Since this summary page is – by necessity – a point-in-time SNAPSHOT of what I see is going on, it will not necessarily be updated when event details change. So please always double-check with official event information!

I’ve attempted to list events of interest to the local Azure community – not just topics specific to the Windows Azure Cloud Platform. Know of any more cloud events of interest? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let everyone know about them by adding a comment.

Events are listed in the order in which they will occur.

November 2011 Events

1. Cloudy Mondays

• when: Mon 14-Nov-2011, 5:00 – ?:?? PM
• where: Small Business Development Center (note: NOT Venture Development Center!), 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA
  wifi: (not sure)
• food: (not sure, though food and spirits were provided last time)
• cost: FREE
• what: Discuss Amazon’s cloud: launching projects on AWS, comparing AWS to other public clouds, etc. One speaker is Jason Haruska, Chief Architect at Backupify. Vikram Kumar, CTO and Founder of OfficeDrop.com, will also be discussing how OfficeDrop.com launched using AWS.
• more info: http://www.meetup.com/Cloudy-Mondays/events/39091772/
• register: http://www.meetup.com/Cloudy-Mondays/events/39091772/
• twitter: (not sure)

2. Cloud Roundtable – Business in the Cloud -

• when: Tue 15-Nov-2011, 3:00 - 5:30 PM (updated: start time is officially 3:00 PM)
• where: Boston College Club, 100 Federal St., Boston, MA
• wifi: (not sure)
• food: (looks like cocktails and hors d’oeuvres towards the end)
• cost: FREE
• what: From the description on the web site: “The cloud is a fundamental paradigm shift from our current or past thinking about scalable architecture and there are security tradeoffs:  less control of data, new vulnerability classes, and compliance challenges.  However, if managed properly, these risks can be mitigated. This interactive seminar will discuss the challenges of cloud computing, demonstrate how to build a secure and redundant system, and touch upon real-world examples of cloud computing gone bad.”
• more info: http://web.securityinnovation.com/boston
• register: http://web.securityinnovation.com/boston
• twitter: (not sure)

3. Boston Azure User Group meeting: Introduction to Cloud, Windows Azure, Azure Dev Tools

• when: Thu 17-Nov-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (directions)
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Get ramped up on Cloud and Windows Azure – what is this cloud thing all about? How does the Windows Azure Cloud Platform fit in? And how can you get started using Visual Studio and the Windows Azure tools? Get all these questions answered in one night!
• more info: See the Boston Azure cloud user group site for more info
• register: http://www.meetup.com/bostonazure/events/38944852/
• twitter: #bostonazure

December – 2011 Events

4. Azure is on the Road! December Road Trip…

At a variety of locations (far from Boston, but at least regional):

• Check out Jim O’Neil’s blog post on the road show: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jimoneil/archive/2011/11/04/taking-the-cloud-on-the-road.aspx

5. Testing in the Cloud with Boston Web Performance Group

• when: Tue 06-Dec-2011: 6:30-7:15 Eat pizza and meet other members, 7:15-8:15 Presentation, 8:15-9:00 Q&A, general socializing and more pizza eating
• where: Wayfair Offices – 177 Huntington Ave, 177 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA (map) Come up to the 24th floor, call 802-522-6294 with issues
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Speaker: Dan Bartow on Testing in the Cloud – description from event site: “Achieving real performance on the web begins with realistic testing and an understanding of the application and it’s infrastructure.  Testing realistically and for real results across web & mobile applications means leveraging the
  cloud.  Agile development processes, complex multi-tier architectures, and the potential for massive (and sudden) load all require a different approach than
  historical apps.  Come hear from Soasta, the makers of the CloudTest platform and CloudTest Lite, about their experiences and why companies need to change their expectations about what “testing” means. Dan Bartow is Vice President and CloudTest Evangelist at SOASTA, the leader
  in performance testing from the cloud. Prior to joining SOASTA he was Senior Manager of Engineering at Intuit, where his team was responsible for the speed and stability of TurboTax Online, the #1 rated, best-selling online tax software. Over the past decade he has been responsible for the speed and
  scalability of websites for such well-known brands as American Eagle Outfitters, AT&T, Best Buy, Finish Line, J.Crew, Neiman Marcus and Sony Online
  Entertainment, among others. Dan has set multiple industry precedents including launching the worlds largest stateful JBoss cluster and using over 2000 cloud computing cores to generate load against a live web site.  Dan is a frequent industry presenter and has spoken at leading testing and cloud computing
  conferences such as Software Test & Performance (STP), O’Reilly’s Web2.0 Expo, Amazon Web Services Road Show, and SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Expo.” Visit the event web site to view the Cloud Testing Bill of Rights.
• more info: See http://www.meetup.com/Web-Performance-Boston/events/38442872/ for more info
• register: http://www.meetup.com/Web-Performance-Boston/events/38442872/
• twitter: @JonathanKlein

6. Boston Azure User Group December

• when: Tue 13-Dec-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (directions)
• wifi: Yes
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Azure-related topic(s) to be announced.
• more info: See the Boston Azure cloud user group site for more info
• register: http://www.meetup.com/bostonazure/events/38945582/
• twitter: #bostonazure

7. Cloud Architecture Patterns at North Shore .NET User Group

• when: Wed 14-Dec-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: EBSCO Publishing, 10 Estes Street, Ipswich, MA (map)
• wifi: (not sure)
• food: (Food is either available … or provided .. not sure)
• cost: FREE
• what: Cloud Architecture Patterns (generally), then see how the Windows Azure Platform helps you realize these patterns. Speaker is Bill Wilder, Boston Azure user group leader, Windows Azure MVP, and an Independent Azure Consultant.
• more info: http://www.meetup.com/North-Shore-NET-User-Group/events/40679722/?a=ea1.2_lnm&rv=ea1.2
• register: http://www.meetup.com/North-Shore-NET-User-Group/events/40679722/?a=ea1.2_lnm&rv=ea1.2
• twitter:

8. Using Windows Azure to Build Cloud Enabled Windows Phone Apps at Microsoft DevBoston

• when: Wed 14-Dec-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 (?) PM
• where: Microsoft Corporation 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA Hosted at NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (directions)
• wifi: I don’t think so (given the location)
  food: (I am guessing there will be pizza, but not 100% sure, please check with the group organizers)
• cost: FREE
• what: “Speaker: John Garland This presentation will discuss how Windows Phone applications can be enriched by leveraging the power of the Cloud that is made available by Windows Azure. The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone will be explored to show how to quickly tap into resources in the cloud for computation, storage, identity, and communication from within a Windows Phone application.”
• more info: http://www.meetup.com/DevBoston/events/39064112/
• register: http://www.meetup.com/DevBoston/events/39064112/
• twitter: (not sure about the event, but John Garland can be found at https://twitter.com/#!/search/dotnetgator)

—–

Omissions? Corrections? Comments? Please leave a comment or reply on Twitter.
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Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewazir/4232029536/sizes/s/in/photostream/

I believe we are the oldest Windows Azure user group in the world, still going strong. Our first meeting was held in October 2009, less than a year after Windows Azure was announced at PDC 2008, and a few months before it went RTW for real (which was, I believe, January 2010).

Now, back to our Oct meeting. Here are links to a few topics mentioned:

• The Enterprise Library Integration Pack for Windows Azure includes two new blocks: Autoscaling Application Block (“WASABi”) and Transient Fault Handling Application Block. Beta bits are available. http://entlib.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=EntLib5Azure, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/avkashchauhan/archive/2011/10/14/windows-azure-autoscaling-application-block-wasabi-beta-is-ready-for-you-to-try.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/10/27/microsoft-lowers-storage-cost-for-blob-and-table-storage-in-windows-azure.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/10/19/announcing-improved-in-place-updates.aspx
• http://www.cumulux.com/fall-2011-and-build-azure-related-new-features/
• http://www.davidaiken.com/2011/10/10/implementing-windows-azure-retry-logic/

Also, here is the slide deck from the main presentation – given by yours truly (that’s me, Bill Wilder) – called Big Ideas in Software Architecture (Cloud and Otherwise):

• PPTX file: boston-azure-big-ideas-in-software-architecture-cloud-and-otherwise-bill-wilder-27-oct-2011

At the meeting we also discussed some topics for future meetings. Here is that list (okay, I actually can’t find the list – may have forgotten to save it – sorry – so going from memory here) — note this list is in no particular order:

1. Introduction to Cloud, Azure, and developing for Windows Azure
2. More hands-on with the platform
3. Using languages, libraries, and software other than .NET/Microsoft – e.g., Java, Python, Node.js, NoSQL (MongoDB), …
4. Idempotency – look at a more challenging case than a simple thumbnailer
5. Security in the Cloud
6. Comparing Cloud platforms
7. Azure AppFabric topics: Service Bus, Caching, Access Control Service (can Curt come back?), …
8. More architecture patterns

WHAT ARE OTHER TOPICS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE? Please leave a comment, email me, or suggest via twitter (me: @codingoutloud or to the community: @bostonazure).

