Search results matching tags 'cloud computing', 'Concepts', 'Azure', and 'Windows Azure'

How Does the Cloud Change a Developer's Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:26:51 GMT

I've recently posted a blog on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization, another on how the cloud changes a Database Administrator's job, and the last post dealt with the Systems Administrator. In this post I'll cover the changes facing the Software Developer when using the cloud.

The software developer role was the earliest adopter of cloud computing. This makes perfect sense, because the software developer has always used computing "as a service" - they (most often) don't buy and configure servers, platforms and the like, they write code that runs on those platforms. And there's probably not a simpler definition of a software developer to be found, but as with all simple statements, you lose fidelity and detail. I'll offer a more complete list in a moment.

Because the software developer's process involves designing, testing and writing code locally and then migrating it to a production environment, all of the paradigms in cloud computing - from IaaS to PaaS to SaaS - come naturally.

The Software Developer's Role

The software developer has evolved since the earliest days of programming.The software developer not only "writes code" - there are far more tasks involved in modern systems development:

Assisting the Business Role(s) in developing software specifications
Planning software system components and modules
Designing system components
Working in teams writing classes, modules, interfaces and software endpoints
Designing data layouts, architectures, access and other data controls
Designing and implementing security, either programmatic, declarative, or referential
Mixing and matching various languages, scripting and other constructs within the system
Designing and implementing user and account security rights and restrictions
Designing various software code tests - unit, functional, fuzz, integration, regression, performance and others
Deploying systems
Managing and maintaining code updates and changes

Like most of the previous roles, those tasks also unpacks into a larger set of tasks, and no single developer has exactly that same list. And like the DBA, the role is often more, or less of that list based on where the developer works. Smaller companies may include the development platform in the duties so that a developer is also a systems administrator. In larger organizations I've seen developers that specialized on User Interfaces, Engine Components, Data Controls or other specific areas.

How the Cloud Changes Things

The software developer role obviously has the same concerns and impacts of "the cloud" as the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination).

The big changes for a developer include three major areas: Hybrid Software Design, Security, and Distributed Computing.

Hybrid Software Design

After the PC revolution, software developers designed systems that ran primarily on a single computer. From there the industry moved to "client/server", where most of the code still lived on the user's workstation, and various levels of state (such as the data layer) moved to a server over fast connected lines. After than followed the Internet phase, which had less to do with HTML coding than it did with state-less architectures. While no architecture is truly stateless, there are ways of allowing the client to be in a different state than the server of the application at any one time - this is the way the Web works.

Even so, the developer often simply moved one the primary layers (such as Model, View or Controller) to the server, using the User Interface merely as the View or Presentation layer. While technically stateless, this doesn't require a great deal of architecture change - there are various software modules that run on a server, and perhaps that connects to a remote data server. In the end, it's still a single paradigm.

We now have the ability to run IaaS (hardware abstraction), PaaS (hardware, operating system and runtime abstraction) and SaaS (everything abstracted, API calls only) in a single environment such as Windows Azure. A single application might have a Web-based Interface Server with federated processes (using a PaaS set of roles), a database service (using a SaaS provider such as Windows Azure SQL Database), a specialized process in Linux (using an IaaS role in Windows Azure) and a translator API (from the Windows Azure Marketplace). This example involves only one vendor - Microsoft. I've seen applications that use multiple vendors in this same way.

Thinking this way opens up a great deal of flexibility - and complexity. Complexity isn't evil; it's how complicated things get done many times. The modern developer needs to understand how to build hybrid software architectures.

Resources: Hybrid Architectures with step-by-step instructions and examples: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx and Windows Azure Hybrid Systems: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx?AnnouncementFeed

Security

Having a single security boundary, such as "everyone who works in my company", is a relatively simple problem to solve. Normally the System Administrators configure and control a security provider, such as Active Directory, and developers can access that security layer programmatically. That allows for good separation of duties and role-based control.

In modern applications, clients, managers, and users both internal and external need various levels of access to the same objects, code and data. A client should be able to enter an order, a store should be able to accept the order, the credit-card company should be able to check the order and authorize payment, and the managers should be able to report on the order or change it if needed. Using role-based security across multiple domains would be impossible to maintain.

Enter "claims-based" authentication. In this paradigm, the user logs in with whatever security they use - corporate or other Active Directory, Facebook, Google, whatever. The application (using Windows Identity Foundation or WIF) can accept a "claim" from that provider, and the developer can match whatever parts of that claim they wish to the objects, code and data. And example might be useful.

Buck logs in to his corporate Active Directory (AD), and attempts to use a program based in Windows Azure. Windows Azure rejects the login silently, and is configured to check with Buck's AD. Buck's AD says "yes, I know Buck, and he has been granted the following claims: "partner", "manager", "approver". The developer does not need to know about Buck's AD, Buck, his login, or anything else. She simply codes the proper data access to allow "approver" to approve a sale.

This allows a lot of control, at a very fine level, without having to get into the details of each security provider. .

Resources: Overview of using claims-based Azure Security: http://adnanboz.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/claims-based-access-and-windows-azure/

Distributed Computing

Is there a difference between stateless computing, or even the hybrid programming I mentioned earlier, and "Distributed Computing"? Yes - the primary difference is latency. Even stateless code can have too small a tolerance for latency.

Dealing with slow connectivity, or breaks in connections has many impacts. One method of dealing with this is to locate data and computing of that data as closely as possible, even if this means relaxing consistency or duplicating data. Another method is to go back to a great paradigm from the past that is possible underused today is a Service Oriented Architecture. The Windows Azure Service Bus is possibly one of the fastest and easiest way to adopt cloud computing without completely rearchitecting your application.

