Trip Report

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December 26, 2011

Windows Azure DevCamp in Farmington, CT

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Patterns, Programming, Trip Report
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Earlier this month I hung out with Jim O’Neil at the Farmington, CT offering of the Windows Azure DevCamp series. The format of the camp was a quick-ramp introduction to the Windows Azure Platform followed by some hands-on coding on the RockPaperAzure challenge.

Jim introduced cloud and presented specifics on Blob and Table storage services and SQL Azure. I had the opportunity to present one of the sections – mine was a combination of Windows Azure Compute services + the Windows Azure Queue service with some basics around using these services to assemble “cloud native” applications. The official slides for the Windows Azure DevCamp series appear to be here, though my slides were a little different and are also available (WindowsAzureDeveloperCamp-FarmingtonCT-07Dec2011-BillWilder). At the end, Jim also ran through the creation of a RockPaperAzure “bot” and it was (literally!) game on as attendees raced to create competitive entries.

I took a few photos at the event – some of Jim presenting, some showing participants at the end coming to claim their prizes from the RockPaperAzure challenge – and none from the middle!

 

November 9, 2011

October Boston Azure Cloud User Group Meeting

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Boston Azure User Group, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
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First, let’s note that the October Boston Azure meeting marked our two-year anniversary!

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:

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):

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).

 

October 29, 2011

Cloud Architecture Patterns talk from New England Code Camp 16

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
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I attended the 16th (!) edition of New England Code Camp on Saturday 29-Oct-2011. I presented a talk called Cloud Architecture Patterns for Mere Mortals in which I introduced some big architecture ideas – e.g., CQRS, NoSQL, Sharding, and Eventual Consistency – with specific examples of how to realize these patterns drawn from the Windows Azure Platform. My slide deck is here: new-england-code-camp-16-Cloud-Architecture-Patterns-for-Mere-Mortals-bill-wilder-29-oct-2011

I also attended some cool talks – Brock Allen spoke about WIF, David Padbury on node.js, and Dominic Denicola on various Async approaches like Promises. Good time as usual! No after-event celebrating – everyone is running for cover due to the Nor’easter!

If you are interested in learning more about the Windows Azure Platform, please come join us at a Boston Azure cloud user group meeting. Details at www.bostonazure.org. We meet every month to learn about Azure. Sometimes we learn through prepared talks, sometimes we hold training events, and sometimes coding/hackathons. We are the oldest such user group in the world, turning two years old this month. Hope to see you!

Our next meeting is Thursday November 17 (the Thursday before Thanksgiving), featuring a very Azurey talk by Chris Rolon of Neudesic.

Got Azure Question? I am also a Windows Azure MVP for Windows Azure and know a thing or two about the platform. I am happy to answer questions you may have. Feel free to contact me on twitter (@codingoutloud) or by email (which is my twitter handle at gmail.com).

Azure On!

 

October 21, 2011

OWASP Boston Security Conference

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report | Tags: |
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Boston Application Security Conference (BASC) hosted by the Boston chapter of OWASP (The Open Web Application Security Project).

For my part, I attended a number of interesting sessions (especially the frighteningly entertaining talk by Francis Brown on using Google and Bing to hack (or protect) web properties). Due to scheduling challenges, I missed Andrew Wilson‘s talk on Reversing Web Applications, which I wanted to check out.

For my part, I offered a Birds-of-a-Feather session on Securing Applications in the Cloud (with examples drawn from Windows Azure Platform). In this session, I reviewed both pros and cons of cloud deployments from a security point of view, and attempted to make the case that, ultimately, either your applications will simply be safer in the cloud, or at least if you want them to be sufficiently safe, it will be more cost-effective to let the specialists at Microsoft (or some other trusted cloud vendor) handle much of the dirty work.

This session was interesting for me to put together and then go through with an intimate crowd (due, at least in part I suppose, to (me) changing the scheduled time slot after the conference schedule went to the printer… D’oh! … that combined with the seeming invisibility of the BoF sessions generally). Anyhow, it was still fun to discuss, and here is the slide deck I used: OWASP Boston – BoF – Securely Running Applications in Cloud (examples drawn from Windows Azure Platform) – Bill Wilder – 08-Oct-2011.

 

October 19, 2011

Boston Azure Bootcamp was a Success!

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Boston Azure User Group, Cloud Computing, Events, Programming, Trip Report | Tags: |
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On Friday September 30 and Saturday October 1 the Boston Azure cloud user group hosted the Boston Azure Bootcamp – with a few of our friends – and it was a big success.

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?

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

Does Azure use Hyper-threading?

Where can I learn more about the Windows Azure Platform?

Where can I read more?

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!
  • SNI TECHNOLOGY logoWithout 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:

 

September 12, 2011

Vermont Code Camp III

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
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Along with Maura Wilder and Joan Wortman, I made the trek to Vermont from Boston to hang out with the cool kids at Vermont Code Camp III. The three of us gave talks and attended a bunch of excellent sessions. For my part, I attended talks on Hadoop, Visual Studio tools for Unit Testing, EF, software consulting, and Maura and Joan’s talk Introduction to the Ext JS JavaScript framework “for Rich Apps in Every Browser” (after which I admit I was convinced that this is a framework to take seriously – very impressive).

I presented a talk in the morning called Cloud Architecture Patterns for Mere Mortals (with Examples in Windows Azure). If you are interested, my slide deck is attached: Vermont Code Camp III – Cloud Architecture Patterns for Mere Mortals – Bill Wilder – 10-Sept-2011 (also available on Slideshare)

Also, you are all invited to the (free) Boston Azure Bootcamp to be held in the Boston area (Cambridge, MA) on Friday September 30 and Saturday October 1. Sign up here, and please help spread the word. Hope to see some Vermont Code Camp friends there! Let me know if you have a strong desire to “couch surf”, especially on the middle night, and I’ll see if I can help out. Tickets won’t last forever, so I encourage you to sign up sooner than later.

Thank you to all the Vermont Code Camp III organizers, volunteers, and sponsors - like last year, this was an inspired event and I’m glad I made the trip. Find them on Twitter at @VTCodeCamp.

A handful of Vermont Code Camp photos follow… (and a couple from Sunday night on Church Street in Burlington)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

July 31, 2011

July Boston Azure User Group – Recap

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Boston Azure User Group, Cloud Computing, Events, Programming, Trip Report | Tags: , |
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The July Boston Azure User Group meeting had a tough act to follow: the June meeting included a live, energy-packed Rock, Paper, Azure hacking contest hosted by Jim O’Neil! The winners were chosen completely objectively since the Rock, Paper, Azure server managed the who competition. First prize was taken by two teenagers (Kevin Wilder and T.J. Wilder) whose entry beat out around 10 others (including a number of professional programmers!).

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

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.

 

June 4, 2011

New Hampshire Code Camp #3 (and my talks)

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
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Today I attended (and spoke at) the New Hampshire Code Camp 3 in Concord, NH.

Here’s how my day went:

  1. Spoke about the cloud and Azure’s role in the cloud. Special thanks to Corinne, Sandra, and Matthew for the excellent questions and discussion. Here is the slide deck (new-hampshire-code-camp-3-concord-bill_wilder-demystifying_cloud_computing_and_azure-04-june-2011.ppt) – though I didn’t use much of it! – we freestyled a lot. Of particular interest to attendees of this talk. check out my post called “Azure FAQ: How much will it cost me to run my application on Windows Azure?” (actually posted “tomorrow” – the day after I posted this note from code camp).
  2. Was torn between Phil Denoncourt‘s talk on “25 Things I’ve Learned about C# over the past 10 years” and Andy Novick‘s talk on SQL Azure. Ended up hanging out for Andy’s talk to see if there was anything new in SQL Azure and to get his take on the awesomeness that is SQL Azure Federations.
  3. Lunch break
  4. Spoke about Architecture Patterns for the Cloud. Here is the slide deck: New-Hampshire-Code-Camp-3-Concord-_bill_wilder_-_cloud_scalability_patterns_in_windows_azure_platform_-_04-june-2011 – we talked focused on three specific scalability patterns and how you might implement those on the Windows Azure Platform: Sharding, NoSQL Data (and eventual consistency), and CQRS.
  5. Watched Udai Ramachandran talk about Windows Azure AppFabric Caching in the final session.
 

