Buck Woody : Presentations

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/

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/

Presenting the Cloud in a Different Way

BuckWoody — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:35:38 GMT

I had the honor of presenting the Developers at the Portland PASS chapter, and decided to go a different way than just using PowerPoint Slides…. (click on any picture to enlarge)

The point is that when you need to get a point across, it’s OK to change tactics to make sure the information sticks. In this case, I decided to make the audience the PowerPoint. I used a few props to show the various paradigms we use to describe what the industry uses for the word “cloud”

First, we talked about Infrastructure as a Service. I picked a gentleman who didn’t quite fit the hard hat and safety vest I picked out for him. Notice our “user” as she accesses our “Server” (complete with tray and glass) which has been virtualized.

Software as a service comes next. In this case, the user and potentially even customers just access software (represented here as a Windows ME box…) remotely – everything is virtualized.

Finally, Platform as a Service – Yup, Platform shoes as a necklace, and a tie-dye shirt to represent the 70’s – a decade when mainframes used stateless programming as well. Notice also the components of Windows Azure – Compute (Keyboard) Application Fabric (Toy Bus) and Storage (Bucket).

And at the end of the day, it’s all about serving those customers…

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

Setting up SQL Server Management Studio for Teaching or Demos

BuckWoody — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:17:00 GMT

My friend Paul Randal posted a blog entry on how he sets up SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) for demonstrations. I do a lot of teaching and presenting as well, and I’ve set up my environment in a similar way to help the audience see what I’m doing, and follow along.

You can do most everything in the SSMS menu of Tools | Options. This is what I change from the default settings:

Environment, General: At Startup: Open Object Explorer and New Query

Environment, Fonts and Colors: All fonts set to 12. Item Background set to a pale yellow color.

Text Editor, Settings: Word Wrap, Show visual glyphs

Text Editor, Display: Line Numbers

Query Results, SQL Server, Results to Grid: Display results in a separate tab

Query Results, SQL Server, Results to Grid: Switch to results tab

Note: Even with this setup, I still use Zoomit. It’s a free utility (more here) which allows you not only to make the screen much larger wherever your mouse pointer is, but allows you to type, draw and even set a timer for breaks in your class. If you teach or present, get it, learn it and use it. If you see a presenter that isn’t using it, make them stop and set it up. There’s a minimal install and it takes seconds to understand.