References: Great breakdown of the thought process around a distributed architecture: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj553517.aspx and using a Windows Azure Relay Service: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/service-bus-relay/

How Does the Cloud Change a Systems Administrator's Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:46:02 GMT

I recently posted a blog entry on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization, and another on how the cloud changes a database administrator's job. This time I'll cover a few of the changes the cloud brings for the Systems Administrator.

The systems administrator shares some similarity with the database administrator, in that it's rare to find a single job description that fits all people in that role. There are some basic similarities among various organizations, so I'll use those as a starting point.

The Systems Administrator Role

The systems administrator role is perhaps one of the earliest in technology, at least as far as the implementation of a system goes. In the earliest days of computing, electronic technical professionals built prototype computers, and newly minted "programmers" wrote logical instructions for these systems. In time, the systems administration role owned the installation, configuration, operation and tuning of these systems once they went into production and use on a larger scale. A few of the tasks associated with the role are:

Planning, installing and configuring systems
Planning, designing and creating storage, networking and other system components
Planning, designing and implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery for each system
Maintaining and monitoring systems
Implementing performance tuning systems based on monitoring
Re-balancing workloads across servers based on monitoring
Securing systems, networks and individual computers based on requirements and implementation
Planning, implementing and controlling user and account security rights and restrictions

Like the DBA, that’s just a short list, and each of those tasks also unpacks into a larger set of tasks. And like the DBA, the role is often more, or less of that list based on where the system administrator works. In smaller companies I've been a "systems administrator" that also ran the database and mail servers, web systems, front-line end-user support and made the coffee. In larger organization I was only able to spend the day on one or two parts of that list, since there were so many systems and they interacted with so many other systems.

Systems administrators often deal with multiple operating systems. In one company where I was a system administrator, I worked with no less than six operating systems from mainframes to PC servers, two of them highly specialized to the hardware.

How the Cloud Changes Things

The systems administrator has the same concerns and impacts of "the cloud" as the DBA and the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination).

I've mentioned the three big buckets of cloud computing, dealing with Virtual Machines (IaaS) writing code (PaaS) and using software that’s already written and being delivered via an Application Programming Interface (API). In my experience, the systems administrator role normally tackles the first "bucket" most often - IaaS, which has at its base the technology of virtualization.

Virtualization

One of the first areas the systems administrator is involved with "the cloud" is in the area of virtualization. This technology isn't new - in fact, I worked on Virtual Machines (VM's) way back in my mainframe days. It's the process of using software to emulate hardware - which has implications far beyond that simple sentence.

Virtualization is normally a standard on-premises process. When you take Virtual Machines and host them in another location, this is called Co-Location, or CoLo. Personally, I don't define either of these activities as "Cloud" computing - it's simply virtualization. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) normally involves several more components, at the very least being able to set up the systems (provision) and deploy them in a standard, automated way. It also involves (at a minimum) the ability to monitor, move and alter the systems using a prescribed methodology. There are other parts of IaaS to be sure, but this level above simply scripting installations or virtualizing a machine is where the system administrator becomes involved in this new "cloud computing" paradigm.

There are multiple VM technologies available, from the hypervisor that is built-in to the Windows operating system (Hyper-V) to third-party alternatives such as VMWare. The choice of cloud provider often dictates the selection of hypervisor. Windows Azure uses Hyper-V, and allows you to move systems from the cloud to the desktop and back again. Other providers use VMWare, or a proprietary format. Some allow you to push or pull images from the cloud service, others do not. The systems administrator must educate themselves on the business need and then select the cloud provider that best fits the requirements for a workload. It's also common to use several cloud providers within a single company.

Resources: Windows Azure Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/tutorials/virtual-machine-from-gallery/ and System Center: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/12/01/managing-and-monitoring-windows-azure-applications-with-system-center-2012.aspx

Cloud Computing Architecture - Private, Public and Hybrid

It's important to note that IaaS can be on-premises, at another facility, or both. The first is called "private cloud", the second "public cloud", and the third "hybrid cloud". Yes, these are marketing terms, but they are useful in describing where the decisions are for deploying a system. If data security is paramount, then private cloud may be the right choice for a given workload. If agility or cost is an issue, public cloud may be the right answer for another workload. And in many cases - perhaps most - using both architectures is the right way to split the workload.

The key is to understand the workload well. In the past the system administrator needed to know the component requirements, such as how much memory, CPU, network and storage a workload needed. In cloud computing, these are also concerns, but you need to add in the questions of cost, business use, location of users, security and other vectors. These concerns bring the systems administrator closer to the business and its goals.

Resources: Windows Azure Hybrid Systems: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh871440.aspx?AnnouncementFeed

DevOps

One new term introduced into cloud computing is "DevOps" - short for Developer Operations. Not everyone agrees that this is even a real "thing" - that it's a made-up term by cloud vendors. Regardless, there is a new set of tasks that the cloud brings that may sit within the purview of the system administrator.

Basically it involves the administration needed at the PaaS or SaaS level. The IaaS function of cloud computing holds most of the same characteristics as an on-premises system, defined the in the first list I mentioned above. But when the organization uses Platform as a Service, the operating system, much of the security, scale and other components of infrastructure are abstracted into the platform, and are often even controlled by the developer.

But once the application "goes live", there are a host of billing, controlling, scaling and other security questions that developers aren't equipped to handle. Who takes care of those? As companies are finding out, they need to appoint someone to cover these overlapped areas between developers and administrators.