Here are a few links that folks attending might have been told about, plus a couple of answers I offered to gather offline.

Where can I get the materials used in the Bootcamp?

• The materials live here: http://www.azurebootcamp.com/materials
• However, as I explained at the bootcamp, the actual materials used at our sessions were a mix of what is posted on the web and some slide decks that had been updated (mostly for the Azure SDK 1.5, but also other changes in some cases). So you can pull the materials as linked to above and you’ll be pretty close, but the updated ones are not yet publicly posted.

How can I see what’s in Windows Azure Storage?

• In addition to the tools we showed (such as Visual Studio and Cerebrata Cloud Storage Studio), there’s a useful, free storage browser on the web: https://www.myazurestorage.com/Containers, and an Explorer-like browser as Open Source on CodePlex here: http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/

How can I track changes/upgrades to Windows Azure Guest OS?

• (There might be an RSS feed, but I can’t find it if there is..) A lower-tech approach is to use a service like https://www.changedetection.com/ for monitoring the Windows Azure Guest OS page at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff729422.aspx

Does Azure use Hyper-threading?

• No

Where can I learn more about the Windows Azure Platform?

• Start coming to Boston Azure User Group meetings! Check out http://www.bostonazure.org - meetings are monthly at NERD – schedule now managed at http://www.meetup.com/bostonazure

Where can I read more?

• Insight from the big brains at Microsoft:
• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/whitepapers/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazurestorage/

Who should I thank for this event?

• You can thank our TWO MAJOR SPONSORS: This event was provided free to you because our Gold Sponsor SNI TECHNOLOGY generously sponsored the food, and Microsoft NERD donated the space. Many thanks to these major sponsors!
• Without these sponsors this event would simply not have happened.
• You can thank our swag sponsors: O’Reilly (books), Pluralsight (training), Cerebrata (licenses), Packt Publishing (books), and Microsoft (books and licenses).
• And you can thank the Boston Azure Bootcamp team which included (in alphabetical order): Andy Novick (who led the SQL Azure segment), Arra Derderian (helped during labs), George Babey (“swag guy” – and helped during labs), Jim O’Neil (lab-time tech support, lecture-time answer-man), Joan Wortman (ran the registration), Maura Wilder (who led the Azure Table Storage segment – and helped during labs), Nazik Huq (“twitter guy” – plus made sure there was food – and helped during labs), and William Wilder (yes, that’s me; you can call me “Bill” but wanted to be listed last…). Also, many thanks to Martha O’Neil for baking us a cloudy cake.

We are planning another Boston Azure Bootcamp in 2012. Stay tuned!

Update 22-Oct-2011: Here is contact info for our Gold sponsors at SNI TECHNOLOGY:

Since this summary page is – by necessity – a point-in-time SNAPSHOT of what I see is going on, it will not necessarily be updated when event details change. So please always double-check with official event information!

updates: Added Tech Boston event + more details on Boston Azure

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let us know in the comments.

Events are listed in the order in which they will occur.

October Events

1. Mongo Boston

• when: Mon 03-Sep-2011, 9:00-5:00 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Provided
• cost: $30
• what: The main Azure-related content is a talk by Jim O’Neilon using Mongo with the Windows Azure Platform – from the published program description: “MongoDB in the Cloud, Jim O’Neil - Developer Evangelist, Microsoft: MongoDB is synonomous with scale and performance, and, hey, so is cloud computing! It’s peanut butter and chocolate all over again as we take a look at why you might consider running MongoDB in the cloud in general and also look at the alpha release of MongoDB on Azure, a collaboration from 10gen and Microsoft.”
• more info: http://www.10gen.com/events/mongo-boston-2011
• register: http://www.10gen.com/events/mongo-boston-2011
• twitter: @mongodb

2. Cloud Camp

• when: Thu 06-Oct-2011, 5:15 – 8:30 PM (then after-party)
• where: CloudCamp Boston #5 is Co-located with the OpenStack Design Summit. Intercontinental Hotel, 510 Atlantic Ave, Salon A (between Congress St & Fort Hill Wharf), Boston, MA 02210
• wifi: (not sure)
• food: (not sure, though food and beer were offered last time)
• cost:
• what: (from the event description on cloudcamp.org) “CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas.  With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions.  At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing.  End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.”
• more info: http://www.cloudcamp.org/boston
• register: here
• twitter: (not sure)

3. Boston Tech: What Can Cloud Do for YOU?

• when: Mon 24-Oct-2011, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: “You’ve probably seen the “to the cloud” commercial and are aware of the hype
  that makes cloud computing sound like the next best thing since sliced bread,
  but do you really know what cloud computing is? And what it’s not? When does it
  make sense? And when doesn’t it? What does it mean to us as software developers,
  startup entrepreneurs, and end-users? And how do you sort through all of the
  vendors and offerings to determine whose cloud portfolio offers the most value
  to you? We’ll look at all of these questions and more as we spend the evening
  navigating through the cloudscape.” (text taken from the Meetup listing)
• more info: http://www.meetup.com/BostonTech/events/33357482/
• register: http://www.meetup.com/BostonTech/events/33357482/
• twitter:

4. Boston Azure User Group meeting: Cloud Architecture Patterns

• when: Thu 27-Oct-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Featured talk: “There are some big ideas in software architecture that are particularly relevant for cloud platforms. In this talk we will introduce a few of these big ideas – eventual consistency, scale out, and design for failure – and discuss the implications of these big ideas on cloud application architecture generally, with specific examples of useful patterns and services drawn from the Windows Azure Platform.” There will also be a shorter opening topic.
• more info: See our (new) Boston Azure Meetup.com site for more info
• register: http://www.meetup.com/bostonazure/events/35904052/
• twitter: #bostonazure

5. New England Code Camp #16

While not strictly an Azure-only event, there will be Azure content at this community-driven event. Hope to see you there!

• when: Saturday, October 29, 2011 9am–6pm
• where: Microsoft Office on Jones Road in Waltham
• wifi: (usually just for speakers)
• food: (usually pizza, sometimes donuts)
• cost: FREE
• what: It’s a Code Camp!
• more info: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cbowen/archive/2011/08/24/new-england-code-camp-16-october-29th-save-the-date.aspx
• register (for speakers and all attendees): http://codecampboston.eventbrite.com/
• twitter:

Omissions? Corrections? Comments? Please leave a comment or reply on the Twitters!

This month’s July Boston Azure User Group meeting was up for the challenge.

• In the opening act, Bill Wilder (that’s me) introduced the Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games (see also the Cloud Cover episode 52 which also talks about the toolkit). You can find Bill on Twitter @codingoutloud.
• Mark Eisenberg of Microsoft then shared some great insights about the cloud and the Windows Azure Platform – what they really are, why they matter, and how they fit into the real world. You can find Mark on Twitter @azurebizandtech.
• Marshall Rosenstein then talked about building social games for Facebook with an Azure back-end. Marshall’s slides are on his skydrive here (the slides are here, the code download is here). You can find Marshall on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/marshall.rosensteina) and on Twitter @mrosenstein.
• We wrapped up the meeting with a short live demonstration of the Windows Azure Portal doing its thing. Then a few of us retired to the Muddy.

Hope to see you at the Boston Azure meeting in August (Windows Phone 7 + Azure), two meetings in September (one in Waltham (first time EVER), and the “usual” one at NERD), and then kicking off a two-day Boston Azure Bootcamp!

Details on ALL upcoming Boston-area events of interest to Azure folks (that I know about) can be found in this blog post about Boston-events in August and September. Those hosted by Boston Azure are also at www.bostonazure.org and the upcoming events page.

[Note - this post originally was mis-titled to say July and August instead of the correct August and September. I have not changed its URL, but did fix the title.]

Since this summary page is – by necessity – a point-in-time SNAPSHOT of what I see is going on, it will not necessarily be updated when event details change. So please always double-check with official event information!

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let us know in the comments.

Events are listed in the order in which they will occur.

