Microsoft Announces Real-time Analytics For Apache Hadoop In Azure HDInsight

At Strata + Hadoop World in New York, Microsoft announced the expansion of their Azure data services. They annoucned the support of real-time analytics for Apache Hadoop in Azure HDInsight and new machine learning capabilities in the Azure Marketplace. Also, Hortonworks announced how they are integrating with Microsoft Azure with the latest release of the Hortonworks Data Platform.

More... http://microsoft-news.com/microsoft-announces-real-time-analytics-for-apache-hadoop-in-azure-hdinsight/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+msftnws+%28Microsoft+News%29 

Watch Bill Gates interview with Bloomberg...

Watch Bill Gates interview with Bloomberg here -

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, talks about financial payment systems in Africa, Microsoft's strategy and the outbreak of Ebola. Gates, speaking with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart," also discusses his charitable efforts. (Source: Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/gates-says-he-s-very-happy-with-microsoft-s-nadella-Lrm7RF_9RRq7vO2mFqvwPA.html

Interesting comment as food for thought - "Microsoft was the first one who spoke about Digital wallet but hasn't built on its arsenal in the digital payments area..."

Cheers - DJ

First look at Windows 10 and what is expected more?

First look at Windows 10 and highlights -
Terry Myerson - Executive Vice President for Microsoft's Operating Systems Group announced Windows 10 release and here are few excerpts -

1 Huge stress on enterprise and differentiation of personal and enterprise data. This will helps enterprise admins to simplify their job and be worried only about enterprise data.

2 New OS will allow enterprises to have its own marketplace and store fronts that will allow them to host their own applications, distribute and control.

3 Multi-tasking tool that should boost productivity in Windows 10 is Snap Assist, which lets you "snap" up to four apps at once to get suggestions for other open apps that may help you with a given task

4. Virtual desktops

5. Multi views in One - optimized for all devices - keyboard for one and touch for other

6. Start is back... yes, we heard that!

7. Key is Microsoft is now talking to have Windows 10 has the CORE OS across devices - not just PC's and laptops but phones, tables and may be consoles!

8. Though Microsoft has not revealed their business model and pricing yet but seems it will be a free upgrade for users/enterprises that own Windows 8/8.1. There may be sub $99 version of Windows 10 that would be provisioned on windows phone devices. Joe Belfiore - Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group at Microsoft. He is responsible for the design and software product definition of forthcoming generations of Windows Phones and to bring new OS Windows 10 across phone and devices.

9. Release date will be likely after Developer's build conference in April 2015, hence there is huge opportunity for developers to get their hands on the OS and play/test the new Windows 10.

10. Microsoft has release Windows Insider program which will likely read your feedback and incorporate as part of their flight feature program in development of Windows OS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical preview bits are available here for free and immediate Windows Test by developers. This barebones version will eventually become Windows 10 and will be available to the public for download at preview.windows.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What would be good to have in Windows 10 operating system?

1 With Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, recent split of ebay and PayPal, and entry of Alibaba in US markets what's the strategy for Microsoft Payments? What's the roadmap in consumer space, especially, for Windows phone devices ...?

2 Plans to build and distribute more enterprise apps that would bring productivity and assist enterprises on the lines of IBM and Apple deal? Growth of marketplace apps will be key to Microsoft's success and adoption of its devices.

3 Security - still grey area, please avoid UAC popups as we had in Windows Vista.

4 Internet of Things (IoT) - Great to hear that Windows 10 will be also on IOT or so called embedded devices and connected car, but double click details missing. Whats the product roadmap on wearables?  Agree, Microsoft should not be in the race of catch up... but to stop being reactive... its imperative that there is a clear vision and roadmap for next 3 years in devices and services space which will help partners and developer community significantly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Side bar - Did you miss Windows 9 news or seems like we fast forwarded our life :) Nope, its just that Microsoft thought 10 is luckier than 9 and they decided to skip :)

These are all early findings. Will report back with more on Windows 10 in coming months, beginning with the availability of the early build preview.

