ISV Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle talks with Jared Vogt, Avalara's CTO, about how they developed the services, how they needed to think about moving an application from their data centers into Windows Azure. When they wanted to show on a map how a tax is calculated, they turned to Windows Azure and Bing Maps. Jared provides a demo too of GeoSalesTax.com.

About Avalara

Avalara is a leader in providing sales tax service online. The company provides the sales tax calculation services as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering using Windows Server and SQL Server.

Headquartered in Bainbridge Island, WA, Avalara is the recognized leader in web-based sales tax solutions, and is transforming the sales and use tax compliance process for businesses of all sizes. Avalara’s AvaTax family of products provides end-to-end compliance solutions and is regarded as the fastest, easiest, most accurate and affordable way for companies to address their statutory tax requirements. Avalara is the industry's most trusted provider of sales and use tax automation solutions and is one of America’s fastest growing companies earning recognitions such as Microsoft’s SaaS Partner of the Year for 2010.

Other ISV Videos

For videos on Windows Azure Platform, see:

• Accumulus Makes Subscription Billing Easy for Windows Azure
• Azure Email-Enables Lists, Low-Cost Storage for SharePoint
• Credit Card Processing for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure
• Crowd-Sourcing Public Sector App for Windows Phone, Azure
• Food Buster Game Achieves Scalability with Windows Azure
• BI Solutions Join On-Premises To Windows Azure Using Star Analytics Command Center
• StorSimple Integrates On-Premises, Cloud Storage with Windows Azure
• How Quark Promote Hosts Multiple Tenants on Windows Azure
• NewsGator Moves 3 Million Blog Posts Per Day on Azure

The VP of Mobile and Data Services, Walker Fenton, and Software Developer Brian Reischl describe tips and tricks of moving this high availability service which aggregates more than 3.25 million posts per day. The team tells ISV Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle how they started with an existing ASP.NET application, but during the transition had to change how they thought about several facets of the solution – from technical aspects of storage and network connectivity to the business model. 

Very important to them was team members need no longer carry a pager to handle issues in the day-to-day operations of the data center, such as hard drive failures. Brian says, "No one gets woken up in the middle of the night because an Azure hard drive has failed."

Walker describes the newness of the cost model — how seemingly small transactions can add up. He also talks of the deployment efficiencies, and how they no longer have the "one weird box" problem — where one machine in the data center is somehow different from the rest, and always causing headaches around deployment, scalability, and maintenance.

About NewsGator

NewsGator, who has earned the ISV Gold Competency,, offers award-winning enterprise social computing solutions. Direct integration with SharePoint’s business collaboration platform means NewsGator Social Sites runs hassle-free on thousands of organizations’ existing computing infrastructures. Capabilities familiar to consumer-oriented social software, such as microblogging, activity streams, social profiles, mobile clients, and expertise location, ensure users extract real business value from collaboration and knowledge management activities.

Founded in 2004 and with over 2.5 million paid users, NewsGator serves Fortune 200 and government knowledge workers across the globe – including Accenture, Biogen Idec, Charles Schwab, Deloitte, Edelman, Fujitsu, General Mills, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kraft Foods, Novartis, Unisys Corporation, the United States Air Force, and the United States Army.

Together, SharePoint and Social Sites are propelling the future of productivity -  http://www.newsgator.com.

Other ISV Videos

For videos on Windows Azure Platform, see:

• Accumulus Makes Subscription Billing Easy for Windows Azure
• Azure Email-Enables Lists, Low-Cost Storage for SharePoint
• Credit Card Processing for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure
• Crowd-Sourcing Public Sector App for Windows Phone, Azure
• Food Buster Game Achieves Scalability with Windows Azure
• BI Solutions Join On-Premises To Windows Azure Using Star Analytics Command Center
• StorSimple Integrates On-Premises, Cloud Storage with Windows Azure

For other videos about independent software vendors (ISVs):

• Quark Extends SharePoint for Dynamic Publishing
• ProModel Adds Simulation, Visualization to Microsoft Project
• Slingbox Maker Sling Media Describes Cross-Platform Commitment to Silverlight
• Game Design and Development in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7
• Thumb-Driven Workflow on Windows 7 Slates from Blue Dot Solutions

Up to Date News for ISVs and Software Developers

See US ISV Community blog.

eBay will be one of the first companies to use the solution, implementing it in two of its datacenters. Other partners including Dell, Fujitsu and HP will also adopt the technology and offer Azure to their customers.

But don’t let the name “appliance” fool you – the appliance is actually a container filled with servers running Azure. The appliance aspect to the solution is due to the fact that it brings the Azure servers to a customer’s own datacenter, instead of having that customer offload their data to Microsoft’s servers, in other words, it’s a private cloud in a box. A really big box!

(img credit: CNET)

The containers are self-regulated thanks to sensors that monitor temperature, air control, and humidity. Based on the sensor’s readings, various mechanisms adjust the amount of air flow through the container. For example, if a container gets too cold, dampers in the upper part open up to allow air to circulate back though, explains a post on Bill Evjen's blog. He has posted a number of photos and accompanying explanations as to how the new data centers work, if you’re interested.

The Data Center Knowledge blog also has a photo tour of Microsoft’s Chicago facility available, one of the largest ever built. Microsoft has a behind-the-scenes video of this center, too.

Even if you’re not a data center guru, it’s pretty cool to see what “the cloud” looks like.

Thanks to flickr user rwoan for the photo.

(img courtesy of News from Microsoft Ireland)