August Events

1. Boston Azure User Group meeting: Special Guest John Garland on Windows Phone

• when: Thu 25-Aug-2011, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Windows Phone 7 expert John Garland (a Senior Consultant at Wintellect) is the featured speaker. John’s presentation will show how the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 can be used to quickly create Azure-enabled applications for the Windows Phone platform.  This talk will also include a discussion of some of the new features available in the Windows Phone “Mango” release due later this Fall (update), and how they can be used to further enhance the experience of working with Azure-based applications.
• more info: See the Boston Azure cloud user group site for more info, or join the (low volume) Boston Azure mailing list to keep most up to date
• register: here
• twitter: #bostonazure

September Events

2. Vermont Code Camp 2011

While not strictly a “Boston-area” event, this may be of interest still. I attended Vermont Code Camp 2010 as both an attendee (hitting lots of great sessions) and as a speaker (spoke about Azure, of course). There was a great deal of buzz and energy at the event. There was also major swag – some really good stuff. I don’t know what this year will hold, but they did set a pretty high bar last year across the board. I will be attending again this year (and have proposed a talk: Applying Architecture Patterns for Scalability and Reliability to the Windows Azure Cloud Platform). Hope to see you there!

• when: Saturday, September 10, 2011 8am–6pm
• where: Kalkin Hall on the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, VT
• wifi: (I think so)
• food: (Pretty sure)
• cost: FREE
• what: It’s a Code Camp! (from http://vtcodecamp.org/):  “Last year’s event had four rooms with sessions on .NET, PHP, Ruby, Python, and more. Two of the rooms had .NET topics and another had sessions on free/open source software. There was a fourth room where developers were introduced to various technologies that they may not use every day. Check back for details about Vermont Code Camp 2011 or follow us on Twitter.”
• more info: http://vtcodecamp.org/
• register: http://vtcodecamp.org/register/
• twitter: @VTCodeCamp

3. Cloudy Mondays

• when: Mon 19-Sep-2011, 5:00 – ?:?? PM
• where: Venture Development Center, 100 Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA
• wifi: (not sure)
• food: (not sure, though food and beer were offered last time)
• cost: FREE
• what: (topics not posted yet, though generally cloud and cloud startup-related)
• more info: http://www.meetup.com/Cloudy-Mondays/
• register: here
• twitter: (not sure)

4. Boston Azure User Group meeting in Waltham: Special Guest Thom Robbins!

In this special event, the Boston Azure User Group is combining forces with both the Boston .NET Architecture Study Group and the New England ASP.NET Professionals Group to host this talk from Thom Robbins. Note the location is Waltham (not NERD).

• when: Wed 21-Sept-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at Microsoft Office in Waltham (201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA 02451 – come to the 6th floor) – ample free parking is available
• wifi: Wireless Internet access is NOT available to attendees
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Special Guest speaker is Thom Robbins

Kentico CMS: A Case Study in Building for Today’s Web

Building software is a set of smart choices to meet the needs of your customers and the possibilities of technology.  Today’s Web demands that customers have a choice in how they deploy their applications. With over 7,000 websites in 84 countries, Kentico CMS for ASP.Net is delivered as a single code base for use as a cloud, hosted, or on-premise solution. With over 34 out of the box modules and everything built on a SQL Server backend – How did we do it?  What tradeoffs did we make? In this session we will answer that question and look at how to build a rich and compelling website using Windows Azure.

About Thom Robbins

Thom Robbins is the Chief Evangelist for Kentico Software. He is responsible for evangelizing Kentico CMS for ASP.NET with Web developers, Web designers and interactive agencies. Prior to joining Kentico, Thom joined Microsoft Corporation in 2000 and served in a number of executive positions.  Most recently, he led the Developer Audience Marketing group that was responsible for increasing developer satisfaction with the Microsoft platform. Thom also led the .NET Platform Product Management group responsible for customer adoption and implementation of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio. Thom was also a Principal Developer Evangelist working with developers across New England implementing .NET based solutions. A regular speaker and writer, he currently resides in Seattle with his wife and son. He can be reached at thomasr@kentico.com or on Twitter at @trobbins.

• more info: See the Boston Azure cloud user group site for more info, or join the (low volume) Boston Azure mailing list to keep most up to date.
• register: (registration will open in early September)
• twitter: #bostonazure

5. Boston Azure User Group meeting: Special Guest Brian Prince!

• when: Thu 29-Sep-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Brian Prince - from Microsoft, and co-author of the most excellent Azure in Action book – is our featured speaker.
• more info: See the Boston Azure cloud user group site for more info, or join the (low volume) Boston Azure mailing list to keep most up to date.
• register: (will open in early September)
• twitter:

6. Boston Azure Bootcamp

• when: Fri/Sat Sep 30 – Oct 1 (full days, but start/end times are tbd)
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Expected to be provided, but details being worked out
• cost: FREE
• what:This free event is a two-day, hands-on bootcamp with the goal of learning a whole lot about the Windows Azure Platform. The primary programming environment will be Visual Studio 2010 (a free version is available). Coding will be primarily done in C#. (Other programming environments and other languages are available for Windows Azure. If you plan to program in other than Visual Studio and C#, please let us know it advance in the “Any Other Comments” section of the sign-up form.)The two days will largely consist of a sequence segments where important general topics in cloud computing will be introduced, and the Windows Azure approach will be discussed in detail. Each of these segments will include both a lecture by an Azure expert followed by a hands-on lab where you code a basic solution to get these concepts to really sink in. Azure experts will be in the room to help you with any questions or issues during labs.At the end of this two days, you will have learned key cloud and Windows Azure concepts, and have hands-on experience building, debugging, and deploying real applications. You need bring your own Azure-ready laptop – or let us know on the signup form if you would like a loaner – or would like to pair with someone for the coding part.
• more info: See the Boston Azure Bootcamp page on Eventbrite for more info
• register: Registration is LIMITED BY SPACE - register here
• twitter: #bostonazurebootcamp

Omissions? Corrections? Comments? Please leave a comment or reply on the Twitters!

[Update 23-June-2011: Joel Bennett posted his slide deck from the talk.] 
[Update 05-July-2011: Added another handy link to post from Patrick Butler called Developing and Debugging Azure Management API CmdLets.]

Some of the pointers:

• Go get the PowerShell Community Extensions (from codeplex)
• You can use the PS command line to CD into folders/directories, look at files, etc. — but you can also look at the Registry or your Certificate Store as if they were directories!
• There are no plural nouns in PS (e.g., get-provider, not get-providers)
• Learn these commands first: Get-Command, Get-Help, Get-Member, Select-Object, Where-Object, Format-Table, … others you can learn later
• Somebody needs to write a PowerShell Provider for Azure Storage
• Joel created an open-shell WPF-ish PowerShell shell called POSH

Try some commands:

• dir | get-objec
• dir | fl *  –formats as lis
• get-verb | fw -col
• get-verb | fw -col 6 -groupby Group
• Get-ExecutionPolicy
• dir | where { $_.PSIsContainer } – where $_ is “the thing over there (directory)”
• dir | select CreationTime, Name | gm
• dir | select * –will look different than command above
• $global:foo = “some value”
• cd c:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0… see Help.format.ps1xml controls the default output formatting properties for object types not already known by PowerShell – can have property names, even script blocks in it – very powerful
• # is single-line comment char; <# … #> for multi-line comments
• You can create aliases for scripts
• Powershell is an interpreted scripting language
• Can access WinForms, WPF, lots of stuff.. though not Threading

Three ways to manage Azure from PowerShell

1. Remoting
2. WASM (Windows Azure Services Management commandlets) – superceded by http://wappowershell.codeplex.com/ – developed by Development Evangelist group (e.g., Vittorio)
3. Cerebrata (3rd party, commercial)

Remoting:

• Need to get some goodness in a Startup Script, along with crecentials
• Set OS Family = 2 (so you get Windows Server 2008 R2)
• Need a certificate – can be self-signed

WAP PowerShell:

• 36 Cmdlets
• “the 80% library”
• very good example

Cerebrata Cmdlets

• Requires .NET 4.0 (which is different than baseline support for PS, which is .NET CLR 2.0
• $70
• 114 Cmdlets
• Cerebrata
• gcm –mo cerebrata | gr0up Noun | sort

Snap-ins need to be in the GAC – so put WAP PowerShell stuff where you want to keep them, since that’s where they’ll be built — or build the file in Visual Studio

• Add-Module is for SNAPINS
• IPMO is for ImportModule for Modules
• ipmo AzurePlatform
• gcm –mo AzurePlatform

PowerShell has something called “splatting”

• Starting with a hashtable… put in the parms you’ll need
• variables start with $
• retrieving (splatting) starts with @

Both cerebrata and WAP are snap-ins

WHAT FOLLOWS… are somewhat random notes I captured…

Get-Certificate $azure | Get-HostedCertificateStore

Your personal profile for PowerShell lives in c:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\AzurePlatform as Startup.ps1 (?)

