This afternoon, I’m packing my carry-on and first thing tomorrow morning I’m leaving Chicago for Visual Studio Live! New York. One of the unique things about this Visual Studio Live! trip is my wife Shelly will be joining me and we’ll be enjoying some downtime in NY. If you have any ideas on things we should do, or places we should see in NYC, please send me your suggestions.
Visual Studio Live! is one of the best developer conferences with four locations to choose from, Las Vegas, New York, Redmond @ Microsoft HQ and Orlando. VS Live! features code-filled days, networking nights and independent education for .NET developers, software architects and designers. The expert presenters make each session interactive, so you can discuss your particular development roadblocks and come away with actionable solutions.
Visual Studio Live! New York is taking place at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, May 14th-17th, 2012 and on Wednesday, May 16th, I’m presenting the following three sessions on Cloud Computing and Windows Azure.
Windows Azure VM Role
May 16th, 2012 @ 1:30 PM
The Windows Azure Platform is a great cloud platform for scalable, on-demand computing power. However, there are scenarios that are not supported by Azure’s web and worker role abstractions. In this session, we will explore the traditional Azure web and worker compute roles and walk through the common challenges encountered when using these. We will explore the architecture and internals of Windows Azure, and then explore VM Role and the scenarios that are enabled having access to the OS. We will walk through the lifecycle of installing, configuring and deploying a VM to Windows Azure and we’ll consider the tradeoffs and alternatives to using VM Role. Finally, we will take a look at what’s new in VM Role and how to get started.
Storage Strategies in Windows Azure
May 16th, 2012 @ 3:00 PM
The Windows Azure Platform provides a plethora of options for data storage and trying to make sense of it all can be overwhelming. In this session, we will explore the Windows Azure data services including SQL Azure, Table and Blob Storage, Local Compute Storage and Caching. We will walk through the scenarios that each data service addresses, and we will dive into how to work with each of them. Lastly, we will explore the factors that encourage using one service over another when multiple fit into your solution and how they can complement each other when used together.
SQL Azure Intro and What’s New
May 16th, 2012 @ 4:30 PM
Windows Azure provides many options for storing data. SQL Azure is Windows Azure’s solution for working with relational data. If you are familiar with SQL Server, SQL Azure will be a natural extension of your knowledge and skills.
In this session, you will get introduced to SQL Azure and learn how to get started. We will explore how to migrate an existing on-premise SQL Server database to SQL Azure. We will then walkthrough how to manage and administer your SQL Azure servers and databases. We will take a look at how to connect and build applications using SQL Azure. Next, we will look at more advanced scenarios using new capabilities like reporting with SQL Azure Reporting, scaling and sharding databases with SQL Azure Federations and synchronizing data with SQL Azure Data Sync for hybrid scenarios and global reach. Finally, we will explore some of the things you should consider when using SQL Azure.
If you are attending Visual Studio Live! New York, I’ll see you next week. If not, and you like education, training and conferences, you should check out Redmond in August and Orlando in December.