Cheers - DJ

Microsoft releases new Azure services for Internet of Things (IoT) - Azure Intelligent Systems Service along with Analytics Platform

Microsoft releases new Azure services for Internet of Things (IoT) - Azure Intelligent Systems Service along with Analytics Platform and SQL Server 2014 in memory capabilities release. This shapes up there BI/Analytics strategy along with Cloud first/mobile first after failed attempt of mediocre release of Performance Point product few years back. :)

"The era of ambient intelligence has begun, and we are delivering a platform that allows companies of any size to create a data culture and ensure insights reach every individual in every organization," quoted by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

Personally, think this is one of the biggest pain point for most of client business where there is a need to "store and query big data" over cloud efficiently, quickly and cheap. There is a preview available for Azure Intelligent Systems Service to test only on request and registration.

News -
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/5658/20140416/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-talks-ambient-intelligence-announces-big-data-analytics-platform.htm


Below link shows how to use the Microsoft Avro Library and Hadoop scnearios to serialize objects and other data structures into streams in order to persist them to memory, a database or a file, and also how to deserialize them to recover the original objects.

Microsoft Azure site with various offerings and Big data sheet details:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/solutions/big-data.aspx#fbid=mEBV57JBsZA

-D

How to debug Azure hosted services using Visual Studio?

To add to the list of my previous blog article is how to debug Azure hosted services -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee405479.aspx

Debugging Azure Service using Visual Studio and with Emulator express -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff683670.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn339018.aspx

HTH,  - DJ
 

Windows Azure Data Strategies and management - deciding factor

Interesting read to explore in detail on Windows Azure data strategies published here by Microsoft. Help you decide on pros and cons on Azure. Also will help you decide choose right approach and data management strategies.

Windows Azure provides several different ways to store and manage data. This diversity lets users of the platform address a variety of different problems. Yet diversity implies choice: Which data management option is right for a particular situation?
This short overview is intended to help you answer that question. After a quick summary of the data management technologies in Windows Azure, we’ll walk through several different scenarios, describing which of these technologies is most appropriate in each case. The goal is to make it easier to choose the right options for the problem you face.

Here -

1. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/fundamentals/cloud-storage-scenarios/
2. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/solutions/data-management/#scenarios

Free trial to start with any of your Azure services on Microsoft as below -

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/
SQL Azure:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/sql-database/
Cache Service:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/cache/
Storage:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/storage/
HD Insight:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/hdinsight/
Virtual Machines -
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/virtual-machines/

-DJ

Basic and architecture Windows and SQL Azure interview questions and answers...

Here is the list of basic and architectural Windows Azure interview questions and answers. Will uncover and add some more as we move along and learn. Intend to grow this list further....

What are the services provided in Cloud Computing/Azure?
Services provided would be basically three fundamental models: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), and Software as a service (SaaS).

 

What are the steps involved in creating a Windows Azure Project with Visual Studio?
Refer for detailed steps here -http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee405487.aspx 

What are various roles available in Windows Azure?
There are three roles (Web, worker, VM) available. Web and Worker roles are nearly identical: With Web and Worker roles, the OS and related patches are taken care for you; you build your app's components without having to manage a VM.

What are the three main components of Windows Azure Platform?  

1. Compute
2. Storage
3. AppFabric

What are the benefits of Azure?

• Platform as a Service (PaaS) / Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) / Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Variable pricing - see here (Azure retail subscription pricing calculator
  http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator)
• On demand and simple service procurement
• More predictable solution environments
• Small infrastructure management responsibility
• Scalability with Global model - 15 global data centers (to date) and growing...
• Security/privacy compliance – HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27007
• Compatibility with existing development tools

What are the capabilities that are provided with Visual Studio?