Two kinds of errors in PowerShell: 1. Terminating Errors (exceptions, can be “trapped” or use try/catch as of PS2) and 2. Non-Terminating Errors which are harder to deal with

$? ==> did the last command succeed

dir doesnotexist –ev er –ea “”

$er[0].categoryinfo

“Don’t Produce Snap-ins!” Here’s why: to figure out what is in there (get-command –Module

Get-Module –ListAvailable

- run the above on AZure and see “NetworkLoadBalancingCl…” – is this Azure relate

OTHER INTERESTING POWERSHELL/AZURE LINKS

• http://poshcode.org/
• http://pscx.codeplex.com
• http://wappowershell.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patrick_butler_monterde/archive/2011/06/30/developing-and-debugging-azure-management-api-cmdlets.aspx

They are listed in the order in which they will occur.

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let us know in the comments.

1. New England Code Camp

• when: Sat 07-May-2011, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM
• where: Microsoft Waltham (Jones Road)
• wifi: (unknown, but probably just for speakers)
• food: Provided (usually pizza & salad)
• cost: Free
• what: Developer-focused mini-conference on a wide range of topics
• More info & Register: http://thedevcommunity.org

2. Jeffrey Richter from Wintellect will be presenting a free, in-person Windows Azure Deep Dive

• when: Mon 16-May-2011, all day
• where: Waltham
• wifi: (unknown)
• food: (unknown)
• cost: FREE (registration required)
• what: Deep Dive on Windows Azure
• More info: See Jim O’Neil’s blog post for details
• Register: Note there are two ways to register from this page – in person, or webinar – the webinar is a link, but the in person event form is on this page directly: https://www.wintellect.com/Training/Webinar/Registration

3. NHDN – New Hampshire .NET – Concord

• when: Wed 25-May-2011, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
• where: New Hampshire Technical Institute 31 College Drive Concord, NH 03301, Grappone Hall, Room 106
• wifi: not sure
• food: I think they do dinner afterwards
• cost: FREE
• what: Demystifying the Cloud and an overview of Microsoft’s public cloud platform, Windows Azure
• More info: here
• Register: here

4. Boston Azure User Group meeting on PowerShell and how to use it with Windows Azure

• when: Thu 26-May-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE (registration appreciated)
• what: What is PowerShell, why do you care, and how can you use its awesome power to help with Windows Azure. PowerShell MVP Joel Bennett is the featured speaker.
• More info: See Boston Azure cloud user group site for details
• Register: here

Coming in June:

• 24 Hours in the Cloud
• Cloud Camp Boston
• The Architect Factory
• Boston Azure
• Beantown .NET (Architecture Patterns in the cloud)
• Hartford Code Camp
• New Hampshire Code Camp
• And more? Please let me know in the comments if you know about an event relevant to those who care about the Windows Azure Platform

They are listed in the order in which they will occur.

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let us know in the comments.

1. SQL Saturday #71

• when: Sat 02-Apr-2011, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM
• where: Babson College
• wifi: (unknown)
• food: Provided
• cost: Cheap (registration required)
• what: All about SQL and related topics
• More info & Register: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/71/eventhome.aspx

2. Cloud Platform Bake-Off led by Kyle C. Quest

• when: Fri 15-Apr-2011, 10:00 AM – ??? PM
• where: Hosted at Cafe On the Common, 677 Main Street Waltham, MA (but please DOUBLE CHECK the location at Meetup.com listing)
• wifi: (unknown)
• food: (unknown)
• cost: FREE, but pre-registration appears to be required
• what: “Putting different cloud platforms head to head is one of the original ideas for Cloud Hackathon. I’m sure lots of people are curious how each platform can measure up to its competition.” This is a coding/hacking event on Windows Azure plus Amazon EC3, Google App Engine, and maybe others.
• More info: See Meetup.com for details
• Register: See Meetup.com

3. Boston Azure User Group meeting with David Makogon as featured speaker

• when: Thu 28-Apr-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: Exact topics to-be-announced, but they will be awesome David Makogon from Microsoft will be featured speaker
• More info: See Boston Azure cloud user group site for details (soon)
• Register: (soon)

What is the Windows Azure “cloud” platform?

You’ve no doubt been hearing a lot about “the cloud” these days. The cloud is a big topic, with many vendors vying for attention. Not only does Microsoft have many of its own applications running in the cloud – Microsoft also offers a modern, robust platform on which developers and IT Pros can build and deploy cloud applications. This is known as the Windows Azure Platform.

What is the Boston Azure User Group?

The Boston Azure User Group is a community with a common interest: learning about cloud computing, especially focused on the Windows Azure Platform. This community has been holding regular, in-person meetings with talks, discussions, and hands-on sessions since October 2009.

Most meetings include an invited expert speaker or two and usually span multiple Azure-related topics. We also get together sometimes to develop software – what better way to learn about Windows Azure than to write code for a real solution?

What topics do we cover? Anything related to the Windows Azure Platform is fair game – from how it works (Blobs, Queues, Roles, SQL Azure, Service Bus, AppFabric, .NET, Java, PHP, … on and on) – to how real applications use it (which were some of our best talks: from a university research project needing massive scale out to run a simulation, to real businesses running on the platform today) – to announcements, demos, tools, related technologies, and business scenarios.

How do I learn more about the Boston Azure User Group?

We welcome new members – whether you are new to the cloud or new to Windows Azure, want to hear some advanced talks on specific topics, or want to join us for some coding or hackathons – anyone interested in welcome. We also try to reserve a little time at meetings for mingling and everyone is invited to meet up afterwards for a cold beverage at a nearby (walking distance) location.

If you’d like to check us out, visit the user group’s web site – which is itself a Windows Azure application (the source code is on CodePlex).

Please feel free to join our (low volume) mailing list (http://bit.ly/bostonazuremail), follow us on twitter (@bostonazure), or join us for the next meeting (details at www.bostonazure.org).

Meetings are held at the Microsoft NERD Center, in Kendall Square, Cambridge. There is a parking garage in the building, free parking nearby, and is only a short walk from the Red Line train stop.

Meetings are free. Pizza is provided. An RSVP is appreciated.

What if I can’t make it to a Boston Azure meeting?

Want to bring a Windows Azure talk to your user group members? Feel free to contact Boston Azure user group leader Bill Wilder (@codingoutloud or codingoutloud2011@gmail.com) to set up a talk for the user group you run, or a user group you think would be interested. Topics are flexible – what is different about your software architecture in the cloud, what’s new in data storage in Azure, introduction to the Cloud and Azure, or others – let’s talk.

They are listed in the order in which they will occur.

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Have any more information or corrections on the events listed? Please let us know in the comments.

1. TechNet Events Presents: Transforming IT with Cloud Computing Firestarter

• when: Tues 22-Mar-2011, 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
• where: Hilton Garden Inn Boston/Waltham, Presidential Ballroom, 420 Totten Pond Rd, Waltham MA 02451
• wifi: (unknown)
• food: Provided
• cost: FREE (registration required)
• what: The day includes the following sessions:
  • Session 1: Cloud Computing Essentials for IT Pros
  • Session 2: Windows Azure for IT Pros
  • Session 3: Public Cloud: What, Why, and How
  • Session 4: Private Cloud: What, Why, and How
• More info & Register: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032473675&Culture=en-US

2. Boston Azure User Group meeting with Casual Gaming Theme

• when: Thu 31-M ar-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• wifi: Wireless Internet access will be available
• food: Pizza and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: One of the fastest-growing cloud segments, casual gaming spans all age groups and regions of the world. Examine the architecture of one example of a casual gaming cloud app, review the common event logic used, learn how to add in-app purchasing and ways businesses can capitalize on these break-time diversions. Examples are draw from real-world development projects and use Windows Azure as the cloud platform. Jason Milgram is a Windows Azure MVP and the founder and CEO of Linxter, Inc., provider of message-oriented cloud middleware.
• More info: See Boston Azure cloud user group site for details
• Register: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07e3h83p6o5f9da75a&oseq=

A Hackathon You Say?

Yes, a Hackathon. This is in-person event where folks show up and hack (write code). In our case, we will meet at Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, MA, and our hacking will be on Windows Azure-related code.

1. Rule #1: A Hackathon is fun! (Coding is fun when there is a lot of energy in the room… Plus, we’ll have give-aways – which always makes it even more fun, right?)
2. Rule #2: We learn something! (We all learn better by doing. Plus, we’ll have many book give-aways – another great way to learn!)
3. Rule #3: Aim to ship! (So don’t be overly ambitious with your idea – try to choose something that you can complete in the allotted time – then enhance it if you have extra time.)
4. Rule #4: Goto Rule #1! (Yes, recursion abuse. Extra credit at the Hackathon if you employ recursion appropriately.)

