Windows Azure Action – Community Newsletter - 14th December 2012

WINDOWS AZURE IN ACTION – LOCAL

NEWS		TECHNOLOGY		COMMUNITY
WebJet Webjet announces flight to Office 365 and Azure Oakton Oakton Announces Support for Microsoft HDInsight Breeze Microsoft Integration Alliance Announced! Microsoft The New Zealand Windows Azure Application Showcase: CommerceConnect		No updates this week		Microsoft   Coming soon

                                          

WINDOWS AZURE IN ACTION – IN GENERAL

NEWS

Windows Azure Platform

• Announcing Reduced Pricing for Windows Azure Storage - by as much as 28%
• iOS Support in Windows Azure Mobile Services

In the news

Press                  

• Microsoft sells Azure storage like a smartphone- free device with contract
• Microsoft’s cloud vision: Why Azure is the linchpin of the firm’s new ‘devices and services’ strategy
• Microsoft finalizes System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 - integrates with Windows Azure Virtual Machines
• Microsoft cuts Windows Azure cloud storage prices
• A Sign Of More Openness: Windows Azure Mobile Services Adds Push Notification For iOS
• Dashing through the clouds with Windows Azure scale - NORAD Santa Tracker switches from Google to Bing Maps, Windows Azure

Cloud                            

• Evolve or Die
• Work Shifting, Business Continuity, And The Cloud
• Frost & Sullivan: 40% of New Zealand companies spend 10% of IT budget on cloud solutions; 57% intend to increase cloud based budgets
• 10 ways cloud computing will change in 2013

Partner

• SendGrid adds Parse, Stackmob, Azure integrations

Case Study

• Global Grid for Learning Limited - Online Learning Resources Platform improves delivery with Windows Azure

 

TECHNOLOGY

• Installing Windows Azure SDK on Visual Studio 2012
• Windows Azure Hands-on Labs Online
• Windows Azure: Introduction

• Developing Multi-tenant Applications for the Cloud, 3rd Edition
• Windows Azure Architecture Guide – Part 1 – Code Samples
• A Close-up View of Microsoft Azure Adoption, Business Decision-Makers are Driving Cloud Trends
• Book Review: ‘Cloudonomics: The Business Value Of Cloud Computing’
• Effective Windows Azure Scaling Strategies

• MS Open Tech Contributes Support for Windows ETW and Perf Counters to Node.js
• Doctrine supports SQL Database Federations for massive scalability on Windows Azure
• Windows Azure Authentication module for Drupal using WS-Federation 

Features

 

• Windows Azure Active Directory Supports JSON Web Tokens

• Hadoop on Windows Azure: Hive vs. JavaScript for processing big data
• .NET SDK for Hadoop Update
• Bright HDInsight Part 4: Blob Storage in Azure Storage Vault (examples in C#)
• Bright HDInsight Part 3: Using custom Counters in HDInsight

• Windows Azure Mobile Services: A Robust Back End for Your Device Applications
• Best practices for using push notifications, SMS and email in your mobile app
• iOS Support in Windows Azure Mobile Services
• A way to upload files to Windows Azure Mobile Services

• Azure Websites Quotas, Scaling, and Pricing
• Configuring IIS methods for ASP.NET Web API on Windows Azure Websites and elsewhereBuilding Back-end Data and Services for Windows 8 Apps: ASP.NET Web API Launch Your Existing Website Into the Cloud with Azure

• Regulatory Compliance Considerations for SQL Server Running in Windows Azure Virtual Machine
• Windows Azure IaaS Series Part Four: Creating VMs with PowerShell

Core Services

 

• Getting Started with Service Bus. Part 3: Service Bus Explorer
• Windows Azure Service Bus: Messaging Patterns Using Sessions
• Chaining with Service Bus part 2

• 3 best practices for Windows Azure SQL Reporting development
• Simple Calculator for Comparing Windows Azure Blob Storage and Amazon S3 Pricing – Updated
• Updated: Known Issues for Windows Azure Storage Client Library 2.0 for .NET and Windows Runtime

• Practical Azure #4: Using the Content Delivery Network
• Data Management: Choosing the Right Technology

Other

 

• Continuous delivery to Windows Azure by using Team Foundation Service           

 

• From the MVPs: Put your Windows Store apps on cloud

• Apptio Extends Leadership in Cloud Business Management With Launch of Apptio Cloud Express – tracks usage and costs
• Leveraging Windows Azure and Twilio to support SMS in the Cloud
• Episode 94 - Opscode demonstrate Chef an integration framework for Cloud Automation

                                                                                          

COMMUNITY

Events

• p&p Symposium 2013  in Remond, WA on 1/15 through 1/17/2012
• Windows Store App Development for iOS Developers – Resources from 13-14th December course

LOCAL GENERAL

 

User Groups

• Sydney (Conor Brady/ Ershad Nozari)
• Melbourne (Mahesh Krishnan and Chris Padgett)
• Brisbane (Dean Robertson)
• Auckland (Ryan Crawcour)
• Perth Cloud User Group (Rivaaj Jumna, Hadwin Fung)

Regional

• NZ: Follow @technetnz @msdnnz
• Singapore: Singapore Azure User Group (official website)

MVPs

• Check in on what MVPs around Australia & New Zealand are up to

Social

• Twitter: Adding yourself to the Azure Australia Twitter list
• FaceBook: Becoming a Facebook fan
• Links: Windows Azure developer jump site for Australia