Azure Marketplace and BizSpark

If you are a startup you should be enjoying the BizSpark program from Microsoft! For BizSpark members Microsoft include five MSDN Subscriptions with free Azure resources that can be used for development, test and production (that last part is exclusive for BizSpark members).

One feature of Azure that might not be know to so many is the Azure Marketplace and this should be particularly interesting if you are a startup!

In Azure Marketplace you can find Virtual Machine solutions that are ready to deploy to your own Azure Subscription. You can either use free services, trials, bring your own license or pay as you go.

In a previous blog post I have written a detailed step by step guide to how to deploy a Barracuda Web Application Firewall thru Azure Marketplace.

Here are some other solutions that fit a starup perfectly. Just click on the link and you will be taken directly to the right place in Azure Marketplace:

 

Deploying Barracuda Web Application Firewall from Azure Marketplace

The Microsoft Azure Marketplace has been around for quite some time now and have a large selection of third party solutions. If you think of your Azure environment like a smart phone, Azure Marketplace is the app store. And what do you do on your phone when you need an app for a specific purpose? Do you write it yourself? No, you go in to the app store and download the app. The exact same thing can be done with Azure Marketplace but in this case it's not an app, it's can be anything from a Firewall to protect your web application to big data analytics solutions.

In the Azure Marketplace there are seven different categories of applications or services: Virtual Machines, Developer Services, API Apps, Azure Active Directory applications, Web Applications, Data Services and Microsoft Dynamics Solutions.

In this blog post I will focus on Virtual Machines.

To list all of the available Virtual Machines you can go here. You can filter on operating system (Linux and Windows), you can filter on the source of the Virtual Machine (Community, Partner and Microsoft) and you can filter the once that you can use for free if you have MSDN.

Let's go thru an example with some easy steps to deploy a Virtual Machine to your Azure Subscription.

Barracuda Web Application Firewall

The Barracuda Web Application Firewall blocks application layer DDoS and other attack vectors, directed at online applications hosted in Microsoft Azure. Simultaneously, it provides superior protection against data loss. It also has strong authentication and access control capabilities for restricting access to sensitive applications and data.

The Barracuda Web Application Firewall sits between your application tier and the built in load balancer in Azure.

Step by step deployment

1. Sign in to your Azure Account http://portal.azure.com
2. Click on the plus sign in the upper left corner to create a new resource and type Barracuda Web Application Firewall and hit Enter. You will now be presented with two options. One called Barracuda Web Application Firewall (Hourly) and one called Barracuda Web Application Firewall (BYOL). The Hourly version vill charge your for the Barracuda license at the same way that Azure charges your for the Virtual Machine. That is, if the machine is running you are paying for it and when you stop it, the charges stop. The BYOL verions means that you have your own existing license that you use. BYOL stands for Bring Your Own License.
3. Choose the license that fits your need and move forward to create the Virtual Machine.
4. Go thru the Basics, Size and Settings dialog and ensure that the validation passes on the Summary Page. Now you are all set for the final Buy-step.
5. When you click on Buy you will be presented with a summary of what you will be charged. Here you should note that the total price consists of two different parts. One for the third party solution that you have chosen and one for the actual Virtual Machine that the solution will run on. If you are using an account with monetary commitment or free resrouces like MSDN you will not be able to charge to cost for the thrid party solution and will need to have some other form of payment method registered on your account.

In about five minutes your will now have your Barracuda Web Application Firewall ready for use in your own Azure Subscription!

To access your Barracuda Web Application Firewall you can choose one of these options:

1. When you created your Virtual Machine a resource called Public IP Adress was also created. You can find this resource in resource group for you Virtual Machine. Use this IP adress to access the administration page of the Web Application Firewall. The administration page uses port 8000 by default.
2. In the settings page for the Public IP Adress you can add a DNS name label. This can be found under Configuration. You will still need to add port 8000 when accessing the administration page.

Certify your solution for Azure SQL Database

In March 2016 Microsoft released the possibility to certify solutions based on Azure SQL Database. This is a great opportunity for an ISV to set a label on that the database created is built according to high security standards and build for premium workloads.

To certify your database you start by downloading a tool called Certification Test Tool for Azure SQL Database.

Connect to your database

First step is to connect to your database by entering the connection details to your database in Microsoft Azure. Note that you need to specify the server name with protocol and port and that the User ID is on the format user@servername.