(Did you say Windows Azure? Yes, Windows Azure is Microsoft’s platform for writing applications that will run in the cloud.)

A code base that we expect will get a lot of attention is www.bostonazure.org, which is the community’s web site, but is also a real honest-to-goodness-in-production Azure application using features like Web Role, Blob Storage, Table Storage, SQL Azure (with OData), and Azure Diagnostics. (And also an open source project on CodePlex.)

We will break up into small teams based on which subprojects people want to work on and… get coding.

Here’s the approx schedule:

• 4:00-4:30 PM – Gather, get organized into teams, begin hacking! (We want this to be as efficient as possible so we maximize our time hacking. So please read the rest of this post to see how you can be prepared, such as by joining in the conversation on CodePlex in advance.)
• 4:30-8:15 PM – Hack! We will break for pizza, but otherwise will crank away.
• 8:15-9:00 PM – Show and Tell. What did you do? We will have fun seeing what everyone did, and some cool PRIZES and GIVEAWAYS. + +

Where and when?

Location: Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, MA. Parking available in the building (costs money), or take the T, or find on-street parking.

When: Wednesday February 16, 2011 from 4:00-9:00 PM. If you are late, that’s life, but something we can live with.

Food: Pizza will be provided.

What happens if I come late? Join a team when you get here. You will be “just in time” for something.

What do I need to do?

A few things:

1. Sign up so we know you are coming
2. Prepare your development laptop (www.bostonazure.org is running SDK 1.3)
3. Join the conversation in this thread on the CodePlex space for the Boston Azure Project (where we can discuss ideas in advance of the event so we can “hit the ground running”)
4. If you want to have access to a live, honest-to-goodness Azure-in-the-cloud instance of your own, please be sure to sign up A FEW DAYS IN ADVANCE for a Windows Azure Pass (use code: DPEA01). For very clear instructions, please check out Jim O’Neil’s screencast on signing up for Windows Azure Pass. Jim will be at the Hackathon helping out, and in case you don’t know him, Jim is definitely a friend of ours. [Note that an Azure development environment should be fine as well for most of us.]

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YOUR OWN AZURE-CAPABLE DEV LAPTOP, then plan to pair up with someone who does…

What will we work on?

Here’s the rule: You can hack on anything you want that is either related to Windows Azure or related to the Boston Azure Community. The discussion thread mentioned above has some ideas. Add your ideas too.

This will break into three broad areas:

1. Ehancing or adding Azure capabilities to www.bostonazure.org (generally speaking, this is what the group calls the Boston Azure Project). This does not need to be limited to .NET or ASP.NET MVC. Post your ideas to CodePlex.
2. Writing Azure code unrelated to www.bostonazure.org (maybe a file upload utility, for example)
3. Enhancing the Boston Azure community in ways unrelated to using Azure itself. For example, if you want to build a WP7 app for the Boston Azure community, go for it (though that could have an Azure-enabled back end). If you want to add features to www.bostonazure.org in jQuery or make it HTML5-capable, go for it. If you want to create a favicon or a privacy policy for the site, go for it.

Use your imagination.

Wait – I am not an Azure expert – is that okay?

Yes, that’s okay. We will have some folks in the room who do understand Azure, so we will help you. However, of course, it is better if you get warmed up in advance. Install the Azure dev environment. Learn a bit about Azure in advance. Download the code from bostonazure.codeplex.com to see the code for the site.

Do you have a hashtag for Twitter?

Yes: #bostonazurehack.

The Boston Azure User Group has a twitter handle: @bostonazure. My personal twitter handle is @codingoutloud.

Who do we have to thank for all this awesomeness?

Microsoft NERD Center provides the space and the food (thanks Leah!).

Microsoft people help make it happen (thanks Jim O’Neil and Mark Eisenberg – each is a friend of ours!).

And the following sponsors are providing software and books for prizes:

+ +

The event is organized by folks from the Boston Azure User Group.

Here are the ones I know about, in the order in which they will occur.

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure community? Please let me know in the comments.

1. Maximizing Your Monthly Recurring Revenue

• when: Wed 02-Feb-2011, 11:30 – 2:00 PM
• where: Towne Stove & Spirits, 900 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, (near the T)
• food: Lunch will be served
• cost: FREE
• what: This is a business-focused lunch demonstration of how to incorporate the Zuora SaaS billing system into your cloud offering, including (of course) if the platform for your application or service is Windows Azure. Zuora has the Zuora Toolkit for Windows Azure.
• More info & Register: http://info.zuora.com/FY12Q1-BostonZ-TourRegistrationPage.html?mkt_tok=

2. Azure Hackathon hosted by Boston Azure User Group

• when: Wed 16-Feb-2011, 4:00 – 9:00 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• food: Food (pizza + maybe salad) and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: This is an Azure-focused Hackathon – writing code for Windows Azure
• More info: Summary here, plus join the conversation on the Boston Azure Project’s CodePlex Discussion forum
• Register: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=v6qmy8dab&oeidk=a07e3aphcm081cb0d51

3. Azure Hackathon hosted by Cloud Hackathon Meetup Group

• when: Thu 17-Feb-2011, 6:30 – 9:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• food: (not sure)
• cost: FREE
• what: This is an Azure-focused Hackathon – writing code for Windows Azure
• More info: (tbd)
• Register: http://www.meetup.com/Hack-The-Cloud

4. Boston Azure User Group meeting with Cloud Security Theme

• when: Thu 24-Feb-2011, 6:00 – 8:30 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• food: Food (pizza + maybe salad) and drinks will be provided
• cost: FREE
• what: This is an Azure-focused event which will focus this month on Cloud Security with an emphasis on two areas: Data Security and Identity Management.In the main talk, Walt Lapinsky, VP Cloud Security at Purposeful Clouds, will dig into Data Security concerns for the cloud – generally, and as applied to Windows Azure. Walt has diverse background in this area, with over 40 years of proven expertise in supporting bet-your-business IT environments, including in the military and intelligence communities.In the opening talk, Bill Wilder will introduce how to create a Single Sign On (SSO) experience in the cloud using capabilities such as Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and Azure’s Access Control Service (ACS), including how to easily outsource your authentication to Facebook, Gmail, LiveId, or other existing providers – with Azure’s ACS and .NET’s WIF doing the heavy lifting.
• NOTE: If you are brand new to the Cloud and need to get oriented before jumping in deeper, check out the Boston WebsiteSpark item below which will happen on the same night and at the same location as the Boston Azure event.
• More info: See Boston Azure cloud user group site for details
• Register: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=v6qmy8dab&oeidk=a07e3cxgt9k20c9c5bf

5. Introduction to Cloud Computing and Windows Azure

• when: Thu 24-Feb-2011, 6:00 PM
• where: Hosted at NERD Center
• food: (not sure)
• cost: FREE
• what: Mark Eisenberg  will tell us why cloud computing came to be and how it is defined and used.  As well as an overview of the development and deployment workflow. This is a great cloud computing 101 and how you can take advantage of cloud computing.
• More info: See Boston WebsiteSpark Group page for details
• Register: http://www.meetup.com/Boston-WebsiteSpark-Group/events/16409922/

Know of any more cloud events of interest to the Windows Azure cloud crowd? Please let me know in the comments.

Thanks Microsoft!

1. The featured talk led by Chander Khanna and Nazik Huq asked the provocative question Why choose the Azure cloud?  and (not surprisingly!) spirited discussion ensued. The slides are available (see link at the bottom of the page), and there is a blog post titled “Microsoft in the Clouds with Windows Azure Platform?” from Chander which considers some of the same material.

2. An Azure 101 talk was led by Mark Eisenberg. This is a challenging topic to cover, since the cloud has so many interesting concepts, and the audience at any given Boston Azure meeting always includes new faces. More Azure 101 to come at next meeting, Dec 13, 2010.

3. Several members discussed the Boston Azure Project. The most recent build includes some instrumentation changes made by Arra Derderian (part of which reused some code from Jason Haley).

4. After the meeting around 10 of us went down to the Muddy Charles Pub for a beer!

Follow me on twitter (@codingoutloud), follow the Boston Azure User Group on twitter (@bostonazure), join the low volume Boston Azure User Group email list, and come join us at an upcoming Boston Azure meeting such as our SPECIAL NIGHT FOR DECEMBER as we meet on Monday December 13, 2010 for a night of Azure-packed goodness!

As always, to see what’s COMING UP in Boston Azure meetings, check out our Azure-hosted web site at www.bostonazure.org - meetings beyond what is on the home page (if known) are listed on the Upcoming Events page.

I shared the stage with Mark Eisenberg of Microsoft who walked us through some of the features coming in the November update of Windows Azure. One of the sites Mark showed was the Open Source Windows Azure Companion.

Hope to see you next month when Ben Day will talk about how Windows Azure and Silverlight can play nice together.

For up to date information on Boston Azure, follow Boston Azure on twitter (@bostonazure),  keep an eye on the group’s web site (bostonazure.org), or add yourself to the low-volume email announcement list.

^[†] Yes, I also founded and run the Boston Azure User Group, but it is my first time having the honors as the main speaker.

1. Michael Stiefel on use of relational databases in the cloud

At the May 27, 2010 Boston Azure meeting, Michael Stiefel was the main speaker. Michael gave a talk (slides here) on when you might want to use SQL Azure vs. “NoSQL” Azure in the cloud.

Some key phrases, highlights (very rough!):

• “Latency exists” – you need to care about it – and the speed of light matters - analogy to digging a hole: how fast you move the shovel
• “Bandwidth is limited” – you need to care about it – with hole-digging analogy, this is the size of shovel
• Computational Power gets cheaper faster than Network Bandwidth
• Connectivity is Not Always Available – welcome to the world of occasionally-connected devices like laptops on airplanes and the boom in mobile devices
• Waiting for Data slows computation
• Human Interaction – thinking time – can add latency to any operation
• Economics dictates scale out, not up
• Availability or Consistency? What is the Cost of an Apology?
• How consistent do you need to be? Weigh cost of consistency vs. cost oc of lost business… Business Decision!
• Design for Eventual Consistency

The meeting had around 25 people in attendance.

2. Discussion of Boston Azure Project

As part of the May meeting we discussed a proposal for the Boston Azure Project – an open source, collaborative, Azure-hosted coding project to “gently overengineer the bostonazure.org web site” – by Azurizing it. The proposal met with enough enthusiasm that it was adopted and we are moving forward with it.

3. Next: June 24 Meeting is All About The Code

In the June 24 meeting (RSVP here) we will get started on the Boston Azure Project. We will spend from 6:00 – 8:30 talking about it, organizing, and getting started. Bring your Azure-powered laptop!

Currently Boston Azure meets monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month in Cambridge, MA in the USA. This is an in-person meeting. I have received a loud and clear vibe from the Boston Azure membership that there is a thirst for more hands-on stuff. That was fueled further first by the hands-on Azure SDK meeting we held April 29, then again by the all-day Firestarter held May 8. But we need more. So, I had this idea for an ongoing community coding project that we can hack on together at Boston Azure meetings and other times… I bounced the idea off the community at the May meeting… since I received a really positive response, I now officially declare I plan to go ahead with it…

Introducing the Boston Azure Project

Why are we doing this Project?

The community wants to code. There is a desire to learn a lot about programming in Windows Azure – and what better way to get really good at programming Windows Azure than by programming Windows Azure.

The primary goal of the project is to learn – to get good – really good - at Windows Azure.

How will the Project work?

To be hands-on, we need a project… so here’s a project to provide us with focus:

We shall build a “gently over-engineered” version of bostonazure.org.

This “gently over-engineered” version of bostonazure.org:

(a) will provide a productive environment where participants (developers and otherwise) can learn about Azure through building a real-world application by contributing directly to the project (through code, design, ideas, testing, etc., …), and

(b) will do so by taking maximum advantage of the technology in the Windows Azure platform in the advancement of the bostonazure.org web site (though thinking of it as “just a web site” is limiting – there is nothing stopping us from, say: adding an API; exporting OData or RSS feeds; being mobile-friendly for our visitors with iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7 devices; etc.), and

(c) will serve the collaboration and communication needs of the Boston Azure community, and

(d) will provide an opportunity for a little fun, meet other interesting people, and enhance our skills through sharing knowledge and learning from each other.

When will we code?

We will reserve time at Boston Azure meetings so we can collaborate in-person on a monthly basis. Participants are also free to hack at other times as well, of course.

Wait a second… Does it make sense to port a little web site like bostonazure.org to Azure?

It does not make sense – not in isolation. Go ahead and crunch the numbers on Windows Azure pricing and compare with an ISP-hosted solution. However, this is the “gently over-engineered” part: we are doing it this way to show off the capabilities of Windows Azure and learn a bunch in the process.

What is the output of the Project?

This project will be feature rich, easy to use, accessible, flexible… and open source.

Keep in mind: Since bostonazure.org is the web presence for Boston Azure community…

It Has To Work!

This project is for and by the community.

Anyone can contribute – at any seniority level, with any skill set, with many possible roles (not just developers).

Then how do we reconcile anyone can contribute with it has to work? The community process needs to be able to make the code work before we put it into production. We have to make this work. And we will.

So, now you’ve heard it all – the whole idea – at least the Big Picture. I will post more details later, but for now that’s it.

Next Steps

Please contact me (on twitter or by comment to this blog post or by email) if you want to be one of the very first participants – I would like a couple of folks to be in a “private beta” to get some details squared away before I make the CodePlex site public.

Update 23-June-2010: The project is now live on CodePlex at bostonazure.codeplex.com.

We had 60-something folks attend the Boston Azure Firestarter (more photos) on May 8, 2010 in Cambridge, MA. This event provided both talks about important Azure concepts and hands-on-roll-up-your-sleeves-and-write-some-code Labs. Yes, attendees brought laptops! Feedback was positive. Many thanks to all the folks who helped make this event possible. This was a Boston Azure cloud computing user group event, supported by and hosted at Microsoft.

Many Thanks!

Those who helped prepare for the event, work the sign-in desk, help with technical problems, and handle the pair-programmer matching service included Nazik Huq, Chander Khanna, Joan Linskey, and Maura Wilder. Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen (our East Coast Microsoft Developer Evangelists) were also on hand for trouble-shooting and general support and help.

Here was our speaker lineup:

1. David Aiken from Microsoft’s Windows Azure team came from the left-coast in Redmond to the right-coast in Boston to keynote the event. David gave many demos, a couple of which were My Azure Storage and his new URL shortening service hmbl.me.
   David’s keynote was followed by:
2. Bill Wilder: Roles and Queues talk + lab (http://hmbl.me/1OHBMZ)
3. Ben Day: Azure Storage + lab
   
4. Andy Novick: SQL Azure + lab (http://hmbl.me/1H46PK)
5. Jim O’Neil: Dallas and OData (http://hmbl.me/1OHC5W)
6. Panel Q&A (in the order shown in photo below): Mark Eisenberg (Microsoft), Bill Wilder, Ben Day, Jason Haley, and Jim O’Neil
   

After hours, a smaller group unwound at the sports bar over at the Marriott. This included Jim O’Neil, Maura Wilder, Joan Linskey, Bill Wilder, Sri from New Jersey, (okay, other names are vague!) …

On May 8, 2010 there will be a Firestarter event focused on learning about Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud Platform. This FREE, ALL-DAY, HANDS-ON, IN-PERSON event will be held at the Microsoft NERD building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Here’s the idea…

You show up in the morning curious about Cloud Computing and the Windows Azure platform… and you leave at the end of the day loaded up from a crash-course/deep-dive into Azure, including a series of Azure-specific technical talks, Azure-specific programming experience (and working code), and access to resources to continue into the future…

Registration is now open!

Register at Eventbrite now.

What will be covered?

While we are still tweaking the schedule and exact contents, we didn’t want to delay opening registration. Rest assured the focus of the event is covering the most important Azure topics through a combination of informative talks and hands-on coding sessions.

We have some outstanding speakers lined up (including a keynote speaker we will announce soon).

More information on this community event – including a more complete/detailed schedule – will be updated progressively over the next few weeks on the web site of the Boston Azure cloud computing using group.

See you there!

[image credit: Firestarter logo built based on http://shaedsofgrey.deviantart.com/art/fire-45734782?moodonly=1 under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.]

6:00 – 6:45 PM – LAPTOP TIME! – if your laptop is capable of running IIS 7.x, bring it and we’ll help you configure it so you can program against Windows Azure. If you are already configured, come for LAPTOP TIME anyway and help out the others – or submit an entry to the Azure Code Project contest.

(pizza + salad will arrive during LAPTOP TIME)

6:45 – 7:00 – MAIN MEETING BEGINS with the Azure Update from Mark Eisenberg of Microsoft. Any questions about what’s happening with Azure? Want to hear some of the recent announcements? What’s moving and shaking in the Azure world? Join us at 6:45 to stay plugged in.