• Windows Azure Cloud Service Visual Studio Template
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee405487.aspx
• ASP.Net web role
• WCF Service web role
• Worker Role with Service Bus Queue
• Worker Role
• Cache Worker Role – provides a dedicated cache
• Integration with Emulators
• Sophisticated debugging and tracing capability including remote debugging w/- SDK 2.2
• Publish capability
• Basic Azure component management in Server Explorer
• Azure storage error log and application diagnostic analysis

What is Windows Azure compute emulator? 

The compute emulator is a local emulator of Windows Azure that you can use to build and test your application before deploying it to Windows Azure. 

  

What is the difference between Web Sites versus Web Roles (Azure Compute Services)?

• Web site uses .azurewebsites.net versus .cloudapp.net for web roles
• Web sites offer very quick deployment, scaling and rollback
• Web sites have out of box support for Git and other continuous publishing tools
• Web sites have less capability than web roles e.g. no remote management, no traffic manager
• Web sites are good for a 2-tier application architecture
• 10 per region multi-tenant web sites are free

Which is the latest version of Microsoft Windows Azure? (March 2014) and what are some of the key features/capabilities that come along with SDK v2.2?

SDK v2.2 -
•BizTalk Services: EDIFACT protocol support, Service Bus Integration, Backup and Restore
•Web Sites: Backup and Restore Support

•HDInsight: Hadoop 2.2 support

•Mobile Services: .NET support, Notification Hub Integration, PhoneGap support

•Management: Co-admin limit increased from 10->200 users

•Monitoring: Service Outage Notifications Integrated within Management Portal

•Virtual Machines: VM Agent and Background Information Support

•ExpressRoute: Dedicated, private, high-throughput network connectivity with on-premises.

Pricing - $5000 per month for 10GBps connection 

•Active Directory: More SaaS apps, more reports, self-service group management

 

What are Windows Azure Data Services? 

Windows Azure SQL Database Service provides -

• Data replication – backups are only required for user / application errors
• Relational data structures
• Only SQL authentication
• No always-on availability groups
• SQL Data Sync for mirroring
• No SQL Server Agent – use worker roles and windows workflow foundation (WWF)
• Data Sharding – SQL Azure Database federation:
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh597452.aspx
• Database backup and auomatic scheduled data backup to Azure Storage

What is Blob?

BLOB stands for Binary Large Object. Blob is file of any type and size.

The Azure Blob Storage offers two types of blobs –

1. Block Blob

2. Page Blob 

Learn more here -http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-blobs-20/ 

                                         

What is Windows Azure AppFabric? What are various services provided?

• Windows Azure AppFabric is a part of the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform. Positioned by Microsoft as middleware, it provides several cloud computing services:
• Access Control Service: Provides an easy way for web applications and web services to identify users, and grant access control to the applications and services.
• AppFabric Applications: Provides tools and APIs for developing and hosting a composite application expressly for deployment through the service.
• Service Bus: Provides secure connections between distributed and disconnected applications in the cloud.
• Caching: Provides a distributed, in-memory, application cache service for Windows Azure and SQL Azure applications.
• Integration: Leverages several capabilities of Microsoft BizTalk Server such as transforming messages from one format to another, or providing a queue for message passing.

What is a Queue in Azure terminology?
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-queues-20/

Features provided by HDInsight?
Here's a quick start tutorial to get started and learn basics on HDInsight - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/hdinsight-get-started/

•  Provides nice way to also use Microsoft Office tools like Excel to view output using power query and more with power BI features.
• HDInsight is our 100% compatible Apache Hadoop-based distribution for Windows Azure.  With HDInsight you can leverage data stored in Windows Azure Blob Storage or the native HDFS file system local to the compute nodes and crunch massive amounts of data.
  We now support Hadoop 2.2 clusters (in preview mode) with our HDInsight service.  This new update provides an order of magnitude (up to 40x) faster query response times, much better data compression (up to 80%), and enables you to leverage the benefits of YARN.

What are Azure app Services?

