Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Epilogger.

EPILOGGER
People share their entire lives. But memories on the web are fragmented. Epilogger unite all your social memories to discover and relive events.

CHRIS BROOKER
President and co-founder of Epilogger. He masterminds the code and idea along with his partner in crime!      

Host Jonathan Rozenblit is always on the search for stories of Canadian developers who have either built new applications using Windows Azure services or have migrated existing applications to Windows Azure. Canada Does Windows Azure shares their stories.

This is the story of Druida.

DANIEL FIRKA
Daniel Firka is the founder and CEO of DRUIDA Software & Consulting, chief architect, designer, and developer of the Druida SPAC software. He is an Industrial Engineer and a Sociologist, has obtained a MSc in Biomedical Engineering, and is currently finishing his MSc in Statistics at the University of Toronto. He is also a certified Quality and Reliability Engineer by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He is a Director at the Argentinean Institute for Quality, and in his spare time, develops software for advanced biomedical applications.

DRUIDA
DRUIDA is a company specialized in consulting and software development for Quality Assurance and Statistical Analysis. For almost 20 years it has developed a set of solutions covering several business needs related to Continuous Improvement, all under the flagship product named SPAC. The product discussed in this interview, SPAC IPP, as an auditing tool to evaluate suppliers and internal departments.

Since its creation DRUIDA has leveraged Microsoft technologies to achieve high quality software. The latest innovation is the deployment of SPAC IPP on Windows Azure.

On this D³: LIVE & INTERACTiVE special, the crew travels to the East of Toronto .NET User Group in Pickering, ON for a special presentation by Gladstone Grant, VP Developer & Platform Group at Microsoft Canada (LinkedIn, Twitter). Gladstone talks about Microsoft's overall technology direction and the opportunity it provides developers to be successful and to help their customers be successful.

Gladstone Grant

Software is an "innovate or die" business. It's the kind of business that attracts restless, positive people like Gladstone Grant. As VP of Microsoft's Developer and Platform Group, Gladstone has the enviable job of being focused on the future, on what's next, on the things most of us haven't even dreamt of yet. After nearly 20 years in the technology industry and more than 12 years with Microsoft Canada, Gladstone's passion for technology, for learning, for new challenges and for competition are stronger than ever. When Gladstone turns his attention to the present, rather than the future, he indulges his passions for sport and home renovation.

East of Toronto .NET User Group

The mission of the East of Toronto .NET User Group is to provide advanced, interesting information about the Microsoft .NET Framework. It serves the need of developers to receive the best .NET programming information, and fill their desire to be informed about developments of revolutionary importance as early as possible. The group serves the needs of programmers who are currently working with or interested in the .NET platform.

D³: LIVE & INTERACTiVE
Tune in to Developers, Developers, Developers: LIVE & INTERACTIVE (D³) hosted by Jonathan Rozenblit. The show airs live every first Wednesday of the month at 12:00 PM ET and features the latest updates on what's new and exciting in the world of development; featured presentations; and guests. LIVE and INTERACTIVE means that you'll be part of the show -- You're invited to interact with us; ask questions and get them answered; and share your thoughts and opinions -- all LIVE.

Key Points:

• You need Windows Azure SDK for .NET and Visual Studio Tools for Windows Azure (download from here)
• Run Visual Studio as Administrator to be able to use Windows Azure Emulators

Additional Resources:

• Windows Azure – How Do I: Sign-up a free 3-months Trial Account
• Getting Started with Windows Azure (Keynote by Scott Guthrie on 12/13/2011)

Enjoy the show.

Sanjay Jain
ISV Architect Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation
Blog: http://Blogs.msdn.com/SanjayJain
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SanjayJain369

Key Points:

• You need Windows Azure SDK for .NET and Visual Studio Tools for Windows Azure (download from here)
• Run Visual Studio as Administrator to be able to use Windows Azure Emulators

Additional Resources:

• Windows Azure – How Do I: Sign-up a free 3-months Trial Account
• Getting Started with Windows Azure (Keynote by Scott Guthrie on 12/13/2011)

 Enjoy the show.

