Yesterday I did a turn for a great group of CTOs associated to a variety of hedge funds.  As promised here is my deck from the day.

One of the questions that I often get into when talking with folks normally have a dev head on around Windows Azure is why you’d want to be able to monitor a Windows Azure application with System Center and why you wouldn’t just build a bespoke monitoring solution since you’re building an application already.  The answer is actually a very obvious one to integrate with existing systems.  Anyone with an ounce of IT operational background or ITIL training will tell you that you rightly need to centralise monitoring and ultimately to simplify it.  The first obvious reason why you’d do that is to save money but there’s a second reason:

That amazing application probably isn’t running in isolation.

You’ll find that it requires other components like network connectivity (yes even in the cloud) to be in place and available – particularly if you’re running in a hybrid environment.  A holistic management solution, such as System Center will help you to achieve an overall view of what’s going on, of all the dependencies on various components of the system.

Interestingly we’ve just moved such a system to Windows Azure, along with the required monitoring and documented the whole process with a case study of moving a Business Critical application to Windows Azure.  The article is well worth a read for anyone thinking about moving an application to the cloud but the following stuck out for me as benefits:

• Accurate and timely monitoring and alerting for [application] critical components
• A large number of reusable monitoring components that can be leveraged in future Windows Azure applications

Accuracy and timeliness are so important in IT Operations it’s untrue but that second benefit around reusability is also so important.  Not only will you have developed a reusable system monitoring Windows Azure applications but you’ll also have reusable skills.

How do you get started?  Well you could just download this little package of 2 ready made evaluation VHDs and play with a pre-built Windows Azure application, I have and it really doesn’t take long to get to grips with.

A few weeks ago now we made the following video tour of our Datacentres available for all to see on the GFS website and also on YouTube.  At the time I forgot to post it but having just happened across it I thought it worth sharing.  I constantly get asked about the size and scale of our DCs and this really shows them off…and yes the Dublin DC is one of the worlds largest DCs at 330,000 square foot or about the size of 3 of the UKs largest Super Markets all under one roof.  Why does that matter?  Because building and learning about Data Centers at that scale is something few others can do.

Just another short post to provide the signposts to some of the resources I talked about in my Windows Azure for IT Professionals session.  First up is access to the free Windows Azure trial I mentioned and next is the training course that will take you through using learning how to use PowerShell with Windows Azure (actually it’s blog post that’s part of a series).

You’ll be in need of some tools too, so grab the Azure MMC here or just the PowerShell cmdlets but to use either you’ll need the AzureSDK.  You’ll also need some code to deploy so I’d suggest getting yourself along to Planky’s labs on Friday (there are two sessions, Friday morning and Friday afternoon, scroll to the bottom to reg) and you only need to do one!

Sound scary?  Well it’s not, but it’s critically important in spurring cloud adoption in your organisation and therefore a set of key skills for IT Professionals.  We have a technology toolset called Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS 2.0) that uses a set of secure protocols like SSL and Public Key encryption to provide Single Sign On to applications that are not hosted inside your network.  It doesn’t even require a physical connection between your Active Directory Directory Service (AD DS) and the application, or even for you to dangle your AD DS on the internet like tasty shark bait.  In fact you don’t even have to place your AD DS into a DMZ.  All this means you can provide secure single sign on…but why would you and how do you?  (hint the how is at the bottom).

Lets take a look why.  What are the applications that your users use most frequently and easily?  Probably Word, Excel, PowerPoint…then probably some line of business apps (LOB).  How do people sign onto those LOB apps?  If you’re in a good place then they don’t need to, they just launch the app and get signed in automatically but if you aren’t then they probably need extra user names and passwords.  How many helpdesk calls does that create?  What perception of IT services in your organisation does that create?  I know, I’ve been there….the answer is usually lots of calls, poor perception.  That user experience can be better with simple AD authentication for the application.

The pain not having single sign on with a cloud application can be extreme.  Imagine this scenario:

But with ADFS 2.0 in place all that has to happen is that the user remembers their Windows password and logs in.  Just once and it’s far more secure because your organisation is in charge of the password reset policy, the complexity policy and most importantly – because they don’t have to remember lots of passwords they stop writing them down on their desks.

We’re pretty serious about this being a major piece of the cloud for the IT Professional, so much so that both @deepfat and I took two days out a week or so ago for offsite training on how to build ADFS 2.0 infrastructures.  It’s not all that complex either…once you have an understanding of PKI.  But to make it even easier you’ll find whitepapers that take a step by step approach to the technology just here: Single Sign-On from Active Directory to a Windows Azure Application Whitepaper .  Not only is this essential for Azure it’s also essential to know for the best possible Office365 integration.

