
Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus - A Deep Dive (Video)	http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/ASI410
Access Control Service (ACS) High Level Architecture	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alikl/archive/2010/09/28/azure-appfabric-access-control-service-acs-v-2-0-high-level-architecture-web-application-scenario.aspx
Applications and Programming	Programming Patterns and Architectures for SQL Azure systems.
Various Examples from PDC 2010 on using Azure Application as a Service Bus	http://tinyurl.com/2dcnt8o
Creating a Distributed Cache	http://blog.structuretoobig.com/post/2010/08/31/Creating-a-Poor-Mane28099s-Distributed-Cache-in-Azure.aspx
Azure Java SDK	http://jdotnetservices.com/

Windows Azure Learning Plan - Storage

BuckWoody — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:24:00 GMT

This is one in a series of posts on a Windows Azure Learning Plan. You can find the main post here. This one deals with Storage for Windows Azure.

Overview	Overview and general information about Windows Azure Storage - what it is, how it works, and where you can learn more.
General Overview Whitepaper (registration of a screen name, but free)	http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/understanding-data-storage-offerings
Official Microsoft Site on Azure Storage	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee924681.aspx
Scalability Targets for Azure Storage	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2010/05/10/windows-azure-storage-abstractions-and-their-scalability-targets.aspx
Understanding Azure Storage by using the API	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/paolos/archive/2011/02/21/yet-another-application-to-handle-windows-azure-storage-services.aspx
Blobs	Blob Storage is a binary-level "container" that can hold one or more streams of data.
Understanding Block Blobs and Page Blobs	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee691964.aspx
Blob Service Concepts	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179376.aspx
Tables	Tables are key-value-pair type storage, and can be in the terabyte range of size.
Understanding the Table Storage Data Model	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179338.aspx
Table Service Concepts	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179463.aspx
Querying Tables and Entities	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd894031.aspx
Queues	Queues are actually more table storage - but specifically designed to allow Web and Worker Roles to communicate.
Queue Service Concepts	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179353.aspx
Queue Service API	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179363.aspx
Azure Drive	An Azure Drive isn't something you mount over the web (although that's possible to do with a little code) - it's a "local" NTFS drive for Windows Azure Applications.
Windows Azure Drives white paper	http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9710117
Content Delivery Network	An "Edge" network of storage that buffers after the first use by a client.
General Overview	http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2009/11/05/introducing-the-windows-azure-content-delivery-network.aspx
Delivering High-Bandwidth Content with the Windows Azure CDN	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee795176.aspx
Tools and Utilities	Free and not-free tools to work with Azure Storage.
Storage SDK	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.windowsazure.storageclient.aspx
Benchmarks and Throughput tests	http://azurescope.cloudapp.net/BenchmarkTestCases/
Mount an Azure Drive as an NTFS Drive	http://azurescope.cloudapp.net/CodeSamples/cs/792ce345-256b-4230-a62f-903f79c63a67/
Command-line and other tools for working with Azure Storage	http://tinyurl.com/2acx6d8 and http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2010/04/17/windows-azure-storage-explorers.aspx

Cross-Pollination

BuckWoody — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:10:10 GMT

I was reading this post on J.D. Meier's Blog, which deals with the “cloud” (I really dislike that term). You might wonder what that has to do with SQL Server, since it isn’t specifically about SQL Azure. I’ll come back to that in a moment.

I play a little music now and then, on the keyboards and with a guitar as well as the mandolin and banjo. I’m not very good, although I do play in public each week. I try to get better all the time, but sometimes I hit a “wall” – not in the mechanics of playing like finger-positioning or scales or things like that, but being able to improvise new lines and riffs. So a friend gave me some interesting advice. He said: “Go learn to draw.”