 

 

To be able to connect to you SQL Database in Azure you will also need to add your client ip address to the firewall for the server in Azure. In this example I have added the range from 1.1.1.1 to 255.255.255.255. This is NOT a recommended solution for a production database since it exposes your database for very broad access from outside of Azure. If you don't want to open a port in the firewall you can run the test from a VM inside of Azure instead.

After connecting its time to to the actual testing.The test consists of two parts. One static analysis and one self assessment. I will not give any advice to what features to activate or what the implications of this will be but rather point to documentation on how to activate and what these features mean.

Static Tests

The static tests are executed against your actual database. This means that if you change something and execute the tests again you will get a different result.

Use Premium / Pools
SQL DB should either have at least 1 Premium database OR use Elastic Pool.

Azure SQL Database Service Tiers
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-service-tiers/

Azure Elastic Database Pools
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-elastic-pool/

Security
SQL DB should have at least 1 of the following enabled: TDE, DDM, RLS:

Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/dn948096.aspx

Dynamic Data Masking (DDM)
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-dynamic-data-masking-get-started/

Row Level Security (RLS)
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-elastic-tools-multi-tenant-row-level-security/

Assessment

Security: Is auditing enabled in your database?
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-auditing-get-started/

DR Drill: Is your SQL DB using Geo-replication OR have done 1 or more Geo-restores?
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/sql-database-disaster-recovery/
If you start with a database running on a S-tier and with no security features activated the easiest way to get passed the certification is to scale to a P-level, add Dynamic Data Masking, enable auditing and go thru the process of doing a geo-restore.

Other requirements

As for all application certifications with Microsoft, the company owning the product needs to be a member of Microsoft Partner Network and the application that is to be certified needs to be listed in Pinpoint.

Adding a co-admin to a Windows Azure subscription

It is very easy to add a co-administrator to your Widows Azure subscription. You just sign in to you account at http://manage.windowsazure.com and then follow these easy steps:

1. Navigate to Settings page

2. Click on Administrators in the top menu and then click on the Add icon at the bottom.

3. Enter the email adress of the co-administrator that you want to give administrative rights to your subscription. If you are account administrator for multiple subscriptions you might se several subscriptions in the list presented. Check the once that you need and click on the check mark at the bottom.

You are now done and the other person can sign in and manage your Windows Azure resources.

Number of cores in Windows Azure

On every new account created in Windows Azure there is a limit on the total number of cores that you can use. This limit is set to 20 but can of course be changed.

To change this you need to open a support case and here are the easy steps to do this.

1. Go to this site: Support
2. Sign in with the account connected to the subscription that you want to increase core for. Here its important to chose the right account if you are administrating multiple accounts.
3. Select the correct subscription and select Support Type: Billing
   
4. You will then be presented with a number of different problem types. In this case you choose the one called: Quota or Core Increase Request.
   
5. Then you select the Category that you want to increase. In the case of cores you select Compute.
   
6. After entering your personal and contact information you need to enter how many cores you are using today and how many cores you want. You could be using 0 cores or 20 cores, all depending on how much you are using Windows Azure. It could very well be 0 cores today if you are the kind that do planning up front
7. On the same page you also need to enter a Severity. When I changed my subscription from 20 to 50 cores I set Severity C: Minimum Business Impact, but this is all up to you and your business situation.
8. You will get and email that your case was submitted and then a couple of email when you support case changes status.

Below are the responses that I got from support:

• 7.50 – Confirmation email that the case was submitted
• 8.14 – Initial response with a named Support Engineer that would handle my case
• 8.18 – An email with a summary of the case and the working hours of the support engineer assigned to my case. I also got an option to change to a support engineer in my own time zone if that would be more efficient.
• 8.25 – Case closed and cores increased.

Please note that this will not affect the cost of your Windows Azure subscription or the number of cores that you use to your services today. This will only change the total number of cores that you CAN use in your subscription.

Managing multiple subscriptions in Windows Azure

If you have several subscriptions connected to your live id, or if you are co-admin on different accounts you have full administrative rights to each account. The only thing you cannot access is the account information that is available on https://account.windowsazure.com 

In the management portal you can filter out the subscription that you are currently working on. This will filter all parts of the portal, from the services that you have already deployed to the dialog where you create new services.

If you only select one subscription in the filter dialog you will not see the option to select the target subscription for a new service. Note the difference between the two screenshots below. These are taken from the New dialog in the Windows Azure portal. In the second screenshot I have filtered to use two subscriptions and therefore I get an option to select which subscription to create the new service on.