I was just thumbing around the Sysinternals site (for some handy tools for a deployment I’m doing) and happened across Mark’s PDC presentation which he re-ran at TechEd Europe last week and which I happened to be at.  It’s a fantastic way for the IT Professional to understand some of the (very) interesting back end of Windows Azure.  How it works, what it does, what fabric is, how it heals how it deploys how it all bolts together.  When you’re done watching the vid, go get an Azure trial.

Thanks to Simon May for writing this post and being as bouncy as ever the morning after UKPDC10, when the rest of us are just about managing to operate at all. You can also read this post on Simon’s blog.

I love it when we put on a good show, geeks, streams, quizzes, phones and most importantly TECH!  Last night we played host to a whole bunch of people at the Microsoft Campus in Reading who all left happy (twitter says so #ukpdc10) and who all learnt some new stuff about Azure, Windows Phone 7, and IE9.  There were some stonking announcements on the HD feed from Redmond given by a Steve Ballmer, and Bob Muglia and special guest stars like Pixar studios and Buzz Light-year.  This was a developer conference so what’s important to the IT Pro in what was announced?

Windows Azure

TIP: If you don’t know what Azure is yet jump to my blog and subscribe where I’ll be explaining it next week but…

Windows Azure is true PaaS self scale-able (elastic) computing that grows and shrinks as the application needs to.  At PDC10 we announced new Virtual Machine(VM) role which is a rock star move because with the VM role you can move an existing application to the cloud.  How is such a feat achieved?  Simple, take your application, install it on Windows 2008 R2 and take an image to a VHD file (super easy if you’re using Hyper-V ‘cos you already have the file) then copy-and-paste to file to the cloud server.  With this new VM role you can do pretty much what you want, run the services you want and run scheduled tasks if you want to.  Because it’s your server in the cloud you get to be the race car driver, make the decisions and be involved in the engineering process.  I can’t stress how excited this role makes me as an IT Professional…but it gets even better.

Next your the VM role will be able to take your Windows 2003 Servers (but do yourself a favour and go to 2008 R2, you might as well) and you’ll be able to build the VMs in the cloud rather than just on premise.

The Web Role gets the enhancement of full features IIS, meaning that one role can run multiple sites and you can install IIS modules…oh yeah and management becomes familiar with Remote Desktop (RDP) and by elevating privileges you can do more complex deployments.  So it’s now possible to install MSI files on a web role for example.  By the way the PDC site and even Channel 9 are running on Azure.

The announcement of Windows Azure Connect means you can plumb Windows Azure into your internal network.  That’s right you can domain join your Azure server roles so it’s just like it’s on premise, in your private data centre.  Just by way of an example that means you could deploy your Intranet site to a Web Role or your expenses application to a VM Role and bosh it’s just there…you can probably use the VM Role to poke a DC up there too!  It’s all done using familiar IP networking and VPN like connections.  That sounds like a job for the IT Professional to me.  Next year will bring SSL/TLS encryption for the pipes and Dynamic content caching so less stuff goes over the pipes (a bit like branch cache for the cloud) and a build out of the networking infrastructure.

Azure Licensing can be seen as too costly for some people so we’ve downsized!  There’s a new Extra Small instance that costs just $0.05 per hour for a 1Ghz CPU, 768MB RAM and 20GB of storage…that sounds like the perfect kit to base my first instance on of an elastic application.  All the Windows Azure Roles are Compute Instances and so are charged the same.  There’s no CAL requirement to connect to an Azure VM role (awesome) and the Azure role license is covered through the compute costs…making it as cheap as (silicone) chips!

It’s all about to go Beta and we at UK TechNet will let you know when we drop the beta bomb.

So IT Pro’s need to skill up on:

• Server 2008 R2
• Hyper-V
• IP
• IIS7

You’ll be wanting to Azure to get your head around it…trials are included as part of your MSDN subscription too.

SQL Azure

Community Technology Previews were announced for a bunch of new features including Reporting so reports can be authored using SQL Services Reporting tools and embedded in the database.  Data Sync CTP 2 can sync databases across datacentres and with the data on your premises in your own SQL Server.  That means you can have multiple geo-redundant SQL database or even just keep the data closest to the people who need it.  So say you have your business has 10 people in Japan, 10 people in Europe and 100 people data mining in India the guys in Japan and Europe can access the DB from SQL Azure from their fastest local DC and the guys in India receive a “caching” effect of having the data sync to their local SQL Server saving on the cost of the main Internet pipe to the office.

