Search results matching tags 'Cloud', 'Documentation', and 'Windows Azure'

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 – Write, Run or Use Software

BuckWoody — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:47:00 GMT

Windows Azure is a platform that has you covered, whether you need to write software, run software that is already written, or Install and use “canned” software whether you or someone else wrote it. Like any platform, it’s a set of tools you can use where it makes sense to solve a problem.

You can click on the graphic below for a larger picture of these components, or download a poster with more details here.

The primary location for Windows Azure information is located at http://windowsazure.com. You can find everything there from the development kits for writing software to pricing, licensing and tutorials on all of that.

I have a few links here for learning to use Windows Azure – although it’s best if you focus not on the tools, but what you want to solve. I’ve got it broken down here into various sections, so you can quickly locate things you want to know. I’ll include resources here from Microsoft and elsewhere – I use these same resources in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS) I do with my clients worldwide.

There is also a great video series on Cloud Fundamentals here, if you have some time to watch them. It's a great series that covers a lot of ground.

Write Software

Also called “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), Windows Azure has lots of components you can use together or separately that allow you to write software in .NET or various Open Source languages to work completely online, or in partnership with code you have on-premises or both – even if you’re using other cloud providers. Keep in mind that all of the features you see here can be used together, or independently. For instance, you might only use a Web Site, or use Storage, but you can use both together. You can access all of these components through standard REST API calls, or using our Software Development Kit’s API’s, which are a lot easier. In any case, you simply use Visual Studio, Eclipse, Cloud9 IDE, or even a text editor to write your code from a Mac, PC or Linux.

Components you can use:

Azure Web Sites: Windows Azure Web Sites allow you to quickly write an deploy websites, without setting a Virtual Machine, installing a web server or configuring complex settings. They work alone, with other Windows Azure Web Sites, or with other parts of Windows Azure. Read more about deciding to use Web Sites or Roles.

Web and Worker Roles: Windows Azure Web Roles give you a full stateless computing instance with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and configured. Windows Azure Worker Roles give you a full stateless computing instance without Information Services (IIS) installed, often used in a "Services" mode. Scale-out is achieved either manually or programmatically under your control.

Storage: Windows Azure Storage types include Blobs to store raw binary data, Tables to use key/value pair data (like NoSQL data structures), Queues that allow interaction between stateless roles, and a relational SQL Server database.

Other Services: Windows Azure has many other services such as a security mechanism, a Cache (memcacheD compliant), a Service Bus, a Traffic Manager and more. Once again, these features can be used with a Windows Azure project, or alone based on your needs.

Windows Azure Mobile Services: A simple framework service which enables you to quickly develop the back-end for mobile services. For the front-end, check out the iOS SDK, news about the Android SDK, and the Windows Phone SDK.

Various Languages: Windows Azure supports the .NET stack of languages, as well as many Open-Source languages like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, C++ and more.

Use Software

Also called “Software as a Service” (SaaS) this often means consumer or business-level software like Hotmail or Office 365. In other words, you simply log on, use the software, and log off – there’s nothing to install, and little to even configure. For the Information Technology professional, however, It’s not quite the same. We want software that provides services, but in a platform. That means we want things like Hadoop or other software we don’t want to have to install and configure.

Components you can use:

Kits: Various software “kits” or packages are supported with just a few clicks, such as Umbraco, Wordpress, and others.

Windows Azure Media Services: Windows Azure Media Services is a suite of services that allows you to upload media for encoding, processing and even streaming – or even one or more of those functions. We can add DRM and even commercials to your media if you like. Windows Azure Media Services is used to stream large events all the way down to small training videos.

High Performance Computing and “Big Data”: Windows Azure allows you to scale to huge workloads using a few clicks to deploy Hadoop Clusters or the High Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, accepting HPC Jobs, Pig and Hive Jobs, and even interfacing with Microsoft Excel.