1 Media Services
.Net libraries (Media Services SDK) for uploading, storing, encoding, format converting, protection and delivery of media

2 Azure content delivery network (CDN) for Azure storage accounts -
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/media-services-dotnet-get-started/

3 Service Bus Explorer- .Net library and components for message communication processing. Architecture approach for communicating between on premise and private cloud to Azure Components.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Service-Bus-Explorer-f2abca5a

4 Queues (FIFO)  -

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/service-bus-dotnet-how-to-use-queues/

5 Topics and Subscriptions – Topic filters– Special implementation of a queue that uses a subscriber model -

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/service-bus-dotnet-how-to-use-topics-subscriptions/

 

6 Relays – provides capability to communicate to existing WCF corporate domain web services
7 Notification Hubs – pushing cross-platform back end notifications to mobile clients. Get started building these applications on Windows Azure and learn about notification hubs here -

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation/articles/notification-hubs-windows-phone-get-started/
8 Scheduler (new) -
This is an exposed API for job operations and helps create jobs on a schedule:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn495651.aspx
9 BizTalk Services -B2B EDI in Azure
EAI in Azure
10 Active Directory -
Identity management in Azure
Can sync with access control service (ACS)
Can sync with on premise Active Directory
11 MSFT Active Directory Federated Services - https://corp.sts.microsoft.com/Onboard/ADFSOnboard.htm
http://sharepoint/sites/windowsazure/windowsazureinternal/Pages/ADFSAuthentication.aspx

.... Cheers - DJ
  

Azure Starter Steps - Building your own first Azure application

As the next technology trend gets strong inclined towards Cloud Computing be it - Sales Force.com, Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure, my curiosity towards technology increases and have made an attempt to learn more about it myself :) I needed to get this blog rebooted to a new start as well and think this is the right topic to learn, explore and share as I move along further too.
Focus here would be Microsoft Cloud technology stack - Azure. Here are few bytes that would be helpful for starters who would want to learn about Windows Azure and Cloud computing in general. Ofcourse, there are bunch of materials lying out there but this is one stop shop for everything you need to know about Microsoft Azure.

First, you can create your own Microsoft Azure Account and get free space on cloud - absolutely free! Microsoft has announced that it doesn't even require Credit Card information, only thing required is your cell number to validate your identity! It also provides retail subscriptions for Windows Azure. You would like to go here to sign up -

 

https://account.windowsazure.com/signup

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/

Benefits that come along with -

• 30 day free trial
• Pay as you go
• 6 month plans - $500 per month minimum w/- discounts
• 12 month plans - $500 per month minimum w/- greater discounts
• VL Enterprise agreements
• MSDN Subscription

https://account.windowsazure.com/signup?offer=Azure_MSDN

http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/member-offers/msdn-benefits/

• Free credit depending on MSDN level up to $150 / month for Ultimate
• Discounted rates
• Microsoft FTE Azure employee pass was discontinued -> MSDN
• Microsoft Internal Billing for sponsored Azure solutions

Once you have created your Azure subscription account, you can get started creating your first Azure application with easy steps- 

1. Install Visual Studio and Azure SDK
2. Sign in to Windows Azure in Visual Studio Server Explorer
3. Create a Windows Azure Cloud Service Visual Studio project
4. Enter project name
5. Add ASP.Net Web role which would be Empty
6. Add "default.aspx" web form
7. Publish the Azure application from Visual Studio
8. Access your application – http://.cloudapp.net/ from cloud and wola!

In addition, below you can find Azure Service Visual Studio Template:

Visual Studio Template

It includes templates and components around Windows Azure services -
1 ASP.Net web role
2 WCF Service web role
3 Worker Role with Service Bus Queue
4 Worker Role
5 Basic Azure component management in Server Explorer

6 Cache Worker Role – provides a dedicated cache

Azure retail subscription pricing calculator:

Pricing Calculator

Manage your portal w/easy to use Azure management portal:

https://manage.windowsazure.com/

 

 

More.... - DJ