The lightweight Database Manager formerly known as “Houston” (stunning Siverlight based app if you have  a look) has entered CTP too and will become part of the developer portal.

DBAs and IT Pros doing SQL stuff need to skill up on:

• not a whole lot…but if you aren’t on SQL 2008 you need to nail that.

You’ll be wanting to Try SQL Azure to get your head around it…trials are included as part of your MSDN subscription too.

IE9

Platform Preview 6 of Internet Explorer 9 was introduced at PDC10 and whilst the Beta is out and has rocked 10 million downloads already PP6 is important.  It’s what you need to run to assess your stuff against IE9 whilst still using IE8 – which is exactly what you need to do right now, you’d don’t want to be deploying Beta code (even if it’s awesome) to your user base.  There’s not a huge amount of IT Professional stuff in IE9 just yet, but this video (which is HTML5 by the way if your browser is capable) shows off the new platform preview and IE Test Drive Site.

Windows Phone 7

Oh boy was there a lot of love in the room for this last night.  We gave a couple away, more devs came with their own phones…everyone loved them!

You might not know who Scott Guthrie is but he’s a demo-god, dev-god and he’s famed for his red shirts.  He live built a Windows Phone 7 app that dynamically searches eBay using odata to help you buy red shirts…it took about 5 minutes.  Do that on another mobile device.

We’ve only just released the phone so there were no new announcements other than the inclusion of oData.  I’ll be releasing some info on how WP7 can be used by business and by IT Pros next week so stay tuned to my blog.

Summary

I’m excited by the VM Role, it adds a whole new dimension to Azure, Windows Phone 7 is amazing and the developer experience, just like the user experience is 2nd to none , IE9 is beautifying the web for 10 million people already.  Oh yeah, we also had a Kinect at the event and this is what people had to say about it (#nowhereneardeadyet!):

@pauliom: Trying to decide what to concentrate on after #ukpdc10. Better wp7 storage/tombstoning, tfs in azure, rx, or getting an xbox kinect? about 5 hours ago via TweetStation

@pauliom: RT @mtaulty: I only played with kinect at #ukpdc10 tonight for 5 minutes and it won me over - seems just as natural as it looks on the demos. about 5 hours ago via MetroTwit

@JonAlb: Thanks to all organisers of #ukpdc10 a fantastic evening just two requests... can I have a phone and can I have an xbox kinect? about 14 hours ago via MetroTwit

@ajnt: Xbox Kinect is amazing! Great idea having it at #UKPDC10. 3d person tracking including face recognition. 10th November UK launch. about 14 hours ago via web

@JonAlb: playing on the xbox kinect was very cool, the ping pong game (wiff waff) was ace! you REALLY get into it, realistic tennis elbow! #Ukpdc10 about 14 hours ago via MetroTwit

@GrahamWilmott: #ukpdc10 just played with #kinect about 15 hours ago via HTC Peep

s@tack72: RT @simonster: can I just ask, who at #ukpdc10 thinks Kinect is AWESOME? about 16 hours ago via MetroTwit

@gthevenot: OK Microsoft, no free #WP7 at #ukpdc10, what about free #kinect then ? about 16 hours ago via web

@brandondjmurphy: Remember when wii was first released. Triple that and double that and you will come close to the kinect experience #ukpdc10 about 17 hours ago via Mobile Web

@Paul_Dunscombe: Playing with kinect. Looks like a wii killer. #ukpdc10 about 17 hours ago via Tweets60

@westleyl: Noooooo, our beer .. RT @petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! about 17 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

@CLaueR: RT @petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! Bowling arm hurts about 17 hours ago via Twitter for Windows Phone

@petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! Bowling arm hurts about 17 hours ago via Twitter for Windows Phonef

@blakepender: SB: Kinect is remarkable! Talking about it being great #ukpdc10 about 19 hours ago via txt

@pauliom: At #ukpdc10 as a backing dancer to lady gaga apparently #kinect making a t1t of myself about 20 hours ago via TweetStation

@brandondjmurphy: At #ukpdc10, impressed with the kinect. about 20 hours ago via Mobile Web

@johanbarnard: #UKPDC10. Dance Central on #Kinect http://twitpic.com/31lul4

I love it when we put on a good show, geeks, streams, quizzes, phones and most importantly TECH!  Last night we played host to a whole bunch of people at the Microsoft Campus in Reading who all left happy (twitter says so #ukpdc10) and who all learnt some new stuff about Azure, Windows Phone 7, and IE9.  There were some stonking announcements on the HD feed from Redmond given by a Steve Ballmer, and Bob Muglia and special guest stars like Pixar studios and Buzz Light-year.  This was a developer conference so what’s important to the IT Pro in what was announced?

