Interested in experimenting with Windows Azure for a project? I'm interested in helping!
Don't get me wrong. Tackling the cloud alone is definitely dooable. You should go for it. Like, now! Did you know that Windows Azure charges €0.09 per GB of bandwidth to EU or US? That's like a bazillion times cheaper than anywhere else on the island. Storage? Put 100GB on the cloud and you'll pay somewhere around €5.22 per month (including triple-replicate backups). Is your current data center able to handle The slashdot effect? It exists! It's pretty much the webmaster's dream scenario when millions of people visit the site. Unfortunately, it usually turns into a nightmare when the server can't cope with the load and goes down. Usually, the result would be that people would actually copy that uber-interesting article from your site and host it somewhere else, with the rare capability of hosting it during THAT week. Well, with the cloud, it usually can scale well to handle such scenarios.
Those who have already jumped into the cloud can tell you that it is a different place from on-prem setups. The technology might be similar, but looks can be deceiving! (Why are there so many different SLAs?) Well, the reality is that Windows Azure and most other cloud hosting platforms have had to adopt different rules to bring out the best advantages that the cloud can offer. Be it high availability, flexibility, scalability or, hell, the sheer affordability, all these have created a different world with slightly different, but important, changes in how we design and set up our infrastructure. It is like a living in a parallel universe. Everything looks exactly the same, but the ice cream tastes different.
Don't believe me? There is a huge section on MSDN and all across the web highlighting these differences. Here are two to start you off:
Best Practices for the Design of Large-Scale Services on Windows Azure Cloud Services
Development Considerations for Windows Azure Cloud Services
Some of the best practices sometimes actually go totally the other way from what is usual with on-prem. For instance, near-data concepts (where the assumption that the code is running very near your data source) starts to break apart when in the 'foggy' cloud. There are cases where 'chatty' database transactions will actually slow down your application. Ironically, ADO.net Datasets, although they might be frowned upon (they still are), were actually on the right track back in .NET 2.0. Iterating in SQL data readers can cripple your on-prem blistering fast application when deployed in the cloud. This may be something that was not visible before giving those important estimates to your boss.
Cloud computing is the next big thing, want it or not, and I predict that most of the Internet will be migrating to some form of private/public cloud within the next few years. The big ones have already moved (both pinterest and foursquare are on Amazon Web Services AWS while Microsoft claims that 50% of fortune 500 already use Windows Azure). If you'd like your company to remain profitable, this is the only road. Just make sure that you have the right vehicle for the journey.
Given my personal interest in the cloud, especially in Windows Azure, I'd like to get to know of Windows Azure projects, especially here in Malta. Got one? Great! Let me know. Share your problems and I'll share my experience. If you prefer having someone with bucket-loads of experience by your side while you flick the switch, I can help! I'm a Microsoft certified professional for Windows Azure (PRO: Designing & Developing Windows Azure Applications Exam 70-583), and I work with Windows Azure daily on both large and small projects. I have set up infrastructures with multiple load balanced VMs, and given sessions/workshops on how to use Windows Azure technologies. Chances are, I've already met that problem that's currently kicking your butt.
If you'd like to contact me, send me an email on admin[at]playreaction.com and we'll get chatting.
All Azure users, especially after the Classic-to-ARM switchover, have noticed this... There are a lot of different resource types, even for a simple deployment. Naming them becomes critical to find the appropriate resource, especially in an emergency. To make matters worse, there are a lot of similar resource types which, if you're not careful, you may end up naming the same. Need a couple of new Virtual Machines? You have to name the availability group, storage accounts, load balancer, resouce …
Malta is on the map once again for the Global Azure Bootcamp, a one-day deep-dive training into the Microsoft Azure cloud.
From my last count, there will be 184 locations in total participating in this event around the world, from Hawaii to Japan! (Malta is bang in the middle!) And as usual, I'm again at it!
The bootcamp will be on April 25th 2015 (hey that's tomorrow! I suck with keeping my blog updated!) and will be held at the Microsoft Innovation Centre at Skyparks, Luqa (just …
Are you using Azure Websites to host your sites? Great! Then you know that whenever you deploy a website on Azure websites, you get the mysite.azurewebsites.net URL.
The sub domain is great for you to test your application, but most probably you have your own domain that is mapped to the site. However, the azurewebsites.net domain is still there and still works! Do you know that this can be a problem?
One of the rules in the SEO bible says that each page should only have one URL. Your …
A great book on the fundamentals of Azure. If you're new to Azure, this is a great start. Get it now!
The topics explored in this book include:
Getting started with Azure: Understand what cloud computing is, visit the management portals, and learn about billing.
Websites and Cloud Services: Learn about Azure Websites, from deployment to monitoring, and gain an understanding of the web and worker roles used in Azure Cloud Services.
Virtual Machines: Explore the basic …
... the world shook in terror on the 19th November 2014.
That means two things: firstly, the importance of a public cloud platform such as Azure.
When such a huge thing gets a hiccup, a lot of people stress out. And they should. A lot of businesses nowadays depend on public cloud services (be it AWS or Azure), and each business trusts the availability of their service to these skilled engineers. It's true, Microsoft (or Amazon) do not own your availability promises. (You can check …
Maybe you've heard about HEARTBLEED or SHELLSHOCK. POODLE is the next one.
Anyone using Windows Server and IIS was lucky enough to avoid both HEARTBLEED (openssl library vulnerability - CVE-2014-0160) and SHELLSHOCK (unix bash shell vulnerability - CVE-2014-6271). However, POODLE hits everyone.
What is POODLE?
POODLE, spelled in caps to distinguish from our furry canine friends, stands for "Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption". It is a type of man-in-the-middle exploit …
You've published your latest masterpiece to Azure Web Sites. Great! How was it? Not bad!
Now, does your application output its own error messages (HTTP 500, 404 etc?) IIS will by default hide your errors with the message:
The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
If you want to output your own custom output for non-200 statuses, you need to put this in your web.config:
<system.webServer>
< …
Building any cloud apps lately? Great!
Documenting them? Not so...
Firstly, make sure you're using the best tools of the trade: Microsoft Visio. It's by far the easiest and most powerful tool for diagrams.
Wanna add Azure-specific icons? Yeah, I know it's difficult to find them... But here's a secret: Visio supports SVG.
What does that mean, you ask? Well, it seems that the current azure site uses SVG for the majority of icons. If you want to use a particular Azure icon, just find the …
How to migrate legacy apps to Windows Azure
I see a lot of interest by startups to start using Windows Azure to power their products. It's the perfect platform to start small and have room to scale quickly and easily. But the most important advantage that startups have, is not having to worry about legacy issues.
A lot of companies would like to start using the cloud. By now, we know what the advantages are: scalability, resiliency, low management overhead, low service costs, etc. …
Google or Bing is indexing your public blobs on Windows Azure Blob Storage? Here is how to stop it...
The idea is to put a robots.txt file at the root of the Azure Blob Storage domain. ie: http(s)://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/robots.txt
Follow these steps:
1. Create a new container in your storage account in question. Name it $root and allow public access to blobs. This is a special container that serves as a default container for the storage account. Any blobs in this container may …