Sanjay Jain
ISV Architect Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation
Blog: http://Blogs.msdn.com/SanjayJain
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SanjayJain369

Key Points:

• Free for 3-months
• Does require a Credit Card but comes with a  default spending limit of $0
• Monthly allocation includes 750 Small Compute Hours, 1GB Web Edition of SQL Azure, 20GB storage with 50K transactions, Unlimited inbound and 20GB Outbound bandwidth.

Additional Resources:

• 3-Months Free Trial
• Excellent Blog Post by my Colleague Jim O'Neil
• Windows Azure Spending Limits
• Getting Started with Windows Azure (Keynote by Scott Guthrie on 12/13/2011)

 Enjoy the show.

Sanjay Jain
ISV Architect Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation
Blog: http://Blogs.msdn.com/SanjayJain
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SanjayJain369

Bob explains why Riverbed selected Windows Azure for their customer to backup data into the cloud, how data is secured using security keys in conjunction with the Whiteware appliance. Bob explains why Azure is an important component in an enterprise back up strategy and for disaster recovery.

Architectural Overview

For an architectural overview of how Whitewater works with Windows Azure storage, see ISV Case Study: Cloud Storage Gateway Provides Backup into Windows Azure. 

About Whitewater

Whitewater automates enterprise backup to the cloud. The product from Riverbed is a gateway that combines data de-duplication, network optimization, data encryption, and integration with Windows Azure storage services through a single, virtual, or physical appliance.

No longer do enterprises need to use tape and move the files from disk to disk. Nor does an enterprise need to pay for a traditional disaster recovery site.

Whitewater cloud storage gateways and public cloud storage provides secure, off-site storage with restore anywhere capability for disaster recovery (DR). Data can be recovered by Whitewater from any location. Public cloud storage offers excellent DR capabilities without the high costs associated with remote DR sites or colocation service providers. With the public cloud and Whitewater cloud storage gateways – any size organization can significantly reduce its business risk from unplanned outages without the large capital investments and running costs required by competing solutions.

Additional Resources

Getting started with Windows Azure

See Also

Riverbed Whitewater

Windows Azure Storage

Video: Inside Windows Azure storage: what's new and under the hood deep dive

For hands-on labs and resources from this Windows Azure Camp session, click here.

For hands-on labs and resources from this Windows Azure Camp session, click here.

Marketing manager for Brand Manager Nick Howard and engineering manager Amit Nayar talk with ISV Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle about how they chose Windows Azure.

The team describes several Azure features that are key to their choice.

• Windows Azure helps the scale the application to the right size, up when lots of jobs put big demands on the system, back when demand lessens.
• It provides global location
• Able to get to market quicker.
• More affordable for clients.

The team describes scaling as being able to meet the demands for multiple types of tenants and workloads. So with Azure, the meet the user demands for processing large print jobs, add new customers worldwide, and add users worldwide.

Amit describes how developers expand their current skill set, while learning how to build architecturally sound applications for the cloud. He says, "Developer wouldn't want me to take away Azure now. It just fits the way we want to do business."

Developers can quickly deploy, closing gap between their dev environment and production environment. Easy to replicate between the cloud and development computers. In addition, developers are able to quickly respond to changing needs, making them able to accept business deals that might have been more difficult to implement. Azure a familiar place to the developers.

Amit explains how they do continuous integration with the cloud.

About Brand Manager

Brand Manager helps provide marketing manager with ways to control how those inside and outside the organization use logos, printed material, and business marketing collateral. It provides a workflow for the approval process

• Create customized, brand-controlled marketing materials, produced by anyone, anywhere.
• Empower your distributed sales and marketing teams to create personalized and localized sales and marketing materials on-demand, in minutes.
• Collaborate with stakeholders — such as brand managers, agencies, and legal and subject matter experts — in the review and approval process.
• Maintain brand consistency and compliance with controlled elements such as colors, fonts, taglines, and logos.
• Increase efficiency with version control of customized documents so you don't have to waste time searching for the most recent version.
• Print at your convenience using your in-house printer, your preferred vendor or optionally with the Quark Brand Manager local print network for fast, convenient, cost-effective local printing.

Getting Started with Windows Azure

Windows Azure is an open cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

You can build applications using any language, tool or framework.

Start with Developing on Windows Azure to get the tools for your particular environment.

Get the latest Azure Developer Training Kit.

For hands-on labs and resources from this Windows Azure Camp session, click here.

• [1:08] Motti Shaked's Interactive .Net Tutorial (Motti Shaked)
• [2:14] Updated Windows Azure SDK & Windows Azure HPC Scheduler SDK (Himanshu Singh), Download Windows Azure SDK, Manually download/install, Windows Azure SDK for .NET - November 2011.
• [3:50] NuGet Packages for Windows Azure and Windows Phone Developers (Wade Wegner)
• [6:07] Video–Building a RESTful Service in Azure, Source Code to Azure RESTful Service, Android Mobile Client, iOS/iPhone Mobile Client, and Windows Phone 7 Mobile Client (Bruno Terkaly)
• [7:37] Implementing 5 important principles of REST using WCF Services (Shivprasad Koirala)
• [8:15] JSLint for Visual Studio 2010 (Luke Page, "baretta_x" and "markist")
• [9:10] Download: Visual Studio 2010 Project Template for TFS Utilities (Neno Loje)
• [10:40] Build Explorer version 1.1 for Visual Studio Team Explorer is released (Terje Sandstrom), Visual Studio Gallery and Codeplex.
• [12:45] Visual Studio Feedback Tool, Visual Studio User Voice 
• [15:30] Basis of Tactile Programming with WPF4 and Surface 2.0 SDK (Nicolas Calvi)
• [16:42] PhoneGap on WP7 tip #1: Handling Orientation (Glen Gordon)
• [18:45] Free Art for your WP7 App (Andrew Coates), Windows Phone Apps Art Gallery
• [19:19] XDSK2 (XNA Developer’s Survival Kit)
• [20:12] How We Do Language Design at Microsoft (C#,Visual Basic,F#) (Alex Turner , Donald Syme , Lisa Feigenbaum , Lucian Wischik)
• [21:52] The Roslyn Project - Meet the Design Team (Charles Torre, Anders Hejlsberg, Karen Liu, Matt Warren, and Peter Golde)

Picks of the Week!

• Brian's Pick of the Week! [22:50] The making of the Xbox: How Microsoft unleashed a video game revolution (part 1), Part 2 (Dean Takahashi)
• Martin's Pick of the Week! [25:45] KINECT with your Eclipse IDE, YouTube Video of Presentation (Jonas Helming)

Thanks again to Martin for guest hosting this week...

Programming Note: Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US next week, there will be no TWC9 next week, the week of 11/25. See you on, or about, 12/2. Thanks and have a great holiday!

Speaker: Benjamin Soulier

Presentation (PPTX)

Walker Fenton and Brian Reischl of Sepial Labs talk with ISV Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle about why they chose Windows Azure to connect to the various phones. Brian explains how they used WCF using REST on Windows Azure. They do a demo of each phone using Azure to process messages across phone platforms using notifications. They show how you can sharie photos, videos, and locations.

For more information about the technologies used by Sepia Labs, see:

• Azure Table Encryption via Attribute
• REST on WCF
• Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone

About Glassboard

Glassboard is an app for sharing privately with groups (or 'boards' as we call them). With Glassboard you can message a group of people quickly & easily (looks like a text on your phone but it isn't!), share photos and videos, and even show your location when appropriate. Everything within a board is _completely_ private. Only the board chair can invite you to a board, and there is no way for someone not invited to search or discover a board. It's your own private corner of the Internet. 

Sepia Labs is a spinoff from NewsGator, from SharePoint partner of Social Sites.

But at the end of the day, what does that all mean? How do you transition from the way things are today to a Cloud model? In this episode of AlignIT Manager Tech Talk, Ruth Morton and Jonathan Rozenblit sit down with Joel Varty, Director of Research and Development at Agility CMS in Toronto, Ontario, and talk about moving to the Cloud. The discussion focuses around the business problems Windows Azure can solve, the opportunities that can arise, and what it takes to transition developers, architects, and IT staff from traditional application development to the Cloud. Joel shares how he worked with his team to get up to speed on Cloud development and their strategy for moving applications to the Cloud.

