Category Archives: Bill gave a talk

Talk: Guest Lecture Harvard Cloud Computing Class

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Last night I was pleased to speak at Zoran B. Djordjević‘s Cloud Computing class at Harvard Extension (my 4th year). After dazzling the class with my prowess at plugging in my laptop to the projector, we jumped into the public cloud, with lots of Azure specifics – and how designing applications for the public cloud is different than what they might be used to (whether Azure, Amazon, or Google) – along with really good questions and discussion…

If you are interested in such things, I’m on twitter (@codingoutloud), have been running the Boston Azure cloud user group for five years, and wrote a book on Cloud Architecture Patterns.

SLIDE DECK: 2014-11-14 – Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform Overview — Zoran Djordjevic-Harvard-CSCI E-90 — 14-Nov-2014 — Bill Wilder (blog.codingoutloud.com)

Talk: Pragmatic Azure at Boston Code Camp 21

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Today I was delighted to speak at Boston Code Camp 21… Yes, that’s 21 code camps over the past 10+ years put on by the Boston dev community. There is a long list of volunteers , speakers, and sponsors.

My talk was: “Pragmatic Azure – What can the Azure Cloud do for me?” and the abstract is included below and the deck is here:

ABSTRACT

Pragmatic Azure – What can the Azure Cloud do for me?

Session Details – Boston Code Camp 21 – June 2014

Submitted by: Bill Wilder
Time: 10:20 AM – 11:30 AM, Saturday, June 21, 2014
Location: One Mem Drive, Commons (enter on 11)
Tags: Azure

A whirlwind introduction to the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform followed by a bunch of pragmatic ways to use it. From simple Web Sites to web-scale Cloud Services, from on-the-cheap dev-test environments to auto-scaling production services, Windows Azure covers the spectrum. What’s the story with designing for failure? What happens if I need to scale? How do I manage costs? These and more questions will be addressed.

Presented by Azure MVP Bill Wilder, it is based on real-world insights from an Azure-focused consultant who’s been working with the platform since the day it was announced in 2008. Some of the topics will be drawn from Bill’s Cloud Architecture Patterns book (O’Reilly Media, 2012).

Talk: Top Azure Features Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know About at Groupe Azure Montréal

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Last week I was delighted to speak to the très agréable folks at the Groupe Azure Montréal.

My talk was: “Top Azure Features Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know About” and the abstract (in both French and English) is included below. Had a great time hanging out in advance of the event with both Alexandre Brisebois and Guy Barrette who were superb hosts and helped me and Maura get the most of our short trip to their fine city.

Here is a link to the slide deck (in PowerPoint): 2014-04-28 – April 28 – Groupe Azure Montréal – Top Azure Features Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know About.pptx

The sample code I spent the most time on can be found here: 

ABSTRACT

Lundi le 28 Avril 2014, nous sommes heureux d’accueillir Bill Wilder, auteur du livre « Cloud Architecture Patterns: Using Microsoft Azure », pour une présentation qui nous fera découvrir les meilleures facettes de la plateforme Microsoft Azure tout en mettent l’emphase sur le développement ASP.NET.

Bill adore partager et apprendre sur une multitude de sujets. Profitez-en pour lui poser vos questions à propos des patterns, des meilleur pratiques et des technologies qui en tour le cloud.

Inscrivez-vous sur notre page Meetup http://www.meetup.com/dotnetmontreal/events/135071842/

NOTE: Cette présentation sera en anglais

Sujet: Top Azure Features Every ASP.NET Developer Should Know About

Let’s face it: as technologists, “the cloud” is in the future for all of us, and resistance is futile. For many of us who predominantly develop on Microsoft technologies, adopting the Microsoft Azure cloud platform will be a natural progression.

How to get started? In this talk we will cover some easy ways to get started with the cloud, progressing from simple ideas to more ambitious ones as we go. Similar to how learning a new programming paradigm tends to stretch the mind (e.g., a C# developer learning functional programming with F#), you will also see that learning how to develop for the cloud will inform and shape how you go about developing day to day – even if not (yet) for the cloud.

Some of the topics we will cover (in varying depths) include devops, dev-test, non-.NET tool stacks, federated identity, semantic logging, and cloud-friendly architecture patterns – all while touching on a variety of Azure features and services on the way.

Conférencier: Bill Wilder, MVP Azure, Boston USA

Bill Wilder (Principal Cloud Architect for Development Partners Software Corporation) is a hands-on developer, architect, consultant, trainer, speaker, writer, and community leader focused on helping companies and individuals succeed with the cloud using the Microsoft Azure Platform. Bill began working with Microsoft Azure when it was unveiled at the Microsoft PDC in 2008 and subsequently founded Boston Azure, the first/oldest Microsoft Azure user group in the world in October 2009. Bill is recognized by Microsoft as a Microsoft Azure MVP and an Azure Insider, and is the author of the book Cloud Architecture Patterns, published by O’Reilly in September 2012. Bill can be found blogging at blog.codingoutloud.com and on Twitter at @codingoutloud. You can also check out the Boston Azure cloud user group at www.bostonazure.org and @bostonazure.

Talk: Guest Lecture at BU Cloud Computing Class

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A couple of nights ago, I gave a guest lecture at Dino Konstantopoulos’ BU MET CS755 Cloud Computing class to a small group whose ability to stay awake and alert until 9:00 PM was impressive. My deck is attached.

