Partner Otaku

Check out this cool pumpkin carving app.  This was created by Archetype a Microsoft Partner.  http://bit.ly/1glQa2

I often get a lot of questions about the Azure benefits associated with MSDN and the BizSpark Program.  Here is a good posting and I’ve included the table below for easy reference.

Mise en place is a French cooking term that essentially means “everything in place”. Cooking is so much easier when all the prep work is done and all the ingredients are within easy reach. 

If you’re new to Azure, I hope my little “resources en place” will make your day a little easier.

Need an Azure account?

• Get a Free Windows Azure CTP account

Join the Community:

• The community at channel 9

Learn:

• “How Do I” videos
• Azure Webcasts
• Training kit
• Sample projects and snippets:
  • codeplex.com, search “azure”
  • code.msdn.com, search azure

Next Tuesday September 29th, we’ll be holding a webcast about Windows Azure.  We invite you to explore Windows Azure – Microsoft’s platform for building and deploying cloud based applications – within Microsoft. During this event, we’ll review critical lessons Microsoft IT has learned migrating internal line-of-business applications to Windows Azure.

The webinar will answer:

What is Windows Azure? When should I use it? How does it apply to my job?  Whether you’re an IT Professional, Developer or Architect, we’ll address top of mind questions about cloud computing.

TechNet Events Presents – for the IT Professional from 8:30am to noon

In this session, we will discuss:

• Azure architecture from the IT professional’s point of view
• Why an IT operations team would want to pursue Azure as an extension to the data center
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• The Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premises applications
• How operations teams can manage and monitor Azure-based applications

TechNet LIVE Webcast | REGISTER >>

MSDN Events Presents – for the Developer & Architect from 1:00pm to 5:00pm

In this session, we will discuss:

• Cloud computing architectures in general and the Azure architecture in particular
• Several aspects of Azure from the developer’s and architect’s perspective
• Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• How development teams can optimize their applications for better management and monitoring

MSDN LIVE Webcast | REGISTER >>

Yesterday we announced the availability of the free trial of Microsoft SQL  Azure Community Technology Preview (CTP). SQL Azure Database is a cloud based service built on technologies from MS SQL Server. This will allow for pay-as-you-go and provide enterprise class availability and data protection.

One of the primary goals of the Windows Azure Platform is to ensure that PHP developers can take advantage of SQL Server or SQL Azure Database. Yesterday, the CTP for the SQL Server Driver for PHP was released and available for download.

SQL Azure CTP Download

SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1 CTP Download

Today we announced pricing for Azure.  Lot’s of press on this already, but I wanted to provide a new link to hit for more information specifically for partners about Azure.

Azure Partner Quickstart Portal

If you’re not familiar with ARCast.TV on Channel9, it’s a series of interviews with influential architects providing perspective and architectural insight.  This week topic is Windows Azure with David Chappell.  David recently updated his white paper, “Introducing the  Azure Services Platform”.

New CloudApp() is a US-based developer challenge for .NET & PHP developers creating cloud applications or services on the Azure™ Services Platform. There are 3 contest categories with grand prizes of a $5000 VISA gift card for .NET and PHP, and $2500 for the Community winner. Have your application judged by industry leaders Om Malik and Michael Cote and share your cloud coding skills with other developers. Grand Prize Winners will be announced at Structure 09 and featured on azure.com.

Get More Information:  http://www.newcloudapp.com/

ARCHITECT COUNCIL | Pragmatic Patterns for Architects

“Cloud computing will supersede traditional IT”, “SOA will enable business agility”, “my way or the highway”, etc. We’ve all heard this type of proclamations before, as many look to the “next big things” in technology to exact sweeping changes and solve many issues; truth is, technologies and tools aren’t as instrumental in influencing progress, as the design and discipline in applying them to specific issues. When used appropriately, technologies and tools can be powerful enablers that bring about change.

One of the things we hear a lot working with the community is a desire for more guidance about how to use the technology instead of just talking about features and functions.  To address this, our team has put together a series of live webcasts on June 9^th – 11^th which will focus on guidance and patterns for some of today’s hottest topics. 

DAY 1 – June 9, 2009 at Noon PST

Patterns for Moving to the Cloud

Larry Clarkin & Wade Wegner

Everything that you read these days seems to suggest that you should be moving to the cloud. But where do you start? Which applications and services should be moving to the cloud? How do you build the bridge between on-premises and the cloud? And more importantly, what should you be looking out for along the way? In this session, learn architectural patterns and factors for moving to the cloud. Based on real-world projects, the session explores building block services, patterns for exposing applications, and challenges involving identity, data federation, and management. This session provides the tools and knowledge to determine whether cloud computing is right for you, and where to start.

DAY 2 – June 10, 2009 at Noon PST

Building Silverlight & WPF Applications with Prism

David Hill

Prism provides guidance, via design patterns, to help you build robust, flexible and modular Silverlight and WPF applications. These patterns support unit testing, separation of concerns, loose coupling and the ability to share application logic between Silverlight and WPF applications. Prism includes source code for the library itself, extensive documentation, and a sample application that shows how the patterns work together in a real-world application. It also includes a Visual Studio add-in to help you easily share code between WPF and Silverlight. This session provides an overview of Prism, and shows how you can use Prism to design and build composite Silverlight applications.

DAY 3 – June 11, 2009 at Noon PST

Patterns for Parallel Computing

David Chou

With recent advances in cloud computing, service-oriented architectures, distributed computing, server virtualization, multi-core processors; we are now seeing parallel computing techniques being implemented across the spectrum. It’s moving towards mainstream applications such as internet-scale web applications, massive data processing, graphics rendering, but the myriad of choices also present a number of questions on when and how to utilize parallel computing. This session explores the architectural patterns and trade-offs between different forms of parallel computing including: approaches for utilizing them to improve application performance, optimizing the use of existing infrastructure, and applying concurrency towards day-to-day enterprise information processing needs.

WEBCAST AGENDA

REGISTER

To register, please click on the link below for each day:

We will email you with the LIVEMEETING information and log-in detail a few days before the actual event. We will use the email address you provide in the registration. Thanks!

SPEAKER BIOS

Larry Clarkin – SR ARCHITECT EVANGELIST, Microsoft

Wade Wegner – SR ARCHITECT EVANGELIST, Microsoft

Architect in the Developer & Platform Evangelism division at Microsoft, tasked to collaborate with organizations in the advanced and emergent areas of enterprise architecture, SOA, Web 2.0, and cloud computing, as well as to support decision makers on defining technology adoption strategies. You can reach Wade at his blog http://www.architectingwith.net/ or through twitter at http://twitter.com/wadewegner.

David Hill – PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT, Microsoft Patterns & Practices Team

David Chou – ARCHITECT, Microsoft

Architect in the Developer & Platform Evangelism organization at Microsoft, focused on collaborating with enterprises and organizations in many areas such as cloud computing, SOA, Web, RIA, distributed systems, security, etc., and supporting decision makers on defining evolutionary strategies in architecture. Drawing on experiences from his previous jobs at Sun Microsystems and Accenture, David enjoys helping customers create value from using objective and pragmatic approaches to define IT strategies, roadmaps, and solution architectures.

One of Windows Azure’s goals is to provide support for a variety of languages including Java, PHP and Ruby.  If you are a PHP developer, and are interested in testing the PHP SDK for Windows Azure please click the link to the PHP SDK home page – PHP SDK for Windows Azure – Home.

PHPAzure is an open source project to provide a software development kit for Windows Azure and Windows Azure Storage – Blobs, Tables & Queues

Here are some resources that maybe useful to you in getting started: