This is some pre-pdc stuff that caught my eye: Gartner on the Cloud Landscape. Windows Azure fairs extremely well. Scalability survey of cloud platforms. Benchmarking cloud alternatives – interesting stuff. FabrikamShipping SaaS, a complete demo scenario meant to help ISVs to target the Windows Azure platform for developing SaaS solution SQL Azure Best Practices and Code http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pat... SQL Azure Papers http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pat... ......
The interesting thing about the Windows Azure Platform is there is never a shortage of new stuff to explore. UK based sharpcloud save $500,000 with Windows Azure Azure Portal gets Guest OS Auto Upgrade Mode You can either manually select the operating system that you want to have deployed to your nodes via a drop down box or allow automatic mode to upgrade to the latest operating system as they are released. Steve Marx has written a Windows Azure application called Swingify that allows you to upload ......
Some more “syncing to paper” :) Steve Marx wrote a very interesting article about using Hosted Web Core in an Azure Worker Role. Hosted Web Core is a new feature in IIS 7 that enables developers to create applications that load the core IIS functionality. Wade Wegner is a new Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure platform AppFabric Example from Wade (and how I found him) Host WCF Services in IIS with Service Bus Endpoints Google and vmware “get engaged” over cloud http://googlecode.blogspot.... ......
Just getting more stuff “down on paper” which grabbed my attention over the last couple of weeks. http://www.koodibook.com/ is live. This is a a rich desktop application built in WPF by some ex-colleagues and current friends :-) Check it out if “photo books” is your thing or you like sweet WPF UX. Study rates Microsoft .NET Framework rated top, Ruby on Rails 2nd bottom. I know a bit about both of these frameworks. Both are sweet for different reasons. .NET top. Ok – I liked that. But Ruby on Rails ......
Just getting a few interesting cloud links “down on paper”. I last did one of these on Azure in Feb 20010. Cloud Links: Article on Debugging in the Cloud http://code.msdn.microsoft.... A sample app that demonstrates monitoring and automatically scaling an Azure application in response to dropping performance etc. Basically a console app that checks perf stats and then uses the Service Management API to spin up new instances when needed. Azure In Action book is imminent :) Running Memcached ......
Just getting a few interesting cloud links “down on paper”. I last did one of these on Azure in Dec 2009. Not everyone seems to know that Roger Jennings does a rocking job of collating links on Azure – e.g. Sunday Feb 14th. Recommended read - Using SQL Server Client APIs with SQL Azure Version 1.0 Q&A: Looking Ahead at Microsoft's Cloud Strategy Tim O'Brien, director of Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group, discusses the future of Windows Azure, Silverlight, and developing with .NET. Getting MySQL ......
A few Visual Basic 6 links I want to “get down on paper” – lest I forget :-) John Fuex describing the process he and his company went through to solve the C# versus .NET dilemma when migrating White paper: 5 myth-busting reasons for choosing an automatic migration against a manual rewrite Webcast on Visual Basic 6 and Windows 7: Alternatives for Application Compatibility Understanding the relationship between a supporting library and your migrated VB6 code Code Architects now offers turn-key services ......
I have been meaning to get these “out of my head” for a little while now. Christmas Eve seems a good day to do it on :-) Dave Thompson (Microsoft UK) did a good summary post of adding SSL to a webrole Dave also did a good summary of the differences in the Azure November SDK. The Azure TCO & ROI Calculator Cloud Storage Studio V0.9 is available How Azure is being used in the real world - Azure Deep Dives This was generated from a series of UK early adopter labs we run. Yep, I’m in there somewhere ......
A long overdue “brain dump” of stuff that I found interesting. Development related: WPF vs Silverlight A detailed look at the differences (and similarities) between the two. “Size vs features, full trust vs sandboxed” Changes to the compatibility modes in Windows 7 – new to me. Meet “RunAsHighest” A nice drill down into Azure Table Storage, REST and the ADO.NET Data Services Story - Interested in ORM? Then IMHO you have two main choices right now. The ADO.NET Entity Framework (.NET 3.5 SP1 and above) ......
Development related: Persistence ignorance in the Entity Framework discussed with reference to the EFPocoAdapter http://railsenvy.com/ Lots of Ruby and Rails stuff – and some good podcasts and video Scott Hanselman has listed his “must haves” on a machine rebuild. Always illuminating to see other techies “must have” lists EssWork 2.0 is a framework for software development integrated into VSTS. And its free. From Ivor Jacobson - who once cost me a lot of brandy on expenses :-) A video showing construction ......