May 18, 2011

Scaling Cloud Applications – Birds of a Feather (“BOF”) Session at TechEd

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
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Today at TechEd in Atlanta, I served as discussion leader for a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session on Scaling Cloud Applications. The session had around 20 people in the room, and an unknown number watching the live stream, some of whom actively participated over Twitter.

"Bird's Nest" Panel

Some of the topics discussed:

  • SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS, including the blurring of the lines between them
  • Scale Up vs. Scale Out vs. Scale back down — elastic scale means you pay for what you use — just start (or stop) using the resources you need and the billing will reflect this usage
  • Scale has many dimensions, some of which are Geographic Distribution of and Number of Users, Amount of Data, and Needed Computation Power
  • Cloud applications are architected differently, often decoupling user-facing functionality from services – the front-end may communicate with the back-end using a reliable queue (such as offered by Windows Azure); see CQRS pattern
  • There are many application architecture concepts that are shared across applications built for most cloud vendors – for example, the loosely coupled front-end/queue/back-end scenario mentioned above can be implemented on Windows Azure (which provides Web Roles, reliable queues, and Worker Roles) or Amazon (which allows you to build and upload a Virtual Machines for front-end and back-ends, plus offers a reliable queuing service), other cloud platforms, and even on-premise – the cloud services just make these more natural to implement
  • Improving latency for cloud applications might be facilitated through a Content Delivery Network (CDN), geographic load balancing (such as through Windows Azure Traffic Manager), and other techniques

Many thanks to all who participated, including:

The BOF events were very well run by the INETA team (Chris Pels and a few others).

If you want a more structured treatment of some of the same scalability concepts, feel free to check out my talk on Cloud Scalability Patterns coming on June 1/June 2 via the GITCA “24 Hours in the Cloud” event. Here is the generic event description – follow the link to find out when my talk is slotted in.

Come and get your Cloud geek on! On 1st June, 2011 GITCA and Microsoft are running an event called “24 Hours in the Cloud”. There will be 24 one hour sessions around the world covering a wide range of Cloud Computing topics. The presenters will be live on twitter to answer your questions. I will be one among them. There is something for everybody, developer, IT pro and SQL enthusiast. There is no question that Cloud Computing is here to stay and this is a unique opportunity to be educated and gain an insight as to where Cloud Computing is going. Stay tuned for more details, such as how to join the “Cloud 24 hour party”, as the event date approaches.

If you have more questions on the topic, feel free to put in on twitter (@codingoutloud), you can comment on this blog post, or you can email me (coding out loud at gmail). And, finally, below you can find the  Twitter stream from the live event – latest on top, earliest on bottom – (which I salvaged via research.ly). Scale on!

@techedbof20117 hrs ago
BOF12-DEV on Cloud Computing is now coming to an end. #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
Mobile apps are a big area for growth in the cloud computing area.
#bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
Talking about moving existing apps to the cloud as we near the session conclusion.
#bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
When you scale you can select the instance size in Azure. #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
Decoupling front end from back end processing is an important concept. #bofdev
#msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
For scaling, one experience is knowing how much work to do and
how much an instance can process in an hour. #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
Would be nice if the Azure platform would monitor and scale for you.
#bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
@itagsubbu Great to have you join us. #bofdev #msteched

@itagsubbu8 hrs ago
@techedbof2011 Thanks for asking my question. I am watching this live event.
#bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
@itagsubbu Yes you can scale either on a scheduled basis or in a programmatically
#bofdev #msteched

@itagsubbu8 hrs ago
@techedbof2011 #bofdev #msteched Can we scale up for certain period in an year?