Windows Azure

TIP: If you don’t know what Azure is yet jump to my blog and subscribe where I’ll be explaining it next week but…

Windows Azure is true PaaS self scale-able (elastic) computing that grows and shrinks as the application needs to.  At PDC10 we announced new Virtual Machine(VM) role which is a rock star move because with the VM role you can move an existing application to the cloud.  How is such a feat achieved?  Simple, take your application, install it on Windows 2008 R2 and take an image to a VHD file (super easy if you’re using Hyper-V ‘cos you already have the file) then copy-and-paste to file to the cloud server.  With this new VM role you can do pretty much what you want, run the services you want and run scheduled tasks if you want to.  Because it’s your server in the cloud you get to be the race car driver, make the decisions and be involved in the engineering process.  I can’t stress how excited this role makes me as an IT Professional…but it gets even better.

Next your the VM role will be able to take your Windows 2003 Servers (but do yourself a favour and go to 2008 R2, you might as well) and you’ll be able to build the VMs in the cloud rather than just on premise.

The Web Role gets the enhancement of full features IIS, meaning that one role can run multiple sites and you can install IIS modules…oh yeah and management becomes familiar with Remote Desktop (RDP) and by elevating privileges you can do more complex deployments.  So it’s now possible to install MSI files on a web role for example.  By the way the PDC site and even Channel 9 are running on Azure.

The announcement of Windows Azure Connect means you can plumb Windows Azure into your internal network.  That’s right you can domain join your Azure server roles so it’s just like it’s on premise, in your private data centre.  Just by way of an example that means you could deploy your Intranet site to a Web Role or your expenses application to a VM Role and bosh it’s just there…you can probably use the VM Role to poke a DC up there too!  It’s all done using familiar IP networking and VPN like connections.  That sounds like a job for the IT Professional to me.  Next year will bring SSL/TLS encryption for the pipes and Dynamic content caching so less stuff goes over the pipes (a bit like branch cache for the cloud) and a build out of the networking infrastructure.

Azure Licensing can be seen as too costly for some people so we’ve downsized!  There’s a new Extra Small instance that costs just $0.05 per hour for a 1Ghz CPU, 768MB RAM and 20GB of storage…that sounds like the perfect kit to base my first instance on of an elastic application.  All the Windows Azure Roles are Compute Instances and so are charged the same.  There’s no CAL requirement to connect to an Azure VM role (awesome) and the Azure role license is covered through the compute costs…making it as cheap as (silicone) chips!

It’s all about to go Beta and we at UK TechNet will let you know when we drop the beta bomb.

So IT Pro’s need to skill up on:

• Server 2008 R2
• Hyper-V
• IP
• IIS7

You’ll be wanting to Azure to get your head around it…trials are included as part of your MSDN subscription too.

SQL Azure

Community Technology Previews were announced for a bunch of new features including Reporting so reports can be authored using SQL Services Reporting tools and embedded in the database.  Data Sync CTP 2 can sync databases across datacentres and with the data on your premises in your own SQL Server.  That means you can have multiple geo-redundant SQL database or even just keep the data closest to the people who need it.  So say you have your business has 10 people in Japan, 10 people in Europe and 100 people data mining in India the guys in Japan and Europe can access the DB from SQL Azure from their fastest local DC and the guys in India receive a “caching” effect of having the data sync to their local SQL Server saving on the cost of the main Internet pipe to the office.

The lightweight Database Manager formerly known as “Houston” (stunning Siverlight based app if you have  a look) has entered CTP too and will become part of the developer portal.

DBAs and IT Pros doing SQL stuff need to skill up on:

• not a whole lot…but if you aren’t on SQL 2008 you need to nail that.

You’ll be wanting to Try SQL Azure to get your head around it…trials are included as part of your MSDN subscription too.

IE9

Platform Preview 6 of Internet Explorer 9 was introduced at PDC10 and whilst the Beta is out and has rocked 10 million downloads already PP6 is important.  It’s what you need to run to assess your stuff against IE9 whilst still using IE8 – which is exactly what you need to do right now, you’d don’t want to be deploying Beta code (even if it’s awesome) to your user base.  There’s not a huge amount of IT Professional stuff in IE9 just yet, but this video (which is HTML5 by the way if your browser is capable) shows off the new platform preview and IE Test Drive Site.

Windows Phone 7

Oh boy was there a lot of love in the room for this last night.  We gave a couple away, more devs came with their own phones…everyone loved them!

You might not know who Scott Guthrie is but he’s a demo-god, dev-god and he’s famed for his red shirts.  He live built a Windows Phone 7 app that dynamically searches eBay using odata to help you buy red shirts…it took about 5 minutes.  Do that on another mobile device.

We’ve only just released the phone so there were no new announcements other than the inclusion of oData.  I’ll be releasing some info on how WP7 can be used by business and by IT Pros next week so stay tuned to my blog.

Summary

I’m excited by the VM Role, it adds a whole new dimension to Azure, Windows Phone 7 is amazing and the developer experience, just like the user experience is 2nd to none , IE9 is beautifying the web for 10 million people already.  Oh yeah, we also had a Kinect at the event and this is what people had to say about it (#nowhereneardeadyet!):

@pauliom: Trying to decide what to concentrate on after #ukpdc10. Better wp7 storage/tombstoning, tfs in azure, rx, or getting an xbox kinect? about 5 hours ago via TweetStation

@pauliom: RT @mtaulty: I only played with kinect at #ukpdc10 tonight for 5 minutes and it won me over - seems just as natural as it looks on the demos. about 5 hours ago via MetroTwit

@JonAlb: Thanks to all organisers of #ukpdc10 a fantastic evening just two requests... can I have a phone and can I have an xbox kinect? about 14 hours ago via MetroTwit

@ajnt: Xbox Kinect is amazing! Great idea having it at #UKPDC10. 3d person tracking including face recognition. 10th November UK launch. about 14 hours ago via web

@JonAlb: playing on the xbox kinect was very cool, the ping pong game (wiff waff) was ace! you REALLY get into it, realistic tennis elbow! #Ukpdc10 about 14 hours ago via MetroTwit

@GrahamWilmott: #ukpdc10 just played with #kinect about 15 hours ago via HTC Peep

s@tack72: RT @simonster: can I just ask, who at #ukpdc10 thinks Kinect is AWESOME? about 16 hours ago via MetroTwit

@gthevenot: OK Microsoft, no free #WP7 at #ukpdc10, what about free #kinect then ? about 16 hours ago via web

@brandondjmurphy: Remember when wii was first released. Triple that and double that and you will come close to the kinect experience #ukpdc10 about 17 hours ago via Mobile Web

@Paul_Dunscombe: Playing with kinect. Looks like a wii killer. #ukpdc10 about 17 hours ago via Tweets60

@westleyl: Noooooo, our beer .. RT @petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! about 17 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

@CLaueR: RT @petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! Bowling arm hurts about 17 hours ago via Twitter for Windows Phone

@petemill: Finally made it to #ukpdc10 - helping myself to beer. Played with the kinect. Recognition is incredbile! Bowling arm hurts about 17 hours ago via Twitter for Windows Phonef

@blakepender: SB: Kinect is remarkable! Talking about it being great #ukpdc10 about 19 hours ago via txt

@pauliom: At #ukpdc10 as a backing dancer to lady gaga apparently #kinect making a t1t of myself about 20 hours ago via TweetStation

@brandondjmurphy: At #ukpdc10, impressed with the kinect. about 20 hours ago via Mobile Web

@johanbarnard: #UKPDC10. Dance Central on #Kinect http://twitpic.com/31lul4

Ok, deep breath – long sentence coming up…

This free, yes, free 400+ page ebook Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions: From the Desktop to the Datacenter, 2nd Edition is the book for IT professionals who want to learn more about the latest Microsoft virtualization technologies, including Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and Microsoft’s private and public cloud computing platforms including Windows Azure.

And…breathe!

One of things I love about working for Microsoft is that we use our own stuff, we really trust, we really deploy it, we really use it.  Not all our competitors do, you can tell because they don’t talk about it, they don’t run their own massive data centres for example.  We do and it gives us experience.  MSIT – our IT department, yes we do have an IT department too, has built and deployed SXP or Social eXperience Platform) on the Windows Azure platform – and more stuff is going that way too.

So what is SXP and what makes it special?  Well SXP runs on this site our video showcase and it is essentially a platform that allows us to manage and understand the social aspects of our content.  That content can be web pages, videos (as in the video show case site), blog posts, new stories, press releases…anything.  Essentially you could say it adds social context to anything and allows us to understand that context.  It’s a back end tool, it’s not doing the content hosting.

The platform is built on Azure (one web server role running on 3 medium instances) and storage is taken care of by SQL Azure with each subside of Microsoft.com having it’s own database allowing customisation and isolation of problems, should there be one.  The user interfaces are delivered with Silverlight.

There are some cool management things too, SCOM integration being handled by some custom code right now but the RC of the Azure Management pack is being run in parallel and that’s going to be something every IT Pro who’s managing Azure will love.  There’s also an interesting tool called “Keynote” running that checks that the web service is available from different points all over the globe and the tool the user facing tool for managing the workflow has been created in Silverlight and uses AD FS (Active Directory Federation Services) for authentication – meaning that once you’re signed into your desktop you’re signed into the app.

This is obviously not new functionality to us, commenting and rating of videos has been with us for some time but the 3rd party solutions we had in place don’t seem to have been the most manageable.  On that point we get quite a lot of comment spam that has to be filtered away.  The service has been live for about 120 days now and MSIT tell us that they’ve saved about $14k PER MONTH! in management costs, upped availability by 8 fold and made provisioning a staggering 240 times faster!  That’s Azure for you.

The team learnt some excellent lessons, which they’ve published here along with more detail on the above, but the lessons are really important and I want to call them out:

• Pick the right application. The primary key to success in developing for Windows Azure is to pick the right application. Windows Azure is great for building a Web application or a compute-intensive application, but it is not yet a general-purpose application development platform. The SXP team started with a lower-risk customer-facing project to validate that everything worked as planned.
• Prepare for the impact on operations. Operations is the biggest change when developing for Windows Azure. It is critical to understand the operations impact, get the operations team on board early, and design for operations. Because the SXP team knew that it faced an unknown operations environment, the team heavily instrumented its code so that it would know exactly how many transactions succeeded or failed. The team took advantage of the out-of-the-box Windows Azure Diagnostics to do the bulk of the work but also wrote some small custom tools.
• Prepare early for security and integration. Security and integration are very important considerations. AD FS is a great security solution for authentication. Integration is challenging if there is data inside and outside the firewall. For projects that require integration, it is important to make sure that those problems can be solved before development starts.
• Build in SQL Azure retries. SQL Azure moves databases to balance load. When a database is moved, the connection pool becomes invalid. If the service does not retry the SQL connection, the connect request fails, causing errors. So it is critical to build in SQL Azure retries. For examples of code that retries connections, see the blog entries at http://bit.ly/98Makv.
• Conduct performance testing. Running performance and stress tests with Visual Studio and Windows Azure can be challenging. The problem is the wide area network (WAN) link between the client and the server. The results can become skewed, and the network can quickly become a bottleneck. The potential to accumulate bandwidth costs also exists. The SXP team solved this problem by creating a simple application that it deployed in Windows Azure in the same data centre, in order to test heavily on the same network. This testing provided feedback on real performance data.

I have a bet with myself about what the first comment will be on this post…

The Azure appliance we announced a WPC is generating quite a few questions and a fair bit of interest.  It’s a really interesting bit of kit but it’s a very niche offering right now but you guys want know it’s all about right?  In this Channel 9 video Steve Marx give a nice explanation, head to 7:30 for a little info on where Hyper-V fits in…

Introducing the Windows Azure Platform Appliance

Yesterday at WPC Bob Muglia announced something I think is very, very cool for Azure and bridges a gap that no other player in the cloud space can.  The Windows Azure appliance is essentially a container that can be placed on your site and runs Windows Azure and SQL Azure.  We look after the software, you look after the container.  Bob explained it very succinctly as “IT as a service”.

I see this doing something very special in cloud terms, and I see it as a redefinition of private cloud (has anyone actually got the definition right yet?…we have!).

There are tons of ways this solution could be used, I particularly like the “data control” aspect, having the container on your own soil removes any confusion around geo-location and gives you a nice warm fluffy feeling of safety.  You could use it for performance testing too (of specific aspects, not all).  The solutions intended for the really big boys, like the first customer, Ebay, who need to scale to hundreds or thousands of servers.

You can find out more about Windows Azure Appliance in this Chanel 9 vid and I’ll be getting into some of the topic of how you manage Azure with the rest of your enterprise soon.  How do IT Pros out there feel about Windows Azure Appliance – personally I think its a tidy solution.

[Image from roblisameehan on Flickr – NOTE: none of these as an actual Windows Azure Appliance, it’s just to remind you what containers look like]