Windows Azure Development

New Certification – MCSD – Azure Solution Architect

May 25, 2015 .NET, .NET Framework, AppFabric, Azure, Azure Tools, Certification, Cloud Services, KnowledgeBase, MCSD, Microsoft, SQL Azure, Visual Studio 2013, VisualStudio, VS2013, Windows Azure Development, Windowz Azure No comments

Microsoft has made availability of new MCSD certification called as “MCSD – Azure Solutions Architect“.

Required Exams:
070-532: Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions
070-533: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
070-534: Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions

Once you complete the above required exams you will be awarded MCSD – Azure Solutions Architect certificate valid for 2 years.

PS: You will have to retake the renewal exam every two years to stay on as an MSDN Azure Solutions Architect.

For more details on the certification: https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcsd-azure-architect-certification.aspx 

All you need to know about Microsoft Azure Stack(Azure on On-Premises

May 20, 2015 Azure, Azure Stack, Cloud Computing, Cloud Services, IaaS, Microsoft, PaaS, SaaS, Storage, Backup & Recovery, Virtual Machines, Windows Azure Development, Windowz Azure No comments

Typically it is a hype among people that if a product comes from Microsoft, it needs to be criticized and thinking Microsoft would only be promoting their products with Azure. That’s not right and I would say we are being judgmental without even looking at the capabilities on Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft Azure the prime competitor to Amazon AWS offerings, has improved a lot and focus is more on providing cloud computing capabilities available for everyone.

azurestack1

What is Microsoft Azure Stack?

Simply it paves a way to engaging your data-center with On-premise – Private/Hybrid cloud computing capabilities.

Azure Stack is a combined solution consisting of Windows Server 2016, Azure Pack and Azure Service Fabric.

  1. Azure Pack is an arrangement of Azure features that Microsoft makes accessible to its facilitating hosting service providers and bigger business clients as a download that can keep running on top of Windows Server and Systems Center. 
  2. Service Fabric is the new infrastructure management technology Microsoft is integrating in to Azure and Windows Server that will empower applications to be developer, deployed and oversaw in micro-service structure.
  3. Windows Server 2016 is an upcoming server operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems, developed concurrently with Windows 10 expected to be released in Q3, 2016 and is currently under Technical Preview.

Here’s a simplified view of the Azure Stack Architecture(Sourced from Microsoft Azure Stack Documentation):

    azurestack2
    What it takes to have Azure Stack – on your data-center?

    Read through this link for hardware requirements:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/22/azure_stack_hardware_specs/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/18/azure_stack_versus_azure_pack_whats_the_difference/

Azure App Service–create Web + Mobile + Logic + API apps with ease

March 28, 2015 .NET, .NET Framework, App Service, ASP.NET, ASP.NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC, Azure, Cloud Services, Media Services, Microsoft, Mobile Services, SignalR, Web API, Web API v2.0, Windows Azure Development No comments

Microsoft today announced availability of new azure cloud services named as Azure App Service. Azure App Service. Azure App Service is a replacement of old Azure Websites / Azure Mobile Services, earlier these services were delivered separately and Microsoft has integrated all these capability in to single service and made it easy to configure.

Azure App Service enables you to easily create Web + Mobile + Logic + API Apps easily . Azure App Service is an integrated service that enables you to create web and mobile apps for any platform or device, easily integrate with SaaS solutions.

azure-app-service

Capabilities of Azure App Service includes:

  • Support for .NET, Node.js, Java, PHP, and Python code
  • Built-in AutoScale support (automatically scale up/down based on real-world load)
  • Traffic Manager support (geographically scale your apps around the world)
  • Integrated Visual Studio publishing as well as FTP publishing
  • Continuous Integration/Deployment support with Visual Studio Online, GitHub, and BitBucket
  • Virtual networking support and hybrid connections to on-premises networks and databases
  • Staged deployment and test in production support
  • WebJob support for long running background tasks
  • Built-In API connectors for Logic Apps.

What are you waiting for, sign-into the Azure Preview Portal and Get Started.

Additional References:

Visual Studio 2013 – Update 2 is available

May 14, 2014 .NET, .NET Framework, .NET Framework 4.5.2, Azure SDK, Microsoft, SQL Server 2014, Trial Downloads, Updates, Visual Studio 2013, VisualStudio, VS2013, Windows, Windows 8, Windows 8 apps development, Windows 8.1, Windows Azure Development, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.0 SDK, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store, Windows Store Development, Windowz Azure, XBOX Development No comments

Microsoft has released the latest update for Visual Studio 2013 with major improvements including support for developing Universal apps for Windows 8.x, Win Phone, and XBOX.