Resources

• Cloud Optimization - Expanding Capabilities, while Aligning Computing and Business Needs
  For many applications, the cloud is an ideal solution. For others, moving parts of an application's architecture to the cloud is preferable. To determine which applications are likely to derive the greatest benefit from cloud computing, organizations will want to explore a number of considerations.
• Delivering a New Kind of Business Value Using the Cloud
  Cloud computing with Windows Azure means that your developers can deliver a new kind of value to your business. Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools division, talks about the new world of development and how to get started building Cloud applications today.
• Strategy and Training as Pre-Requisites to Cloud Development
  "Developing for the Cloud" seems to be the phrase these days. You see and read about it everywhere, and as such, many will just jump right in. To ensure the success of your organization's journey to the Cloud, you need to take a step back and tackle two very important things first - your cloud strategy and training plans.

AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Podcast

This episode is also available as a podcast.

Listen Now | Download as MP3

Want more IT manager audio podcasts? Subscribe to the Align IT: IT Manager Podcast Series >>

About AlignIT

The Align IT program is dedicated to keeping IT leaders informed about what really matters in business and technology. We do that through in-person events, web casts, our blog and of course, this Manager Tech Talk series. You can find more information about the Align IT program at www.alignit.ca.

Comments, suggestions and ideas for future topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Align IT program feedback alias at alignit@microsoft.com.

If you rely on manual interventions to scale your application, you may not always achieve the optimal balance between costs and performance. An autoscaling solution reduces the amount of manual work involved in scaling an application dynamically.  In this video, we demo how this can be accomplished with WASABi (the Windows Azure Application Block) in two different ways: either by preemptively adjusting the number of role instances based on a timetable, or reactively by adjusting the number of role instances in response to some metric that you can collect from your application or Windows Azure environment.

The first WASABi preview is available via NuGet (just search for 'wasabi' from the NuGet Package Manager within Microsoft Visual Studio).

We provide an overview of WASABi scenarios and the block's architecture. If you want to jump straight to the demo, skip to 15:43.

For more information, see

• Autoscaling scenarios overview
• WASABi home page
• Product backlog

The team explains the decision to use Windows Azure was based around the integration with Visual Studio for development tools, integration with Intuit in the cloud, their need add customers quickly, and up time across multiple geographies. Their capital investments are also reduced signifiantly by going with Microsoft's cloud solution.

The Corelytics financial dashboard is available at the Windows Azure Marketplace. The product enables small businesses to save time and money by providing unique insight into performance allowing business owners to monitor key indicators, see visuals of trends and forecasts and compare performance to their industry peers and annual goals.

About Coreconnex

Coreconnex helps small businesses save time and money accessing a clearer picture of financial performance using the Corelytics financial dashboard and predictive analytics.

About Windows Azure Marketplace

Windows Azure Marketplace is a global online market for customers and partners to share, buy, and sell finished SaaS applications and premium datasets.  Whether you are looking for new customers for your Windows Azure based application or datasets, or are seeking new Windows Azure solutions to power your business, the Windows Azure Marketplace is a one-stop location supported by Microsoft to help you succeed.

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

• [00:38] Lynn's work on SmartCare - implementing technology and saving lives in Zambia. 
• [01:35] Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games offers a way to build social-enabled games backed by
       Windows Azure.
• [02:57] Windows Phone Mango marketplace announcements: Marketplace opens August 22; 19 new consumer markets; 7 new developer markets; targeted app distribution;
       much more...
• [05:05] Microsoft Advertising Ad SDK vs. Google AdMob case study: Microsoft wins with 71% higher yield
• [06:16] The story of PinCodeKeeper – a WP7 application.
• [07:25] Visual Studio Toolbox: Power Commands provides a suite of power tools for Visual Studio.
• [08:45] SQL Server "Denali" gets .NET-style Format() command
• [10:08] Should I defrag an SSD? (from Defrag: SSD Questions, Tagging Files, Mirroring Drives, Hardware Hacks)
• [11:11] 50+ Great Free Tools for .NET Developers
• [11:35] Unified Visual Studio User Voice site: Less is More

Picks of the Week!