@rileybeebs8 hrs ago
RT @jmilgram: Getting ready to attend Bill Wilder @codingoutloud Designing Scalable
Cloud Applications #bofdev session at TechEd #mstech ...

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
Gmail is an example of SaaS #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
How do you get resources to the cloud platform? #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
IaaS eliminates the infrastructure but you admin, for PaaS both roles are eliminated
#bofdev

@techedbof20118 hrs ago
As you scale out across geographically dispersed data centers what is the impact on
SQL Aszure costs? #bofdev

@jimoneil8 hrs ago
blurring of IaaS and PaaS is something interesting as well... becoming less of a
differentiator? #bofdev

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
Silverlight app has 50K updates/sec #bofdev

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
Silverlight app that was not designed for the cloud. What to do? #bofdev

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
Thoughts on WPF app w/ Azure backend? Are you doing that? #bofdev #msteched

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
BOF12-DEV on designing scalable cloud applications is getting started
#bofdev #msteched

@TashasEv9 hrs ago
RT @jmilgram: Getting ready to attend Bill Wilder @codingoutloud Designing Scalable
Cloud Applications #bofdev session at TechEd #mstech

@TashasEv9 hrs ago
@rileybeebs I haven't forgotten about you! just haven't been able to leave the
#BOFDEV sessions at all yet!

@TashasEv9 hrs ago
The next #MSTechEd #BOFDEV : Designing Scalable Cloud Applications lead by
@codingoutloud

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
The next #MSTechEd #BOFDEV : Designing Scalable Cloud Applications
lead by @codingoutloud

@techedbof20119 hrs ago
RT @jimoneil: RT @codingoutloud my 1:30 TechEd session on Designing Scalable
Cloud applications #msteched #bofdev << will be heckling from afar!

@jimoneil9 hrs ago
RT @codingoutloud my 1:30 TechEd session on Designing Scalable Cloud applications
#msteched #bofdev << will be heckling from afar!
 

May 7, 2011

New England Code Camp 15

Posted by Bill Wilder under Azure, Bill gave a talk, Cloud Computing, Events, Trip Report
[2] Comments 

I attended New England Code Camp 15 today and attended a bunch of interesting talks, and I also gave a couple of talks myself. (Links to my slide decks are included below.)

At my talks, I mentioned the Windows Azure Pass – a 30 day FREE pass for using Windows Azure Compute (IIS or Worker Roles), SQL Azure, Azure Blobs/Tables/Queues, etc. If you didn’t get a handout at talk, no worries! – You can still access the offer: Go here and use Promo Code BILLONAZURE. Let me know if you have any questions or if you use the promotion.

Talks I attended:

  • Maura Wilder and Joan Wortman‘s talk on the Ext JS JavaScript framework (which I learned has an incredibly rich widget library and robust  programming model).
  • Richard‘s talk on becoming a better developer.
  • Ben Day‘s talk on 7 Lessons Learned during his first large Silverlight dev project. Find out more by reading Ben’s article on same topic, starting here.
  • Steve Maier‘s talk on using Azure-hosted WCF services to serve as your mobile application’s back-end.
  • Chris Bowen on HTML 5.

My presentations (including links to the PowerPoint slide decks):

Many thanks to Chris Pels, Chris Bowen, and especially Patrick Hynes for such a great event! Thanks also to Telerik and Wintellect for sponsoring our food!

Also enjoying hanging out afterwards at Uno’s with Maura, Joan, George Babey, John Garland, Jesse Liberty, Pat Tormey, Chris, Veronica and Shawn Robichaud, Ron, and several other folks I didn’t get to say hello to…

 

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