References: How DevOps brings order: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/How-DevOps-brings-order-to-a-cloud-oriented-world and Managing Windows Azure: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/overview/

How Does the Cloud Change a Database Administrator’s Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:08:32 GMT

I recently posted a blog entry on how cloud computing would change the Systems Architect’s role in an organization. In a way, the Systems Architect has the easiest transition to a new way of using computing technologies. In fact, that’s actually part of the job description. I mentioned that a Systems Architect has three primary vectors to think about for cloud computing, as it applies to what they should do:

Knowledge - Which options are available to solve problems, and what are their strengths and weaknesses.
Experience - What has the System Architect seen and worked with in the past.
Coordination - A system design is based on multiple factors, and one person can't make all the choices. There will need to be others involved at every level of the solution, and the Systems Architect will need to know who those people are and how to work with them.

The Database Administrator Role

But a Database Administrator (DBA) is probably one of the harder roles to think about when it comes to cloud computing. First, let’s define what a Database Administrator usually thinks about as part of their job:

Planning, Installing and Configuring a Database Platform
Planning, designing and creating databases
Planning, designing and implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery for each database (HADR) based on requirements for its workload
Maintaining and monitoring the database platform
Implementing performance tuning on the databases based on monitoring
Re-balancing workloads across database servers based on monitoring
Securing databases platforms and individual databases based on requirements and implementation

That’s just a short list, and each of those unpacks into a larger set of tasks.

The issue is that I’ve never actually met a DBA that does all of those things, or just all of those things. Many times they do much more, sometimes the systems are so large they specialize on just a few of them.

And as you can see from the list, some of these areas are shared with other roles. For instance, in some shops, the DBA plans, purchases, sets up and configures the hardware for database servers. In others that’s done
by the Infrastructure Team. In some shops the DBA designs databases from software requirements, and in others the developers do that – or perhaps it’s done as a joint effort. The same holds true for database code – sometimes the
DBA does it, other times the developer, and still others it’s a shared task.

In fact, you could argue that there are few other roles in IT where the roles are so intermixed. Also, the DBA works with software the company develops, and software the company buys. They work with hardware, networking, security and software. There are certain aspects of design and tuning that are outside the purview of some of those things, and inside the others.

With all of these variables, simply telling a DBA that they should “use the cloud” is not the proper approach.

How the Cloud Changes Things

To be sure, the DBA has the same vectors as the Systems Architect. They need to educate themselves on the options within this new option (Knowledge), try a few test solutions out (Experience) and of course work with others on various parts of the implementation (Coordination). But it goes beyond that.

There are three big buckets of cloud computing, dealing with simply using a Virtual Machine (IaaS) to writing code without worrying about the virtualization or even the operating system (PaaS) and using software that’s already written and being delivered via an Application Programming Interface (API). Each of these has so many options and configurations that it’s often better to think about the problem you’re trying to solve rather than all of the technology within a given area - although some of that is certainly necessary anyway.

Database Platform Architecture

I’ll start with when the DBA should even consider cloud computing for a solution. Once again, it’s not an “all or nothing” paradigm, where you either run something on premises or in the cloud – it’s often a matter of selecting the right components to solve a problem. In my design sessions with DBA’s I break these down into three big areas where they might want to consider the cloud –and then we talk about how to implement each one:

Audiences
HADR
Data Services

Audiences

If the users of your database systems all sit in the same facility, you own the servers and networking, and the application servers are separate from the database server, it doesn’t usually make sense to take that database workload and place it on Windows Azure – or any other cloud provider. The latency alone prevents a satisfactory performance profile, and in some cases won’t work at all. It doesn’t matter if the cloud solution is cheaper or easier – if you’re moving a lot of data every second between an on-premises system and the cloud it won’t work well.

However – if your users are in multiple locations, especially globally, or you have a mix of company and external customer users, it might make sense to evaluate a shared data location. You still need to consider the implications of how much data the application server pushes back and forth, but you may be able to locate both the application server and SQL Server in an IaaS role. Assuming the data sent to the final client will work across public Internet channels, there may be a fit. There are security implications, but unless you have point-to-point connections for your current solution you’re faced with the same security questions on both options.

Your audience might also be developers looking for a way to quickly spin up a server and then turn it down when they are done, paying for the time and not the hardware or licenses. This is also a prime case for evaluating IaaS. And there are others that you'll find in your own organization as you work through the requirements you have.

Resources: Windows Azure Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/tutorials/virtual-machine-from-gallery/ and Windows Azure SQL Server Virtual Machines: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/install-sql-server/

HADR

The next possible place to consider using cloud computing with SQL Server is as a part of your High Availability and Disaster Recovery plans. In fact, this is the most common use I see for cloud computing and the Database Administrator. The key is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Based on each application’s requirements, you may find that using Windows Azure or even supplementing your current plan is
the right place to evaluate options. I’ve covered this use-case in more detail in another article.

References: SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery options with Windows Azure: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2013/01/08/microsoft-windows-azure-disaster-recovery-options-for-on-premises-sql-server.aspx

Data Services

Windows Azure, along with other cloud providers, offers another way to design, create and consume data. In this use-case, however, the tasks DBA’s normally perform for sizing, ordering and configuring a system don’t apply.

With Windows Azure SQL Databases (the artist formerly known as SQL Azure), you can simply create a database and begin using it. There are places where this fits and others where it doesn’t, and there are differences, limitations and enhancements, so it isn’t meant as replacement for what you could do with “Full-up” SQL Server on a Windows Azure Virtual Machine or an on-premises Instance. If a developer needs an Relational Database Management
(RDBMS) data store for a web-based application, then this might be a perfect fit.

But there is more to data services than Windows Azure SQL Databases. Windows Azure also offers MySQL as a service, RIAK and MongoDB (among others) and even Hadoop for larger distributed data sets. In addition you can use Windows Azure Reporting Services, and also tap into datasets and data functions in the Windows Azure Marketplace.

The key for the DBA with this option is that you will have to do a little investigation this time, and potentially without a specific workload in mind this time. I think that’s acceptable thing to ask – DBA’s constantly keep up with data processing trends, and most will consider different ways to solve a problem.