Windows Azure Marketplace: Windows Azure Marketplace offers data and programs you can quickly implement and use – some free, some for-fee.

Run Software

Also known as “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), this offering allows you to build or simply choose a Virtual Machine to run server-based software.

Components you can use:

Persistent Virtual Machines: You can choose to install Windows Server, Windows Server with Active Directory, with SQL Server, or even SharePoint from a pre-configured gallery. You can configure your own server images with standard Hyper-V technology and load them yourselves – and even bring them back when you’re done. As a new offering, we also even allow you to select various distributions of Linux – a first for Microsoft.

Windows Azure Connect: You can connect your on-premises networks to Windows Azure Instances.

Storage: Windows Azure Storage can be used as a remote backup, a hybrid storage location and more using software or even hardware appliances.

Decision Matrix

With all of these options, you can use Windows Azure to solve just about any computing problem. It’s often hard to know when to use something on-premises, in the cloud, and what kind of service to use.

I’ve used a decision matrix in the last couple of years to take a particular problem and choose the proper technology to solve it. It’s all about options – there is no “silver bullet”, whether that’s Windows Azure or any other set of functions. I take the problem, decide which particular component I want to own and control – and choose the column that has that box darkened. For instance, if I have to control the wiring for a solution (a requirement in some military and government installations), that means the “Networking” component needs to be dark, and so I select the “On Premises” column for that particular solution. If I just need the solution provided and I want no control at all, I can look as “Software as a Service” solutions.

Security, Pricing, and Other Info

Security: Security is one of the first questions you should ask in any distributed computing environment. We have certification info, coding guidelines and more, even a general “Request for Information” RFI Response already created for you.

Pricing: Are there licenses? How much does this cost? Is there a way to estimate the costs in this new environment?

New Features: Many new features were added to Windows Azure - and you can keep up to date with community information released monthly here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/davidmcg/

Windows Azure Cookbooks: Great resource for architecture solutions - http://www.notsotrivial.net/blog/category/Architecture.aspx

Support: Software Support on Virtual Machines, general support, support plans

Hands-On Labs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/jj618399

Windows Azure Capability Discussion Presentation and Windows Azure Solution Implementer Guide and Windows Azure Business Priorities Guide

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/

How Microsoft helps you NOT break your Windows Azure Application: Storage Services Versioning

BuckWoody — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:42:57 GMT

One of the advantages of using Windows Azure to run your code is that you don’t have to constantly manage upgrades on your platform. While that’s a big advantage indeed, it immediately brings up the question - how do the upgrades happen? Microsoft upgrades the Azure platform in periodic increments, and the components that are affected are documented.

This brings up another question - upgrades mean change, and change can sometimes alter the way you might implement a feature. What if you have taken a dependency on some feature in your code that has been altered by an upgrade? Windows Azure does have an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Process, which I’ll reference at the end of this post. But beyond that, there are some features we’ve put into place that will help you manage many of these changes. One of those is being able to set the version of storage features you would like your code to use.

Windows Azure is made up of three main component areas: Computing, Storage and a group of features called the Application Fabric. You can use these components together or separately, depending on what you would like your application to do. In this post I’ll deal with the version control in the storage subsystem - in other posts I’ll explain how to track and in some cases control the versions of the other components you work with.

When you send a request to a Windows Azure resource, you’re actually using a REST call. That’s a three-part call to the system that has a request (called a URI), a header, and a body of code you want to send. So a typical call, such as to a table, might look like this example, which changes the properties of a Blob:

URI:
PUT http://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/?restype=service&comp=properties HTTP/1.1

Header:
x-ms-version: 2011-08-18
x-ms-date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:28:19 GMT
Authorization: SharedKey
myaccount:Z1lTLDwtq5o1UYQluucdsXk6/iB7YxEu0m6VofAEkUE=
Host: myaccount.table.core.windows.net

