We had a great event at MIT on Saturday 27-April-2019 — the Boston Azure edition of the Global Azure Bootcamp hosted at MIT. There were lots of great session contributions – making this a true community effort.

ORGANIZERS

Big thank you to local organizers Olimpia (@olimpiaestela), Veronika (@breakpointv16), Gladis, and Maura (@squdgy). We all worked closely with Jason (@haleyjason) who ran the Burlington MA event. And don’t forget those folks at the Global Azure Bootcamp level providing a platform making this possible for a coordinated day of #Global Azure cloudiness (https://global.azurebootcamp.net/).

SPONSORS

The thanks continue with sponsors: MIT Women in Technology, Insight (formerly Blue Metal – https://www.insight.com/en_US/solve/digital-innovation.html), Finomial, and the Global Sponsors (https://global.azurebootcamp.net/sponsors/).

SPEAKERS

And a big thank you to the speakers – all who gave up a chunk of weekend to join us on a Saturday to share their knowledge (in order of appearance):

• Enterprise Integration using Azure Serverless by
  Juan Pablo Garcia Gonzalez (@liarjo) – slides/sample code: https://github.com/liarjo/LogicApps-MIT-demo/tree/master/Logic-App-Demo
• A SIEM-ple Guide to Azure Sentinel by Jason Nickola (@chm0dx)
• Securing Azure workloads to DoD standards by Michael O’Leary (not finding a personal twitter handle, so providing his employer’s: @F5Networks)
• Cognitive Services by Veronika Kolesnikova (@breakpointv16) – slides/sample code: https://www.slideshare.net/secret/swBgIpZvpPUM7g and https://github.com/Veroni4ka/ArtworkLab
• Build your first Java app by Elizabeth Rosso (@_elizabethrosso)
• Learn to make your own Recommendation System with AzureML by Beth Zeranski (@BethZ)
• I wrapped up the day (Bill Wilder, @codingoutloud) trying to tie together varied points based on audience feedback, with my (wide ranging) slides, samples, and relevant links included below.

Attached are my slides:

• BostonAzureBootcamp-WhoMovedMyCheese-BillWilder-2019-Apr-27
• AzureLogicAndFunctionApps-AzureBootcamp-27-Apr-2019

The above graphic is from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-grid/overview#event-sources

Here are some more links of interest:

1. Some collected links (some repeated below): https://github.com/codingoutloud/bostonazurebootcamp2019/blob/master/README.md
2. C# Script is real – not a hoax! 🙂 – https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt614271.aspx
3. Azure Functions support C# Script (.csx files) – but also regular compiled C# (.cs on .NET Core)
4. Example Azure Function written in regular compiled C#: https://github.com/codingoutloud/opstoolbox (especially https://github.com/codingoutloud/opstoolbox/blob/master/SslCertificateExpirationChecker.cs)
5. Here are some example uses of the above:
   • http://secops.azurewebsites.net/days/blog.codingoutloud.com
   • http://secops.azurewebsites.net/days/twitter.com
   • http://secops.azurewebsites.net/days/domaindoesnotexist98725.com
6. Event Grid:
   1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-grid/event-sources
   2. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-bindings-event-grid
   3. https://madeofstrings.com/2018/06/29/azure-event-grid-filters-with-logic-apps/
   4. “Slide” I showed is below – it is from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/event-grid/media/overview/functional-model.png
7. Combine Azure Logic Apps with Azure Functions – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-azure-functions#add-function-logic-app
8. Similar to “follow-along lab” that tied together Subscription changes to an Azure Function using EventGrid
9. Azure Function in JavaScript that fails 75% of the time. Useful for testing retries and seeing how errors are handled: https://gist.github.com/codingoutloud/151976063b1e9367369f1505f6cca66e
10. Azure Blockchain Workbench:
    1. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/features/blockchain-workbench/
    2. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/blockchain/workbench/
    3. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/blockchain/workbench/architecture
    4. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/blockchain/workbench/use

Spoke today to a small crowd of hardy soles who braved the snow to make it to SQL Saturday 694 – Providence – held at nearby Bryant University in Smithfield.

My slides are included below.

Azure SQL DB – Not Just A Cloud Version of SQL Server – SQL Saturday RI – 09-Dec-2017

We first looked at how we might solve a random StackOverflow question using Azure Logic Apps, Azure Function Apps, the nifty PhantomJsCloud.com service, and a look at how a little Cognitive Service action could be woven in. A random walk around other Azure features followed. Some reactions were memorable – my favorite, because I completely agree: Why would I ever want to run my own SharePoint instance when the Office 365 service is available? And a bunch of other good questions.

Slides:

• SPS – A Gentle Introduction to Azure – 2017-Oct-28