References:

Windows Azure SQL Databases: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/data-management/

Windows Azure Reporting Services: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/services/other/sql-reporting/

HDInsight Service (Hadoop on Azure): https://www.hadooponazure.com/

MongoDB Offerings on Windows Azure: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/linux/common-tasks/mongodb-on-a-linux-vm/

Windows Azure Marketplace: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/store/overview/

How Does the Cloud Change a Systems Architect’s Job?

BuckWoody — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:43:59 GMT

I know - I said I didn't like the "cloud" term, but my better-phrased "Distributed Systems" moniker just never took off like I had hoped. So I'll stick with the "c" word for now, at least until the search engines catch up with my more accurate term.

I thought I might spend a little time on how the cloud affects the way we work - from Systems Architects to Database Administrators and Developers, and Systems Administrators - a group often referred to as "IT Pro's". But each role within these groups have different aspects when using cloud computing. In this post we'll take a look at the role of the Systems Architect, and in the posts that follow I'll talk more about the other roles in the IT Pro area.

The Systems Architect Role

What does a "Systems Architect" do? Like most IT roles, it depends on the company or organization where they work. In fact, the term isn't even specific to technology, but I'll use it in that context here. In general, a Systems Architect takes the requirements for a given system, and assembles the relevant technology areas that best fulfill those requirements. That's a single-sentence explanation, and needs further unpacking.

As an example, a Systems Architect at a medical firm is presented with a set of requirements for tracking a patient through the entire care cycle. The Systems Architect first looks at all of the requirements for the data that needs to be collected based on business, financial, regulations, and other requirements, and then how that data needs to flow from one system to another. They check the security requirements, performance, location and other aspects of the system. They then check to see which options are available for processing that data, and which parts they should "build or buy".

For instance, the requirements might be so specific that only custom code is the proper solution - but even there, choices still exist, such as which language(s) to use, what type of data persistence (a Relational Database Management System or or other data storage and processing) will be used, what talent within the company is available for the system and a myriad of other decision.

All of this boils down to three primary vectors:

Knowledge - Which options are available to solve problems, and what are their strengths and weaknesses.
Experience - What has the System Architect seen and worked with in the past.
Coordination - A system design is based on multiple factors, and one person can't make all the choices. There will need to be others involved at every level of the solution, and the Systems Architect will need to know who those people are and how to work with them.

How the Cloud Changes Things

From the outset, it doesn't seem that using a distributed system would change anything in the Systems Architect role. Isn't the cloud simply another option that the Systems Architect needs to learn and apply? Yes, that is true - but it goes a bit deeper. Let's return to those vectors a moment to see what a Systems Architect needs to take into account.

Knowledge

The first and probably most obvious impact is learning about cloud technologies. But the important part of that knowledge is to learn when and where to use each service. It's a common misconception that the cloud should be an "all or nothing" approach. That's just not true - every Windows Azure project I work on has some element of on-premises interaction, and in some cases only one small part of a solution is placed on the Windows Azure architecture. Since Windows Azure contains IaaS (VM's) PaaS (you write code, we run it) and even SaaS (Such as Hadoop or Media Services), a given architecture can use multiple components even within just one provider. And I've worked on several projects where the customer used not only Windows Azure and On-Premises environments, but also components from other providers. That's not only acceptable, but often the best way to solve a given problem.

As part of the learning experience, it's vital to keep in mind what you need to pick as key decision points. In your organization, cost could be ranked higher than performance, or perhaps security is the highest decision point.

To stay educated, there are various journals, websites and conferences that Systems Architects use to keep current. Almost all of those are talking about "cloud" - but there is no substitute for learning from the vendor about their solution. I'm speaking here of the technical information, not the marketing information. The marketing information is also useful, at least from a familiarity standpoint, but the technical information is what you need.

Resource: For Windows Azure, the Systems Architect can start here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2012/06/13/windows-azure-write-run-or-use-software.aspx

Experience

Cloud computing is relatively new - it's only been out a few years, and the main competitors are only now settling in to their respective areas. It might not be common for a Systems Architect to have a lot of hands-on experience with cloud projects.

Even so, there are ways to leverage the experience of others, such as direct contact or even attending conferences where customers present findings from their experiences.

You can also gain hands-on experience by setting up pilots and proof-of-concept projects yourself. Most all vendors - Microsoft included - have free time available on their systems. The key to an experiment like this is choosing some problem you are familiar with that exercises as many features in the platform as possible. There is no substitute for working with a platform when you want to design a solution.

Coordination

Probably one of the largest changes in the Systems Architect role that the cloud brings is in the area of coordination. When a Systems Architect deals with the business and other technical professionals, there is a 20+ year history of technology that we are all familiar with. When you mention "the cloud", those audiences may not have spent the time you have in understanding what that means - and often they think it means the "all or nothing" approach I mentioned earlier.

I've found that a series of "lunch and learns" for the technical staff is useful to explain to each role-group how the cloud is used in their area is useful. In the posts that follow this one, I'll give you some material for those. For managers and business professionals, you'll want to go a different route. I've found that an "Executive Briefing" e-mail, consisting of about a page, with headings that are applicable to your audience.

Resource: Writing Executive Summaries: http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=76

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 11) - Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

BuckWoody — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:50:34 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 April 2012 was: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here.

Why I chose this book:

I actually know a few of the authors on this book, so when they told me about it I wanted to check it out. The premise of the book is exactly as it states in the title - to learn how to solve a problem using products from Microsoft.

What I learned:

I liked the book - a lot. They've arranged the content in a "Solution Decision Framework", that presents a few elements to help you identify a need and then propose alternate solutions to solve them, and then the rationale for the choice. But the payoff is that the authors then walk through the solution they implement and what they ran into doing it.