Now, if I’m not an awesome musician, I’m an even less-awesome artist. I can certainly appreciate art, and I can put nice things together on a screen or PowerPoint demo, I’ve never really been able to draw 3-D art like the masters do. But I took his advice, set up a pen-tablet for my PC, and grabbed a few books on learning to draw. I’ve watched painting shows on PBS, talked to artists, and had folks show me how to draw better.

And I can play better now. Isn’t that strange? No, I didn’t draw anything that has to do with music – but putting my mind towards another creative effort allowed me to get better at the first one. There’s enough thought-processes in one that helped me in the other.

So now let’s talk about that article I mentioned a moment ago. No, it doesn’t deal with SQL Server, but I really like the approach he takes in his blog post. He lays out everything very clearly, deals with the topic that people ask about a great deal, and I like the set-up for the table that follows his topic. It’s something I’ll incorporate into my security plans for databases going forward.

So what does this mean to you? Study some new development language. Read about chip technology. Go back and practice some math. Find things that are tangential to database technology and the business of what you do, and read, do, practice and try those things. You’ll find it helps “round you out” as a data professional.

What can a week in a cabin without a computer teach you about databases?

BuckWoody — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:39:18 GMT

I’m back from a week (actually a week and two days) of being quite isolated in a cabin at the Mark Twain National State Park is Florida, Missouri. I took only a book and a guitar, and enough things to eat for the week, and not even much of that. Oh, and of course I took coffee. I said I was “Roughing It”, not going into deprivation!

So without a laptop, smart phone or any books to read, what could I have learned about database technology? When I left I read an interesting set of articles, one from a person who argues that the Internet (and by that he meant the general “online” world) was making us less intelligent, and another from someone that claims it makes us smarter.

So I went off to think a little more than that. Normally when I research something, I look up lots of resources that I respect, I visit the library, and talk to lots of people face-to-face. That’s what I call “broad thinking”. This is a great method, and can save lots of time. But there’s a danger here – it allows me not to think. I just find people I trust and look for the best logic and agree with it.

What I learned is that I’m doing more and more of that, using the Internet, e-mail, and social networks like Twitter. While that’s certainly a fine thing to do, it can lead to less critical thinking.

The better method, I believe, is to take what I know about something, and reason it out myself first. Then I follow up with the previous method, and synthesize what I get from the two, always remaining open to new information.

Let’s take a practical database example. Assume someone you trust makes the statement “RAID 1 is better for sequential reads and writes, so that’s where you should put your logs.” To think this through, take what you know about RAID 1 (and all forms of RAID, in fact) and what you know about Log files. You might have to read up on those, but after you have educated yourself, come back and see what your logic tells you about that statement. Then – and only then – see what other people blog, say, write and comment about on that topic. See what holds true, and ask lots of questions about what you’ve learned. Now you own that question, the answer, and the logic behind it.

Of course, not everything deserves this level of thought. When I needed to get to the airport from the cabin, I just used the GPS unit in the rental car. I could totally rely on another “expert” or technology to help me out – it’s just the road to the airport. I still had to control my speed and so on, but you get the idea.

I may actually write a book about what I learned, and how I learned it. I’ll have to go off and think about that first. :)

The Most Effective Learning Methods – The Results

BuckWoody — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:46:14 GMT

Yesterday I posted a blank graph and asked where you thought the labels should go for the most effective learning methods, according to a study they read to me and other teachers here at the University of Washington. Here are the labels in the correct order according to that study – and remember, “Teaching” here means one student explaining something to another:

It isn’t really that surprising to learn that we comprehend best when we have to teach a subject to someone else, and you can see that the “participation factor” is the key in the learning methods. The real shocker was the retention level at the various learning modes – lecture was down near the single digits!

What does this have to do with databases or the DBA? Well, we all need to learn new things – and many of us are asked to teach others a new task. To be a good teacher, we have to know how a student learns best – and of course that makes us better students as well. So next time you’re asked to transfer some knowledge to someone else, take a look at this chart first – and let me know how it affected your knowledge transfer.