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• Big Data - A Microsoft Tools Approach

  (As with all of these types of posts, check the date of the latest update I’ve made here. Anything older than 6 months is probably out of date, given the speed with which we release new features into Windows and SQL Azure) I don’t normally Read More... Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 2:16 PM by BuckWoody | 1 Comments Filed under: Azure, Business Intelligence, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Data, Data Professional, Design, Developer, Microsoft, SQL Azure, Storage, Windows 2008, Windows Azure

• Cloud Computing Patterns: Using Data Transaction Commitment Models for Design

  There are multiple ways to store data in a cloud provider, specifically around Windows and SQL Azure. As part of a “Data First” architecture design, one decision vector – assuming you’ve already done a data classification of the Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 14, 2012 1:45 PM by BuckWoody | 1 Comments Filed under: Azure, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Data, Design, Development

• Application Lifecycle Management Overview for Windows Azure

  Developing in Windows Azure is at once not that much different from what you’re familiar with in on-premises systems, and different in significant ways. Because of these differences, developers often ask about the specific process to develop and deploy Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 07, 2012 7:58 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Application Architecture, Azure, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Design, Developer, Development, Links, Planning, Process, System Center Operations Manager, Tips, Windows Azure

• Team Foundation Server (TFS) in the Cloud - My Experience So Far

  I recently joined a software development project that involves not only myself and other internal Microsoft employees, but a partner and a customer as well. We are building a hybrid solution that uses assets on premises as well as Windows Azure for processing. Read More... Posted Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:45 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Developer, Development, How I work, Process, Web, Windows Azure

• Bug-Out Bags and Cloud Architecture Considerations

  I served in the U.S. Military for a while, and as part of my training we had to maintain a “Bug-Out Bag”, which was a large duffle-bag full of certain items that we could live on/fight with in an emergency. I’ve carried the spirit of that idea forward Read More... Posted Friday, January 20, 2012 10:00 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Application Architecture, Azure, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Disaster Recovery

• Cloud Computing In Action: How I work with Live Mesh, SkyDrive, and Office Live Workspace

  Recently I had an tweetversation with a couple of friends on some confusion around two of our products: SkyDrive and Live Mesh . Like most of our software, there’s no single way to do things. That can be a strength or it can cause that confusion. They Read More... Posted Monday, January 16, 2012 7:27 AM by BuckWoody | 1 Comments Filed under: Cloud, Cloud Computing, How I work

• Windows Azure Storage (WAS) Internals - Achieving Consistency

  Windows Azure Storage has three primary components - a Queue, a Binary Large Object (BLOB) store (two types of these), and Table Storage. Storage of data on-premises is fairly well understood - but there components of it that you may not consider. When Read More... Posted Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:05 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Storage, Windows Azure

• How Microsoft helps you NOT break your Windows Azure Application: Storage Services Versioning

  One of the advantages of using Windows Azure to run your code is that you don’t have to constantly manage upgrades on your platform. While that’s a big advantage indeed, it immediately brings up the question - how do the upgrades happen? Microsoft upgrades Read More... Posted Tuesday, December 06, 2011 7:42 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Data, Design, Developer, Documentation, Installation and Upgrade, Latest Version, Service Packs, Storage, Testing, Upgrades, Windows Azure

• Developing a Cost Model for Cloud Applications

  Note - please pay attention to the date of this post. As much as I attempt to make the information below accurate, the nature of distributed computing means that components, units and pricing will change over time. The definitive costs for Microsoft Windows Read More... Posted Tuesday, November 08, 2011 8:30 AM by BuckWoody | 3 Comments Filed under: Application Architecture, Azure, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Design, Development, SQL Azure, Windows Azure

• Windows Azure Use Case: Supplementing Infrastructure

  I’ve explained before that Windows Azure is a Platform as a Service - at its simplest, that means that you write software and Azure runs it for you. But what if you are a shop that normally buys “off the shelf” software, and the only software you write Read More... Posted Tuesday, November 01, 2011 7:22 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Azure Use Cases, Cloud, Cloud Computing, SQL Azure, Windows Azure

• Big Data and the Cloud - More Hype or a Real Workload?

  Last week Microsoft announced several new offerings for “Big Data” - and since I’m a stickler for definitions, I wanted to make sure I understood what that really means. What is “Big Data”? What size hard drive is that? After all, my laptop has 1TB of Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 7:57 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Azure Use Cases, Career, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Conferences, Data, Data Professional, DBA, Developer, Microsoft, PASS, Policy Based Management, SQL Azure, SQL Server, SQLServer, Storage, Windows Azure

• Rip and Replace or Extend and Embrace?

  As most of you know, I don’t like the term “cloud” very much. It isn’t defined, which means it can be anything. I prefer “distributed computing”, which is more technically accurate and describes what you’re doing Read More... Posted Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:20 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Application Architecture, Application Fabric, Azure, Azure Use Cases, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Computing, Data, Design, Developer, Development, Windows Azure

• Plan for Diagnostics in Cloud Computing From the Git-Go

  “Git-Go” is something we say in the South that means “right at the start”. I’ve seen several applications for on-premise systems that don’t have much in the way of diagnostics - the developers rely on a debugger, the event logs on the server and client Read More... Posted Tuesday, September 06, 2011 7:11 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Design, Developer, Development, Error Codes, Link Lists, Monitoring, Testing, Troubleshooting, Windows Azure

• Azure Design Patterns

  I have a lot of learning resources you can find here at my blog, but I wanted to point one out this morning. It's a Silverlight application called "Azure Design Patterns". You can find it at http://azuredesignpatterns.com/, and it's an interesting way Read More... Posted Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:34 AM by BuckWoody | 1 Comments Filed under: Azure, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Concepts, Learning

• Should All Data Be Encrypted By Default?

  Recently several IT industry information outlets have reported that there has been a 10-year concentrated, organized effort on breaking through computer security at some of the largest companies in the world. Government sites have also been attacked in Read More... Posted Tuesday, August 09, 2011 7:45 AM by BuckWoody | 0 Comments Filed under: Azure, Best Practices, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Data, Encryption, Security, SQL Azure, Windows Azure