7:00 – 8:15 – INTUIT PARTNER PLATFORM – Intuit‘s Alex Barnett (Group Manager for Developer Relations) and his colleague Jarred Keneally (Developer Relations Engineer) will talk about the Intuit Partner Platform, the fantastic synergy with Windows Azure, the recently announced agreement between Microsoft and Intuit, and the opportunity for developers.

8:15 – 8:30 – WRAP UP – Boston Azure announcements, SWAG/Give-Aways, and Update on the Azure Firestarter we will be hosting on Saturday May 8th at NERD (all day learning event).

Please RSVP to help us with the list for front-desk security and to make sure we order enough pizza and salad. Hope to see you there!

How-To Configure an Azure Development Environment

0. Operating System Running IIS 7.x

No way of getting around the need for a Windows operating system that runs IIS 7.0 or IIS 7.5 — either directly or indirectly (see note below on using virtualization).

The operating system versions that support IIS 7.0 include:

• Vista Business Edition and Ultimate

The operating system versions that support IIS 7.5 include:

• Windows 7 Home Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium (instructions for installing IIS 7.5 on Windows Home editions)
• Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (instructions for installing IIS 7.5 on Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (instructions for installing IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2)

What happens if I don’t have Vista, Win 7, or Server 2008?

There is one other hope. Use Virtual PC (or your favorite virtualization solution) and run an instance of a supported operating system in a virtual mode. (This blog post on creating a virtual machine image for Windows 7 using Virtual PC 2007 may help.)

Once you have an operating environment – real or virtual – the rest is the same.

How do I enable IIS 7.x to run?

If you are running a desktop version of Windows (Vista or Windows 7), it is likely you need to enable IIS through the control panel. Here are step-by-step instructions for enabling IIS 7.5 on Windows 7.

If you are doing this to prepare for the April 29 Boston Azure or the May 8th Firestarter meeting, please make sure you have enabled IIS7 with ASP.NET and have WCF HTTP Activation enabled.

1. Visual Studio

You need a copy of Visual Studio that supports Azure development. Currently your options are Visual Studio 2008 SP1,  Visual Studio 2010 (many editions), and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Edition.

If you don’t know which version of Visual Studio to install, go with Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Edition (which is also free).

2. Windows Azure Tools and SDK

Download and install Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.1 (Feb 2010) – this includes the Windows Azure SDK (and its samples)

Pay special attention to the first note at the top of that post:

Visual Studio must be run as an Administrator

You must run Visual Studio with elevated permissions when building Cloud Services for Windows Azure.

It is possible to create a shortcut that will launch Visual Studio with administrative permissions by setting the “Run as Administrator” checkbox in the Advanced Properties page of the Shortcut tab; this is available from the Properties menu option off of the context menu.

3. Microsoft SQL Server

A local installation of SQL Server is needed for local development work involving SQL Azure, Azure Table Storage, or Azure queues.

You only need to do this step if you didn’t install a version of SQL Server during Step 1 (above) while installing Visual Studio.

If you do not have a paid license for SQL Server, your best bet is to download a free copy of either Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express.

If you don’t know which version of SQL Server to install, go with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express (which is also free).

4. Windows Azure Platform Training Kit

At least for the April Boston Azure meeting, you will  also need the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (Dec 2009 update) since Jason Haley (the main speaker) will assume we have this installed so he can reference it during the meeting.

5. Future Optional Extra Credit Tools

Once you have deployed to the cloud, you may also be interested in:

• Fiddler (for IE) and Firebug (for Firefox) to spy on http traffic going back and forth to a deployed Azure app
• What else?

6. Do You Have a Token?

If you are lucky enough to have a token for free (though time-limited) access to Azure services in the cloud, here’s How to Redeem an Azure Token.

Identity, Claims, Geneva, and Trust in the Cloud

This was Boston Azure meeting #4, Feb 25, 2010

(Curt’s slide deck will be made is now available (PPT 2003 format))

Some notes from Curt’s talk:

• Azure devs need to care about claims-based-identity and federated identity
• Geneva is Microsoft’s solution in this space
• Perfect storm of paradigm shifts
• Caution: Geneva is not a panacea for “Identity in the Cloud”

“The most important thing Microsoft has done in identity since they came out with ActiveDirectory” – and think about how much we rely on AD for enterprise-class apps – “it’s like air”

First two lines of every program (with nod to Kim Cameron):

1. Who are you?
2. What are you allowed to do?

• The answer to the second generally depends on the answer to the first. “Identity” is an input.

Big architectural problem: the ‘net was built w/o any way of knowing who you are connecting to (http has no identity)

• RBAC (role-based access control) is not as flexible or powerful as claims
• Any statement that can be validated can be a claim

Microsoft’s Federated Identity Group very focused on standards. To be serious also about Azure, you need to pay deep attention to the key standards.

Azure is only cloud solution REALLY solving the SSO problem in the cloud – and into your data center. Identity must flow…

Geneva Technology stack:

• Microsoft Federation Gateway (“ADS 2.0 in the sky”)
• Windows Identity Foundation (some .NET namespaces)
• Active Directory Federation Services 2.0
• Windows CardSpace 2.0

Curt will focus for a while in his talk on Windows Identity Foundation…

Consider three parties – Security Token Service, Your App, End User

1. Secure Token Service <=> Your App – Initial handshake uses WS-Federation (metadata, X-509 cert)
2. End User <=> Your App – claims via WS-Policy (which Security Token Service(s) I trust)
3. End User <=> Security Token Service – verify policy
4. End User <=> Security Token Service – WS-Trust
5. End User <=> Your App – lots of interactions – signed tokens, claims

ADF 2.0 – same programming model across web and desktop

RP = relying party – someone that consumes tokens

PingIdentity.com

OpenID cannot help with Man-in-the-middle attacks

“Shred the token” is lingo meaning to decrypt a token.

Coded example showing implementation of Passive Federation.

• Showed the 8 (!) prerequisites
• Create full-trust app (Since runtime not fully baked in Azure yet – and certainly not yet in GAC)
• Add a reference to Microsoft.IdentityModel (which is a stronger programming model than older System.IdentityModel)
• using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Claims;
• using System.Threading;
• Then write like 5 lines of code…
• Subclasses from IIdentity, IClaimsIdentity, IClaimsPrincipal (same ones used in other .NET apps)
• WIF ASP.NET Processing Pipeline does a lot of behind-the-scenes work for us
• IsInRole method is key
• Then in the ASP.NET app, there is some 10 lines of key code for X-509 cert – which contains the URL (or domain, really) of the web site that the cert applies to – a problem with “localhost” and “stage.foo.com” etc. due to mismatch – this goes in Global.asax – plus several other blocks of code…

Now for the STS (which you don’t need if you have ADFS 2.0)

• There is a Token Service for ASP.NET visual studio template with Geneva install
• Many coding steps here (see slides)
• Use FedUtil (which comes with Geneva and VS 2008, VS 2010) to create a trust between your application and your STS
• There is a lab to create your own STS

Claims-based systems externalized the work of AuthZ, AuthN to your STS – not stuck in your code.

Geneva supports delegation – embedding one token within another…

(21 people at the meeting)

Thursday February 25, 2010 at NERD in Cambridge, MA

The following is an update to the agenda for the upcoming Boston Azure User Group meeting this coming Thursday.

To RSVP for the meeting (helps you breeze through security and helps us have enough pizza on hand), for directions, and more details about the group, please check out http://BostonAzure.org.

To get on the Boston Azure email list, please visit http://bostonazure.org/Announcements/Subscribe.

[6:00-6:30 PM] Boston Azure Theater

The meeting activities begin at 6:00 PM with Boston Azure Theater, which is an informal viewing of some Azure-related video. This month will feature the first half of
Matthew Kerner‘s talk on Windows Azure Monitoring, Logging, and Management APIs from the November 2009 Microsoft PDC conference.

[6:30-7:00 PM] Upcoming Boston Azure Events and Firestarter

Around 6:30, Bill Wilder (that’s me) will first show off an interesting CodeProject contest, then will lead a discussion about the future of the Boston Azure user group and the upcoming All-Day-Saturday-May-8th event.

Curt Devlin will take the stage at 7:00 PM.

Before the meeting, if you want a little more context, you may wish to read Kim Cameron’s essay The Laws of Identity, which is an insightful analysis of challenges around Identity.

[7:00-8:15] Featured speaker: Curt Devlin of Microsoft

Abstract

The Azure platform presents new challenges for identity management. As developers and architects, we will still have to answer the same two perennial questions: 1) Who are you? 2) And what are you allowed to do? But the traditional on-premise approaches to authentication, authorization and identity lifecycle control are not adequate to meet these new challenges. The Geneva suite of technologies for claims-based identity management can be help because cloud computing can be thought of as a “special case” of federation, with many similar requirements. Together these two paradigms appear to be converging to create the perfect storm of paradigm shifts. However, even WIF, ADFS 2.0 and CardSpace 2.0, will only take us part way to a complete solution in the near term. This session will provide a simple recipe for claims-based identity management in Azure using Geneva, discuss some of the most important reasons why this is necessary, and finally some of the shortcomings we will still have to contend with on the road ahead. The aim is to educate, motivate, and caution.