I really liked this approach. It's not a huge book, but one I've referred to again since I've read it. It's fairly comprehensive, and includes server-oriented products, not things like Microsoft Office or other client-side tools. In fact, I would LOVE to have a work like this for Open Source and other vendors as well - would make for a great library for a Systems Architect. This one is unashamedly aimed at the Microsoft products, and even if I didn't work here, I'd be fine with that. As I said, it would be interesting to see some books on other platforms like this, but I haven't run across something that presents other systems in quite this way.

And that brings up an interesting point - This book is aimed at folks who create solutions within an organization. It's not aimed at Administrators, DBA's, Developers or the like, although I think all of those audiences could benefit from reading it. The solutions are made up, and not to a huge level of depth - nor should they be. It's a great exercise in thinking these kinds of things through in a structured way.

The information is a bit dated, especially for Windows and SQL Azure. While the general concepts hold, the cloud platform from Microsoft is evolving so quickly that any printed book finds it hard to keep up with the improvements.

I do have one quibble with the text - the chapters are a bit uneven. This is always a danger with multiple authors, but it shows up in a couple of chapters. I winced at one of the chapters that tried to take a more conversational, humorous style. This kind of academic work doesn't lend itself to that style.

I recommend you get the book - and use it. I hope they keep it updated - I'll be a frequent customer. :)

Preparation is key to a successful cloud deployment

BuckWoody — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:09:16 GMT

If you want to be wise, watch the actions and outcomes of others. Emulate the successful actions, and avoid the actions that cause failure. That’s true in life in general - and in technology projects in specific.

I’ve worked with several clients who have created or migrated an application to “the cloud” - meaning using Microsoft Windows Azure or another provider. Although the statement in the title of this post is trite, I cannot over-emphasize how accurate it is. In every case of those who had a great experience with a distributed computing environment (which is thankfully the vast majority of my projects),

What kind of preparation do you need to do? Here are some tips I’ve learned in the successful (and not-so-successful) deployments I’ve seen:

Follow standard recommendations for successful projects in general

You and your organization have probably done a few projects before - this one should have the same general attributes: a well-defined goal, a small, motivated team, a realistic timeline, and an adequate budget. I know, I know, you *never* seem to get those things - but if you don’t, you’ll fail. Simple as that.

Educate yourself

Computing technology started out on a single set of hardware for a single purpose - and realizing the limits of the hardware at hand, systems designers quickly realized that scale-out and virtualization was key. No, that’s not new - mainframes almost always worked on the concept of scale-out and virtual machines. But we switched in the 1980’s to single-user systems again, and we’ve been there ever since. By that I mean you install an OS on the things you work on. Now we move back to distributed system concepts, and there are some real differences. You’ll need to learn how those work, and do things a new way. Hey, we’re IT - we LOVE learning new things, right?

Get a partner if needed

There are a few of us white-haired Gandalf’s around that remember how to work in a distributed system, but if it’s new to you, that’s completely OK. You can save yourself a world of trouble by working with someone who’s done this before - a partner you hire, someone from Microsoft Consulting, whatever.

And don’t forget support - who will handle each issue, what is the escalation model, who are your contacts at Microsoft, and what is your “light’s out” strategy?

“A new broom sweeps clean”, the old adage goes, but the old brooms know where the dirt is.

Build a model

Take some time to do a Proof of Concept on your local system and using your Azure hours from your MSDN account if you have one. Going through this build - and being willing to throw it away and try it a different way - is invaluable.

Test your theories

Three statisticians are walking in a field. They see a rabbit - the first guy raises his gun, firing far in front of the rabbit. The second guy simultaneously raises his gun and fires far behind the rabbit. The third guy yells “We got him!”

Not every theory is correct - not every attempt is the right one. Build in your success tests while you’re building your model. Then check them - don’t leave this step out.

Rinse, lather, repeat

This is advice from a shampoo bottle - which I’ve never used (I don’t really have that much hair - especially now). But in a “Cloud” project, it’s important. It’s an evolving system, that gains new improvements at an amazing rate. As soon as you deploy and stabilize you need to start the process over again. If you created your system in a Services model, with contracts for the APIs and abstracted code, this is far easier.

It’s not hard to do a cloud project right. But it’s really simple to do it wrong. Follow these guidelines and you’ll learn from the successes - and mistakes - of others.

Big Data - A Microsoft Tools Approach

BuckWoody — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:16:00 GMT

(As with all of these types of posts, check the date of the latest update I’ve made here. Anything older than 6 months is probably out of date, given the speed with which we release new features into Windows and SQL Azure)

I don’t normally like to discuss things in terms of tools. I find that whenever you start with a given tool (or even a tool stack) it’s too easy to fit the problem to the tool(s), rather than the other way around as it should be.

That being said, it’s often useful to have an example to work through to better understand a concept. But like many ideas in Computer Science, “Big Data” is too broad a term in use to show a single example that brings out the multiple processes, use-cases and patterns you can use it for.

So we turn to a description of the tools you can use to analyze large data sets. “Big Data” is a term used lately to describe data sets that have the “Four V’s” as a characteristic, but I have a simpler definition I like to use:

Big Data involves a data set too large to process in a reasonable period of time

I realize that’s a bit broad, but in my mind it answers the question and is fairly future-proof. The general idea is that you want to analyze some data, and using whatever current methods, storage, compute and so on that you have at hand it doesn’t allow you to finish processing it in a time period that you are comfortable with. I’ll explain some new tools you can use for this processing.