• [13:33] Brian's pick: Scott Hanselman's Guide to Creating Quality Technical Screencasts
• [14:41] Lynn's pick #1:SmallBasic 1.0 RTM
• [16:57] Lynn's pick #2: ApprovalTests

Summer's here and for the most of us this is the time we take that well-deserved rest and stand back a little from
the daily grind. It's also a time for some reflection, a time to think about the things that we would like to do during the next couple of months. 
This is why we will be serving you up with such a refreshing cocktail of new things to enjoy in 4 special issues of the Architect newsletter.

The second topic of this summer edition lets you dive into the Windows Azure Platform.

Explore and dive into  the Windows Azure Platform: Focus on the application, not the infrastructure.

The Windows Azure platform is an Internet-scale cloud computing services platform hosted in Microsoft data centres.

The Windows Azure platform provides architects with an Internet-scale hosting environment with a runtime execution environment for managed and unmanaged code. With geographically distributed data centres, Windows Azure compute provides architects with the functionality to build, host and manage complete and compelling applications across the world.

Are you ready to explore the Windows Azure Platform? Take a look at our website and browse through a handpicked choice of articles, white papers and videos explaining what the Windows Azure Platform has to offer.

Speaker : Bart Vande Ghinste

Other interesting Summer Campaigns :

- For Developers : Windows Phone 7 Mango, Visuals Studio 2010 ALM

- For IT Professionals : Virtualization, Desktop Deployment

- For Independant Software Vendors (ISV) : Leveraging the Cloud, Unlocking your data

In this interview, Scott Price (CEO) and Roger Campbell (CTO) explain the process they went through while migrating their Java solution to Windows Azure, and how their company – CustomerCentrix – has benefited from using the Platform-as-a-Service offering from Microsoft.

About LoadStorm

LoadStorm is a web-based load testing tool for simulating what users do with a web site or web application. ISVs use it to build tests that send requests to your server in the same way that a user's browser sends requests to your server.  These tests are executed by LoadStorm's automated systems rather than by a user, and can be done repeatedly and in large numbers simultaneously. The tests can also be built using the LoadStorm tool in such a way as to simulate a large number of different users with different tasks to perform.

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

Summer's here and for the most of us this is the time we take that well-deserved rest and stand back a little from the daily grind. It's also a time for some reflection, a time to think about the things that we would like to do during the next couple of months.
 
For this very reason, MSDN is highlighting a number of topics that might be of interest to you. Topics that allow you as architects to build great solutions once the summer months are but a distant memory and the pressure is back on,
pushing you to be even more effective in what you are doing.

How does it work? There's a short introductory video, after which you have the chance to learn more about the topic at hand, depending on the time you have available or want to spend on it: half an hour, half a day or a full day. That way you can explore the presentation content to suit your personal timetable.

Explore and dive into Microsoft's Cloud Power

Microsoft is committed in leading the cloud story by having all its products aimed at the same cloud vision, effectively creating a whole spectrum of cloud solutions, aligned and integrated into a larger 'cloud continuum'.

Cloud Power is the key name in driving the Microsoft cloud vision across our solutions towards our partners and customers, It's the vision that sparks innovation with tools and solutions that lets you develop and deliver applications while using the tools, languages and products people already know. It gives your IT organization the power to focus on business instead of worrying about the plumbing behind it, saving you money, resources and enabling time to be spent elsewhere.

Are you ready to explore Microsoft's Cloud Power? Take a look at our site and browse through a handpicked choice of articles, white papers and videos explaining what 'cloud' means from a Microsoft perspective.

Speaker : Bart Vande Ghinste

Other interesting Summer Campaigns :

- For IT Professionals : Virtualization

- For Developers : Windows Phone 7 Mango

- For Independant Software Vendors (ISV) : Leveraging the Cloud

View Online: SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure Training Course
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/SPAzureTrainingCourse

Download:  SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure Training Kit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d2dc556-650a-484f-8f52-f641967b42ea

Learn More
http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/girishr

SQL Azure Migration Wizard (Part 1): SQL Azure - What is it?

SQL Azure Migration Wizard (Part 2): Using the SQL Azure Migration Wizard