About Curt Devlin

Curt Devlin is currently an architect in Microsoft DPE (Developer & Platform Evangelism) focusing on distributed solutions across many industries and customer segments. Curt is a Microsoft veteran of many technology wars, with more than 20 years of experience developing solutions on the Windows and .NET. platforms. He is also a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander with avid interests in sailing, skiing and nearly everything else.

Curt blogs as the philosophical architect, plus you can check out his MSDN articles Enterprise Authorization Strategy and SaaS Capacity Planning: Transaction Cost Analysis Revisited.

Curt’s blog post announcing his participation in this meeting: http://blogs.msdn.com/curtd/archive/2010/02/23/an-evening-with-identity-in-the-clouds-and-the-boston-azure-user-group.aspx

We watched a clip from the first day of PDC where Ray Ozzie and others talk Azure in the keynote …

Discussed idea of an Azure Firestarter event – possibly for May 8, 2010 – and this seems to flow nicely from our scheduled April meeting where Jason Haley is scheduled to talk about getting started programming in Azure, such as with the Azure SDK.

Ben Day spoke on Windows Azure storage. Some quick notes / points from his talk:

• Relational databases have a schema – all rows in a table have same columns, structure is defined before pouring in any data, data is not repeated (third-normal form breaks out data to appear only once – no redundancy)
• … database will manage transactions across tables
• … though mixed with replication can provide performance challenges
• This changes for Azure Table Storage!
• … though Azure Table Storage can scale way better – horizontally (“out”) whereas traditional SQL RDBMs tend to scale best vertically (“up”) – to larger boxes – which is more limiting and tends to be more expensive.
• Do we need to rethink what needs to be transactional? Can we use a simplified transactional model – such as just within one table – or one instance of one table…
• … compensating transactions are another approach
• Securely storing data
  • Encrypt (compute is cheap)
  • If you encrypt a key, it won’t work for indexing
  • Search is harder if you encrypt
• String columns have a 64KB size limit for Table Storage – so reference larger objects in a Blob
• Unit testability
  • Abstract away you r persistent store, such as with Repository pattern – so you can unit test
  • Encapsulate business logic, such as with Service Layer and Domain Model patterns
  • Extract logic from UI using MVP (Model View Presenter)
  • Use Mock objects
• Ben will come back to finish the story!

Around 23 attended.

Guest speakers were Michael Stiefel and Mark Eisenberg

Meeting was held December 3, 2009 at the Microsoft NERD

We opened with Boston Azure Theater, kicking off a few minutes after 6:00.  For around 45 minutes we watched a video of Microsoft Director Manuvir Das’ PDC talk A Lap Around the Windows Azure Platform.

From there, Microsoft’s Mark Eisenberg walked us through a summary of key Windows Azure announcements made at (or right before) the Microsoft PDC in November. The deck Mark used is available BAUG_PDCHighlights. There was a lot of interest in the announcement details and in the pricing model.

Our keynote speaker, Michael Stiefel, followed with a detailed look into the project “Dallas” announcement, showcasing the Dallas “Data as a Service” platform, working through sample apps, a custom mashup – with code, demonstrating the straight-forward programming model (ATOM feeds), and showing use of the data directly within Excel. Michael wrapped up by reviewing the business model – and discussing the interesting possibilities (publishers can publish – and others can consume – data so much more easily than today since Microsoft will have eliminated the “contract friction” we’d have if every consumer had to strike a deal with every publisher).

Keynote speaker: Brian Lambert of Microsoft

Meeting was held Thursday October 22, 2009 at Microsoft NERD in Cambridge, MA

Mike Werner (Microsoft evangelist for Azure in the Northeast) introduced the user group at this innaugural meeting, plugged the upcoming Microsoft PDC, then introduced Bill Wilder, the guy who started the Boston Azure User Group.

Bill Wilder provided an overview of the group (powerpoint slides):

• All meetings will have Windows Azure focus
• Any technology or business concept – cloud models, Microsoft dev technologies, tools, and so forth - is fair game, but must be presented with appropriate Azure slant: they need to be related back to Azure or else they are not appropriate for Boston Azure User Group meetings

Brian Lambert spoke on how to build applications for Windows Azure.

Bill’s raw notes from Brian’s talk:

• Can call unmanaged DLLs through Full Trust
• “Fabric Controller worries about the “shape” of your app”

Worker Roles

• Background processing – utility computing
• May communicate with outside services
• Not externally visible to client
• Queues ~ how we communicate to a Worker Role ~ since both Worker Roles and Web Roles can talk to storage (like Queues), this is a good medium

There are public and private containers in blog storage. Public is the only accessible to clients (w/o keys that is).

Partitioned for scale

Blobs = ? “cloud files”

• Up to 50 GB / blob + 8k of metadata

Azure Dev Workflow:

• Add some Web Role(s)
• Add 0+ Worker roles
• Add Service  Configuration
• Add Service Package
• Upload to Windows Azure Management Portal
• Deploy to Windows Azure Fabric Controller
• Provision / Run the roles and storage needs; monitors the health

Sticky Storage ?

….

Azure Tools + Azure SDK

….

For “dev” + “test” + “etc.” – may want to use REAL azure accounts – not just the “other account” you have in your main production account

….

Need to handle the “at least one worker role will work on it” contract – your application needs to be designed for this…

“poison message” – due to bug or oversight or bad data, a message from the queue will NEVER be successfully handled. App needs to handle this currently.

Queue timeouts can have different values – could be, say, different for different message types.

….

Worker Role => a class that inherits from WorkerRoleMain (what was this class name??)

Fabric occassionally calls GetHealthStatus() which returns a RoleStatus. If you tell the Fabric you are Unhealthy, the Fabric may slay you? Maybe your NIC card is flakey, so your performance to external web services is too slow?

….

Public container for blob – for actual image (full size) linked to from the thumb.

“Fiddler is your friend when you’re working … watch your requests.”

Dev Fabric + Cloud Storage is an excellent mode to run in for effective debugging – can watch the message traffic with Fiddler.

“There is no debugging in the cloud. There’s logging.”

RoleManager can also write to “local storage” [[more interesting access / features coming soon!]] – then can go to Portal and use “configuration” button to update your config file to “copy logs” (did they move it?)

===========

can even bring web site up with http://localhost:8020 

WorkerRole is very simple to just run it in a process

Use Test Running to fire up a WorkerRole

• Tight dev cycle
• Can also now run a performance profile

Tricks: log in “real fabric”, write to console in “dev fabric”

The Boston Azure User Group is now on the map – literally!

Check out Jim O’Neil’s user group map. Zoom in on Cambridge, MA and you will see us waving from the NERD center. Thanks Jim!

While not as awesomely interactive and visual as a Bing map, we do appreciate other people plugging the user group:

• Boston User Groups
• The Boston-area User Group Calendar
• Our friends at New Hampshire .NET
• Community Megaphone
• Chris Bowen’s Blog : Announcing the Boston Azure User Group (might be the earliest mention ~ thanks Chris!)
• From ASP Scribe: User Group Happenings East and West and in Between
• And a mention or two from Roger Jenning’s blog

Speaking of Roger Jennings… at the first Boston Azure meeting this Thursday night (Thu 22-Oct-2009 @ 6:30), we’ll give away copy of his hot-off-the-presses book Cloud Computing with the Windows Azure Platform!

I found Roger Jennings’ book chock full of useful information – from context to detail to practical code samples. I stopped at Barnes & Noble after a user group meeting in Burlington and picked up my own personal copy – why no Kindle version!? – and quickly plowed through it. Now I want to go back and play around with the abundant code samples. And in case you are wondering – no, this isn’t the copy we’ll be giving away…we have a new one.

We have a couple of behind-the-scenes planning meetings this week then will finalize the information on the bostonazure.org web site.

Have you joined the Boston Azure User Group mailing list?

The Boston Azure User Group will focus on Cloud Computing, specifically as it relates to Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.

This group will likely kick-off in October 2009 – exact date to be determined - exact dates have now been determined – now working on the times   – see the Boston Azure User Group site for details and updates – and to join the mailing list.

What would YOU like to see covered in the meetings of the Boston Azure User Group? Please leave a comment with your thoughts / feedback.

And see you at the Boston Azure User Group!