Yes, this post is Microsoft-centric. There are probably posts from other vendors and open-source that cover this process in the way they best see fit. And of course you can always “mix and match”, meaning using Microsoft for one or more parts of the process and other vendors or open-source for another. I never advise that you use any one vendor blindly - educate yourself, examine the facts, perform some tests and choose whatever mix of technologies best solves your problem.

At the risk of being vendor-specific, and probably incomplete, I use the following short list of tools Microsoft has for working with “Big Data”. There is no single package that performs all phases of analysis. These tools are what I use; they should not be taken as a Microsoft authoritative testament to the toolset we’ll finalize for a given problem-space. In fact, that’s the key: find the problem and then fit the tools to that.

Process Types

I break up the analysis of the data into two process types. The first is examining and processing the data in-line, meaning as the data passes through some process. The second is a store-analyze-present process.

Processing Data In-Line

Processing data in-line means that the data doesn’t have a destination - it remains in the source system. But as it moves from an input or is routed to storage within the source system, various methods are available to examine the data as it passes, and either trigger some action or create some analysis.

You might not think of this as “Big Data”, but in fact it can be. Organizations have huge amounts of data stored in multiple systems. Many times the data from these systems do not end up in a database for evaluation. There are options, however, to evaluate that data real-time and either act on the data or perhaps copy or stream it to another process for evaluation.

The advantage of an in-stream data analysis is that you don’t necessarily have to store the data again to work with it. That’s also a disadvantage - depending on how you architect the solution, you might not retain a historical record. One method of dealing with this requirement is to trigger a rollup collection or a more detailed collection based on the event.

StreamInsight - StreamInsight is Microsoft’s “Complex Event Processing” or CEP engine. This product, hooked into SQL Server 2008R2, has multiple ways of interacting with a data flow. You can create adapters to talk with systems, and then examine the data mid-stream and create triggers to do something with it. You can read more about StreamInsight here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee391416(v=sql.110).aspx

BizTalk - When there is more latency available between the initiation of the data and its processing, you can use Microsoft BizTalk. This is a message-passing and Service Bus oriented tool, and it can also be used to join system’s data together than normally does not have a direct link, for instance a Mainframe system to SQL Server. You can learn more about BizTalk here: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/overview.aspx

.NET and the Windows Azure Service Bus - Along the same lines as BizTalk but with a more programming-oriented design are the Windows and Windows Azure Service Bus tools. The Service Bus allows you to pass messages as well, and opens up web interactions and even inter-company routing. BizTalk can do this as well, but the Service Bus tools use an API approach for designing the flow and interfaces you want. The Service Bus offerings are also intended as near real-time, not as a streaming interface. You can learn more about the Windows Azure Service Bus here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/tour/service-bus/ and more about the Event Processing side here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd569756.aspx

Store-Analyze-Present

A more traditional approach with an organization’s data is to store the data and analyze it out-of-band. This began with simply running code over a data store, but as locking and blocking became an issue on a file system, Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMs) were created. Over time a distinction was made between data used in an online processing system, meant to be highly available for writing data (OLTP) and systems designed for analytical and reporting purposes (OLAP).

Later the data grew larger than these systems were designed for, primarily due to consistency requirements. In analysis, however, consistency isn’t always a requirement, and so file-based systems for that analysis were re-introduced from the Mainframe concepts, with new technology layered in for speed and size.

I normally break up the process of analyzing large data sets into four phases:

Source and Transfer - Obtaining the data at its source and transferring or loading it into the storage; optionally transforming it along the way
Store and Process - Data is stored on some sort of persistence, and in some cases an engine handles the acquisition and placement on persistent storage, as well as retrieval through an interface.
Analysis - A new layer introduced with “Big Data” is a separate analysis step. This is dependent on the engine or storage methodology, is often programming language or script based, and sometimes re-introduces the analysis back into the data. Some engines and processes combine this function into the previous phase.
Presentation - In most cases, the data wants a graphical representation to comprehend, especially in a series or trend analysis. In other cases a simple symbolic representation, similar to the “dashboard” elements in a Business Intelligence suite. Presentation tools may also have an analysis or refinement capability to allow end-users to work with the data sets. As in the Analysis phase, some methodologies bundle in the Analysis and Presentation phases into one toolset.

Source and Transfer

You’ll notice in this area, along with those that follow, Microsoft is adopting not only its own technologies but those within open-source. This is a positive sign, and means that you will have a best-of-breed, supported set of tools to move the data from one location to another. Traditional file-copy, File Transfer Protocol and more are certainly options, but do not normally deal with moving datasets.

I’ve already mentioned the ability of a streaming tool to push data into a store-analyze-present model, so I’ll follow up that discussion with the tools that can extract data from one source and place it in another.

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)/SQL Server Bulk Copy Program (BCP) - SSIS is a SQL Server tool used to move data from one location to another, and optionally perform transform or other processes as it does so. You are not limited to working with SQL Server data - in fact, almost any modern source of data from text to various database platforms is available to move to various systems. It is also extremely fast and has a rich development environment. You can learn more about SSIS here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141026.aspx BCP is a tool that has been used with SQL Server data since the first releases; it has multiple sources and destinations as well. It is a command-line utility,and has some limited transform capabilities. You can learn more about BCP here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162802.aspx

Sqoop - Tied to Microsoft’s latest announcements with Hadoop on Windows and Windows Azure, Sqoop is a tool that is used to move data between SQL Server 2008R2 (and higher) and Hadoop, quickly and efficiently. You can read more about that in the Readme file here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27584

Application Programming Interfaces - API’s exist in most every major language that can connect to one data source, access data, optionally transforming it and storing it in another system. Most every dialect of the .NET-based languages contain methods to perform this task.

Store and Process

Data at rest is normally used for historical analysis. In some cases this analysis is performed near real-time, and in others historical data is analyzed periodically. Systems that handle data at rest range from simple storage to active management engines.