For any of that class (or anyone else reading this), if interested in more Azure goodness, check out Boston Azure – www.bostonazure.org – a local user group that has now been meeting regularly (mostly at NERD) for around 4 1/2 years to learn about Azure, the cloud, architecting applications for the cloud, and more.

My book is available on Amazon: Cloud Architecture Patterns.

Slides from the talk: 2014-04-17 – April 17 – Building Cloud-Native Applications – Bill Wilder (blog.codingoutloud.com) – BU MET CS755

Talk: Meet Windows Azure, Your Next Data Center

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Today I spoke at VirtG Boston’s annual Deep Dive Day. The title of my talk, Meet Windows Azure, Your Next Data Center, is probably descriptive enough to get the gist of it.

My slide deck follows.

2014-03-12 – Meet Windows Azure, Your Next Data Center – VirtG Virtualization Deep Dive Day

Talk: 7 Things Software Testing Professionals Should Know About the Public Cloud

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Today I partnered with XBOSoft to present the webinar: 7 Things Software Testing Professionals Should Know About the Public Cloud.image

This is one of a series of webinars hosted by XBOSoft (@xbosoft) as part of their 2014 Webinar series from the XBOSoft Software Quality Knowledge Center. They are a global company (San Francisco, Amsterdam, Oslo & Beijing) focused on Software Quality Improvement. Check them out here: www.xbosoft.com.

The free Webinar was held on March 6, 2014.

At a high level, these are the 7 things discussed:

  1. Key cloud terminology & concepts
  2. SaaS tools are plentiful
  3. PaaS for environments
  4. IaaS for environments
  5. Understanding costs
  6. Public cloud platforms are global
  7. Considerations for cloud-native applications

The PowerPoint deck I used to walk through the topics is here:

7 Things Software Testing Pros Should Know About Public Cloud

Talk: Windows Azure Web Sites are PaaS 2.0

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Last night I had the chance to speak as part of the Some prefer PaaS over IaaS clouds event at the Boston Cloud Services Meetup. Thanks J Singh for inviting me and I enjoyed speaking with many of the attendees.

Some info:

Also, for those interested, next week I am giving an extended version of this talk where there will be more time (60-75 minutes) – and I promise the demos will not be inhibited by screen resolution problems! This will be at the Boston Azure User Group meeting on Tuesday Jan 21 which will take place at the NERD Center at 1 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, with pizza provided (thanks to Carbonite).

Talk: Make the Cloud Less Cloudy: A Perspective for Software Development Teams: It’s all about Productivity

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Today I gave a talk at Better Software Conference East 2013 about how the cloud impacts your development team. The talk was called “Making the Cloud Less Cloudy: A Perspective for Software Development Teams” and was heavy with short demos on making your dev team more productive, then a slightly longer look into how you can evolve your application to fully go cloud-native with some interesting patterns. All the demos showed off the Windows Azure Cloud Platform, though, as I explained, most of the techniques are general and can be used with other platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Tweet stream: twitter.com/#bsceadc

http://bsceast.techwell.com/sme-profiles/bill-wilder

http://bsceast.techwell.com/sessions/better-software-conference-east-2013/make-cloud-less-cloudy-perspective-software-developmen

The deck doesn’t mention this explicitly, but all of my demos (and my slide presentation) were done from the cloud! Yes, I was in the room, but my laptop was remotely connected to a Windows Azure Virtual Machine running in Microsoft’s East US Windows Azure data center. It worked flawlessly. 🙂

Here’s the PowerPoint Deck:

Talk: Telemetry: Beyond Logging to Insight

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Today I spoke at the NYC Code Camp. My talk was Telemetry: Beyond Logging to Insight and focused on Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), ETW support in .NET 4.5, some .NET 4.5.1 additions, Semantic Logging Application Block (SLAB), Semantic Logging, and a number of other tools and ideas for using logging and other means to generate insight and answer questions. In order to allow this, “logging” needs to be structured, which ETW facilitates. In order for the structured data to make sense, developers need to be disciplined, which the Semantic Logging mindset supports.

The talk abstract and the slide deck used are both included below.

ABSTRACT

What is my application doing? This question can be difficult to answer in distributed environments such as the cloud. Parsing logs doesn’t cut it anymore. We need insight. In this talk we look at current logging approaches, contrast it with Telemetry, mix in the Semantic Logging mindset, and then use some new-fangled tools and techniques (enabled by .NET 4.5) alongside some old-school tools and techniques to see how to apply this goodness in our code. Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), the Semantic Logging Application Block, and several other tools and technologies will play a role.

DECK

Telemetry with Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), EventSource, and Semantic Logging Application Block (SLAB) — NYC CC — 14-September-2013 — Bill Wilder (blog.codingoutloud.com)

Talk: What’s New in Windows Azure – New England Microsoft Dev Group

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A couple of nights ago, I had the privilege of speaking at the New England Microsoft Dev Group in Waltham, MA. The topic covered a general and high-level overview of the broad capabilities of the Windows Azure Cloud Platform, with some specific topics added by attendees as well. It turned out to be an interactive session with good questions from the group.

We agreed I would come back after the summer for an architecture-focused session; the session presented was more feature & technology-oriented.

A few followups:

The deck I used is pretty short, but here in case you are interested:

My book, if you are interested, is described here (note: my next talk to the group will cover material more closely associated with the book, which is more focused on patterns and architecture in the context of designing effective cloud applications).