Here are the list of improvements included as part of the release(lending from Visual Studio team blog):

Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 has many new capabilities as well as fixes that address bugs, customer feedback, performance, and reliability improvements. Here are some new capabilities that are part of this and related Updates and links to where you can find more info.

  • Universal Apps. With this release you can now build universal apps that can run on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 while sharing code and assets through shared projects.
  • TypeScript. The TypeScript language is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. As a typed language you can define classes, modules and interfaces that compiles to JavaScript and runs in any browser.
  • Web Tool. Our web development tools have many new features like SCSS support, a new JSON editor, updated ASP.NET templates, and an improved URL picker.
  • Azure tools. It’s easier to take advantage of Azure with options to create websites and SQL Azure databases directly on Azure for simpler deployment to a development / testing environment.
  • Diagnostics. Our diagnostics tools also got some enhancements. Performance events now let you navigate to user code for MVC Methods or jump to the SQL command for database queries. It is also possible to view the Windows Store diagnostics tools at the same time to see all your diagnostics information on a shared timeline.
  • Slipstream install. You can download Visual Studio with all its latest features from one install that includes Visual Studio 2013 RTM and Update 2 for Visual Studio.

There are a number of other important updates that are available today in addition to Update 2 for Visual Studio 2013:

  • Apache Cordova and Visual Studio. Cordova tools in Visual Studio let web developers build cross-platform mobile applications targeting Android, iOS, Windows and Windows Phone using use their existing skills in HTML and JavaScript. To learn more about Apache Cordova visit http://cordova.apache.org/
  • A cloud optimized .NET. The latest updates to the framework provide a cloud optimized mode that is smaller, lighter weight, and designed for cloud and server workloads.
  • .Net vNext. This update to the .Net framework is optimized for cloud-first and mobile-first development. It enables you to compile C# 6 and VB code with Roslyn compilers, speed up Windows Store apps with the .NET Native ahead of time compiler, and has a cloud optimized mode for ASP.NET apps.
  • TFS 2013 Update 2. It’s worth mentioning again the updates in TFS 2013 like improvements for tagging, charting, shared parameters, cloud load testing application analytics, and a lot more.

Check out Somasegar’s Blog and Brian Harry’s Blog to get more details on some of the highlights in this release. For a quick view at all the features and fixes included in this update go to the KB article.

DOWNLOAD: 

Visual Studio 2013 – Update 2 (Web / ISO)

Windows Azure Training Kit – May 2013

June 6, 2013 .NET, .NET Framework, AppFabric, Azure, Cloud Services, KnowledgeBase, Media Services, Microsoft, Microsoft Learning, Mobile Services, Training-Kits, Windows Azure Development, Windows Azure Training Kit, Windowz Azure No comments

Microsoft has relased the latest Windows Azure Training Kit.

Quoting the details from Microsoft:

The May 2013 update of the Windows Azure Training Kit includes new content on Windows Azure Media Services as well as updates to use the latest Windows Azure SDK v2.0.

Content Updates:

  • New Lab: Introduction to Windows Azure Media Services
  • New Lab: Getting Started with Windows Azure Storage
  • Updated Labs to leverage the latest version of Windows Azure SDK.

Download: Windows Azure TrainingKit – May2013

Windows Azure SDK for .NET–Version 2.0 (for Visual Studio 2010 SP1/2012)

April 30, 2013 .NET, .NET Framework, AppFabric, Azure, Azure SDK, Azure Tools, Cloud Computing, Cloud Services, KnowledgeBase, Media Services, Microsoft, Microsoft SDKs, Mobile Services, SQL Azure, VisualStudio, VS2010, VS2012, Windows, Windows Azure, Windows Azure Development, Windows Azure Training Kit, Windowz Azure No comments

Latest version of Windows Azure SDK for .NET – Version 2.0 released by Microsoft.

DOWNLOAD: Windows Azure SDK for .NET 2.0 (Offline Installer)

Recommended: Instead of manually downloading the files from above link, it is recommended you use the automated one-click install provided by the Web Platform Installer x64 or x86.

Click on the appropriate install link below based on your version of Visual Studio:

DOWNLOAD:  Windows Azure Training Kit – April 2013