SQL Server - Microsoft’s flagship RDBMS can indeed store massive amounts of complex data. I am familiar with a two systems in excess of 300 Terabytes of federated data, and the Pan-Starrs project is designed to handle 1+ Petabyte of data. The theoretical limit of SQL Server DataCenter edition is 540 Petabytes. SQL Server is an engine, so the data access and storage is handled in an abstract layer that also handles concurrency for ACID properties. You can learn more about SQL Server here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/product-info/compare.aspx

SQL Azure Federations - SQL Azure is a database service from Microsoft associated with the Windows Azure platform. Database Servers are multi-tenant, but are shared across a “fabric” that moves active databases for redundancy and performance. Copies of all databases are kept triple-redundant with a consistent commitment model. Databases are (at this writing - check http://WindowsAzure.com for the latest) capped at a 150 GB size limit per database. However, Microsoft released a “Federation” technology, allowing you to query a head node and have the data federated out to multiple databases. This improves both size and performance. You can read more about SQL Azure Federations here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2281.federations-building-scalable-elastic-and-multi-tenant-database-solutions-with-sql-azure.aspx

Analysis Services - The Business Intelligence engine within SQL Server, called Analysis Services, can also handle extremely large data systems. In addition to traditional BI data store layouts (ROLAP, MOLAP and HOLAP), the latest version of SQL Server introduces the Vertipaq column-storage technology allowing more direct access to data and a different level of compression. You can read more about Analysis Services here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/analysis-services.aspx and more about Vertipaq here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212945(v=SQL.110).aspx

Parallel Data Warehouse - The Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) offering from Microsoft is largely described by the title. Accessed in multiple ways including using Transact-SQL (the Microsoft dialect of the Structured Query Language), This is an MPP appliance scaling in parallel to extremely large datasets. It is a hardware and software offering - you can learn more about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/data-warehousing/pdw.aspx

HPC Server - Microsoft’s High-Performance Computing version of Windows Server deals not only with large data sets, but with extremely complicated computing requirements. A scale-out architecture and inter-operation with Linux systems, as well as dozens of applications pre-written to work with this server make this a capable “Big Data” system. It is a mature offering, with a long track record of success in scientific, financial and other areas of data processing. It is available both on premises and in Windows Azure, and also in a hybrid of both models, allowing you to “rent” a super-computer when needed. You can read more about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/hpc/en/us/product/cluster-computing.aspx

Hadoop - Pairing up with Hortonworks, Microsoft has released the Hadoop Open-Source system - including HDFS and a Map/Reduce standardized software, Hive and Pig - on Windows and the Windows Azure platform. This is not a customized version; off-the-shelf concepts and queries work well here. You can read more about Hadoop here: http://hadoop.apache.org/common/docs/current/ and you can read more about Microsoft’s offerings here: http://hortonworks.com/partners/microsoft/ and here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6204.hadoop-based-services-for-windows.aspx

Windows and Azure Storage - Although not an engine - other than a triple-redundant, immediately consistent commit - Windows Azure can hold terabytes of information and make it available to everything from the R programming language to the Hadoop offering. Binary storage (Blobs) and Table storage (Key-Value Pair) data can be queried across a distributed environment. You can learn more about Windows Azure storage here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg433040.aspx

Analysis

In a “Big Data” environment, it’s not unusual to have a specialized set of tasks for analyzing and even interpreting the data. This is a new field called “data Science”, with a requirement not only for computing, but also a heavy emphasis on math.

Transact-SQL - T-SQL is the dialect of the Structured Query Language used by Microsoft. It includes not only robust selection, updating and manipulating of data, but also analytical and domain-level interrogation as well. It can be used on SQL Server, PDW and ODBC data sources. You can read more about T-SQL here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510741.aspx

Multidimensional Expressions and Data Analysis Expressions - The MDX and DAX languages allow you to query multidimensional data models that do not fit well with typical two-plane query languages. Pivots, aggregations and more are available within these constructs to query and work with data in Analysis Services. You can read more about MDX here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms145506(v=sql.110).aspx and more about DAX here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28572

HPC Jobs and Tasks - Work submitted to the Windows HPC Server has a particular job - essentially a reservation request for resources. Within a job you can submit tasks, such as parametric sweeps and more. You can learn more about Jobs and Tasks here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc719020(v=ws.10).aspx

HiveQL - HiveQL is the language used to query a Hive object running on Hadoop. You can see a tutorial on that process here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6628.aspx

Piglatin - Piglatin is the submission language for the Pig implementation on Hadoop. An example of that process is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2012/01/10/running-apache-pig-pig-latin-at-apache-hadoop-on-windows-azure.aspx

Application Programming Interfaces - Almost all of the analysis offerings have associated API’s - of special note is Microsoft Research’s Infer.NET, a new language construct for framework for running Bayesian inference in graphical models, as well as probabilistic programming. You can read more about Infer.NET here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/infernet/

Presentation

Lots of tools work in presenting the data once you have done the primary analysis. In fact, there’s a great video of a comparison of various tools here: http://msbiacademy.com/Lesson.aspx?id=73 Primarily focused on Business Intelligence. That term itself is now not as completely defined, but the tools I’ll show below can be used in multiple ways - not just traditional Business Intelligence scenarios. Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) can also be used for presentation; but I’ll focus here on “out of the box” tools.