Body:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<StorageServiceProperties>
    <Logging>
        <Version>1.0</Version>
        <Delete>true</Delete>
        <Read>false</Read>
        <Write>true</Write>
        <RetentionPolicy>
            <Enabled>true</Enabled>
            <Days>7</Days>
        </RetentionPolicy>
    </Logging>
    <Metrics>
        <Version>1.0</Version>
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>
        <IncludeAPIs>false</IncludeAPIs>
        <RetentionPolicy>
            <Enabled>true</Enabled>
            <Days>7</Days>
        </RetentionPolicy>
    </Metrics>
</StorageServiceProperties>

(Source of this code)

You can see that I’ve highlighted a portion of the header block - that’s where you set the version of the Storage Services you would like to use. You can find a list of the features introduced in each version here. It’s not a requirement of adding that element to the header, but it’s best practices to do so.

You don’t have to use REST calls directly, however. It’s more common to use the API in the Software Development Kit to just change the property in your IDE environment - the setting you’re looking for there is the Set Storage Service Properties call.

Interestingly, rather than a breaking change you might run into an unexpected behavior if you are not aware of these parameters. In some code I recently reviewed a newer feature from the storage system failed when it was called. On inspection I found that the developer had used an older codeblock from a previous version of the storage system - he was not aware you can set the version of storage in the call. We changed the header to the latest version, and everything worked as expected.

References:

The Storage Services Versioning and the changes for each version:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dd894041.aspx

Windows Azure Application Lifecycle Management:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803362.aspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Windows-Azure-Jump-Start-03-Windows-Azure-Lifecycle-Part-1

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Australia/Tech-Ed-Australia-2011/COS201

Computer books are dead. Well, some of them, anyway.

BuckWoody — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:58:23 GMT

I read a lot. I mean a LOT. It seems that computer professionals have much in common with medical professionals – we have to read in order to stay on top of our game. For me, this used to mean web sites, magazines, and other print medium, and of course lots of books. I’ve even written several computer books myself and had them published.

Whenever I teach a class, do a presentation, or hold an architectural design session on a new (or new to that person) technology, they usually follow up with “what’s a good book for learning X technology?” This happens so often that I have a list I keep of the titles I like for a particular subject – you probably have similar book lists.

Windows, SQL Server, and other Microsoft products change on an average of around three or four year cycles. That’s enough time to play with a beta product, wait until it releases, and write a solid book about it, and have that in a decent market for sales, and allow people to read and recommend it.

Enter “the Cloud” – Distributed Computing.

Windows Azure and SQL Azure don’t release every three years. Changes – some of them dramatic – release every three or four months. You can’t even write a book that fast, much less update it that quickly and re-sell it. So what is a technical professional to do?

Well, although I really like a couple of books I’ve read so far (especially this one, print and e-book version here), they are out of date almost by the time they publish. Instead, I rely on blogs, the web, documentation from the vendor and how-to articles published online. Many of these, ironically, are stored, hosted or delivered using – wait for it – Windows Azure. That’s interesting because it’s a medium that describes itself – “reflection”, anyone?

This brings up an interesting conundrum. Books have a version, are arranged, thought-out and categorized. Since I’m now getting information off of the web, it’s difficult to figure out whether that material is correct at the time, what level it’s aimed at – and forget about any coherent structure. It’s topic-by-topic.

So, like most of you, I use links and favorites to arrange things. And I found myself making “virtual books” by essentially creating my own Table-Of-Contents. I’ve shared some of those, such as my Windows and SQL Azure Learning Plan. The key is that I have to update that to ensure that the latest information is there – otherwise it becomes an organized list that is not authoritative.

Don’t get me wrong – I still have tons of (e-book format) books, especially on “conceptual” topics like development paradigms and so on. But when it comes to specifics and how-to’s – electronic medium is best for me. It’s more current, adaptable, searchable, interactive and immersive than books. But how long will I retain regular print-type books? We’ll see. Times, they are a changing – fast.