Excel - Microsoft’s Excel can be used not only for single-desk analysis of data sets, but with larger datasets as well. It has interfaces into SQL Server, Analysis Services, can be connected to the PDW, and is a first-class job submission system for the Windows HPC Server. You can watch a video about Excel and big data here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=e20b7482-11c9-4965-b8f0-7fb6ac7a769f and you can also connect Excel to Hadoop: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/how-to-connect-excel-to-hadoop-on-azure-via-hiveodbc.aspx

Reporting Services - Reporting Services is a SQL Server tool that can query and show data from multiple sources, all at once. It can also be used with Analysis Services. You can read more about Reporting Services here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/business-intelligence/reporting-services.aspx

Power View - Power View is a “Self-Service” Business Intelligence reporting tool, which can work with on-premises data in addition to SQL Azure and other data. You can read more about it and see videos of Power View in action here: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/business-intelligence/SQL-Server-2012-reporting-services.aspx

SharePoint Services - Microsoft has rolled several capable tools in SharePoint as “Services”. This has the advantage of being able to integrate into the working environment of many companies. You can read more about lots of these reporting and analytic presentation tools here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee692578

This is by no means an exhaustive list - more capabilities are added all the time to Microsoft’s products, and things will surely shift and merge as time goes on. Expect today’s “Big Data” to be tomorrow’s “Laptop Environment”.

Application Lifecycle Management Overview for Windows Azure

BuckWoody — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:58:39 GMT

Developing in Windows Azure is at once not that much different from what you’re familiar with in on-premises systems, and different in significant ways. Because of these differences, developers often ask about the specific process to develop and deploy a Windows Azure application - more formally called an Application Lifecycle Management, or ALM.

There are specific resources you can use to learn more about various parts of ALM - I’ve referenced those at the end of this post. But ALM has multiple definitions, from the governance of code injection, domain upgrade, testing, process flow and more. Many developers are interested in the finer-grained information, like how do I develop and deploy an application? What tools do I need, and how do I get the code running somewhere that I can test?

I’ll cover the very high-level process here, and refer you to specifics at the end of each section, so that you can take it all in at one viewing, and then bookmark for more detail when you need more information. I won’t be covering processes like Continuous Integration or Agile and other methodologies in this post - I’ll blog those later.

Initial Development

You start with writing code. You have three ways to do this. You can use Visual Studio (even the Express Edition Works), Eclipse, or by leveraging the REST API format. You can do this in a standalone (non-connected) environment like your laptop.

Using Visual Studio is one of the simplest methods to create an Azure application, allowing you to combine the Azure components you want to leverage (Storage, Compute, SQL Azure, the Service Bus, etc.) along with the on-premises code you have now or are creating. Once you’ve installed and patched Visual Studio, just download and install the Windows Azure Software Development Kit (SDK) and you’ll have not only all the API’s you need to talk to Azure, but a fully functioning local environment to run and test your code before you deploy it. You’ll also get a robust set of samples. You can download what you need for all of that (free) here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/downloads/ . There’s a step-by-step process here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336122.aspx

You can also use Eclipse to develop for Windows Azure. You won’t get the full runtime environment in just that kit alone, but you can use this successfully on a Linux system. I have several folks using this method. The downloads and documentation for that is here: http://www.windowsazure4e.org/

You can use REST API’s to hit Azure Assets and control them. Not my preferred method, but possible. There are REST API’s for various sections of Azure. You can find the main reference for that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff800682.aspx

Note: We recently demonstrated using a Cloud-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Node.js deployment to Windows Azure. More on that here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2012/01/cloud9-ide-to-enable-nodejs-ap.php

Deploying to a Test Instance

After you write the code, you’ll need to test it somewhere. The Azure Emulator on your development laptop is for a single user on that laptop, and it also has some subtle differences from the production fabric as you might imagine. Normally you’ll set up a small subscription to run and test the application, just like you would have a set of test servers. Each subscription has its own management keys and certificates, so this assists in keeping the testing environment separate for billing and control.

More on that general information here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803362.aspx

Deploying to Production

Once you have developed the code and tested it, you need to move it to a location where users can access it. In reality, there is no physical difference in the type of machines, fabric or any other component in “Production” Windows Azure accounts and the “Test” accounts, but you’ll most often pick smaller systems to deploy on in testing, and you’ll probably keep the URL in the plain format.

In the Production Windows Azure account, the team normally limits the access to the account for deployment to a separate set of developers. This ensures code flow and control. A DNS name is normally mapped to the longer, Microsoft-generated URL so that your users access the application or data the way you want them to.

More on setting up an account here: http://techinch.com/2010/06/14/setup-your-windows-azure-account/

Managing Code Change

With the application deployed, there are two broad tasks you need to consider. One is managing changes through the application, and the other involves management, monitoring and performance tuning for an application.

To make a code change, the standard ALM process is followed, just as above. You can use command-line tools to automate the process as you would with an on-premises system. A vide on that shows you how: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/2009/SVC25. Normally this is used with an “In-Place” upgrade into Production Account, since your testing is completed in a separate account. More on that process here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee517255.aspx

One difference is the “VIP Swap” process you can use for the final push to Production. In essence, this allows you to have two copies of the application running on the Production account, with a quick way to cut over and back when you’re ready. The process for that is detailed here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee517253.aspx

For monitoring, you have several options. You should enable the Windows Azure Diagnostics in your code - more on that here: http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/WADiagnostics.

You can observe uptime and other information on the Windows Azure Service Dashboard, where you can also consume the uptime as an RSS feed: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/service-dashboard/

From there, you can also use System Center to monitor not only Windows Azure deployments but internal applications as well. The Management Pack and documentation for that is here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11324.

There are also 3rd-party tools to manage Windows Azure. More on that here: http://www.bing.com/search?q=monitor+Windows+Azure&form=OSDSRC

Other References:

There is a lot more detail in this official reference: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/fundamentals/deploying-applications/

Bryan Group explains the ramifications of the Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) with lots of collateral you can review: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bryang/archive/2011/04/26/applying-the-sdl-to-windows-azure.aspx