Remember that there are only one level or administrative rights. Either you are admin and can do everything (create, delete, deploy, scale and so forth) or you are not and cannot see anything. So distribute the administrative rights with care!

With many administrators you will soon find yourself in a situation of wanting an answer to the question: Who did that?!?!?! Fortunately there is an answer to that in the operation logs. Click on Management Services and then on Operations Logs and you will be presented with a nice list of who-did-what.

What's a preview in Windows Azure?

The pace at which we release new features in Windows Azure is amazing. I heard an interview with Scott Guthrie this summer where he said that right now we are on a cadence of releasing major functionality to the platform every three weeks! In the cloud we don’t have any beta programs or release candidates but we have Previews. So what is a preview and how does it differ from the services in production?

If you read the legal documents that we publish on WindowsAzure.com it states that We may make available Previews. That’s a good start! Then the text continues with PREVIEWS ARE PROVIDED "AS-IS," "WITH ALL FAULTS," AND "AS AVAILABLE," AND ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE SLAS AND LIMITED WARRANTY.

So, everything that we label as being in Preview is a pre-release of a service that might come in the future. Might come in the future since we also say: We may change or discontinue Previews at any time without notice. We also may choose not to release a Preview into "General Availability."

The full section about previews can be found in section 1.h in the Windows Azure Agreement.

Services in preview might also have different pricing then services in production. For instance Windows Azure Backup is currently in preview. In the Backup service we charge for backup based on the amount of data stored and these prices includes a 50% preview discount. Other services might be completely free during preview.

What should I use preview for?

Well, that decision you always have to make for yourself.

Would I put my only backup of critical data in a service in preview? – No.
Would I run mission critical software on a service in preview? – No.
Would I use services in preview during development and testing? – Yes!
Would I be a good Windows Azure community citizen and provide constructive feedback while using the service in preview? – Yes, sir!
Would I promise myself to keep me updated on what happens to the preview service that I use so that I can adapt to changes easily? Oh, yes!

Okay, all sounds cool! I want to try something new but where to I find it?

Some of the services that are in preview are available to everybody without the need to do anything. For instance the Windows Azure Web Sites have been in production since June 2013 but right now there is a scale feature, inside the Windows Azure Web Sites, that is in preview.

There are also completely new features that are in preview. These might be available to everybody or they might be limited access. Either way you have to request access via the WindowsAzure.com. Then there are also services that are in private preview but that is out of scope for this post.

Pricing of Windows Azure Mobile Services

Understand pricing in Widows Azure can sometimes be a daunting task to undertake.This is especially true when the documentation for the service you want to understand is somewhat insufficient. On June 27th this year Scott Guthrie announced the General Availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services as well as the pricing details.

Windows Azure Mobile Services are offered in three tiers, Free, Standard and Premium and each tier is measured buy the number of API Calls made to the Mobile Service. So the first question is;

What is an API Call?

So what exactly is an API Call? Well this is not perfectly clear in the documentation, but an API Call is every call that gets made to one of the scripts in your Mobile Service. Each table that you create can have four different scripts, one for each of the operations Insert, Update, Delete and Read.

So no matter what you do inside these scripts one call to a script is counted as one API Call. For instance, in the Insert script you can make a query to a Windows Azure SQL Database, put a message on a Windows Azure Storage Queue (standard rates apply for using the Windows Azure Storage Services) and make a push notification to ten users. All of these operations are counted as one API Call. The same also goes for the API feature in Mobile Services.

I think that this is a very favorable pricing model that’s easy to understand and that makes it fairly easy to calculate how much your Mobile Service will cost you. Now you “only” need to estimate how many calls an average user will do and multiply this with the number of active users you will have in a month. Probably you also want to divide your users into different segments depending on how much they use your app and create a seasonality for when your users are active. All of this will help you decide which tier to choose. This naturally leads us on to the different tiers.

Free

The free tier is the easy part. You can have up to ten services / month and each service have a limit of 500.000 API Calls. There is also a limit of 500 Active Devices. An Active Devices is a devices or simulator that makes at least one API Call or receive at least one push notification. 5GB of outbound data transfer and one 20MB Windows Azure SQL Database, per subscription, is also included. Note that the SQL Database is included for the first twelve months of use and standard rates apply thereafter.

Standard

The standard tier is measured in units and each unit consists of 1.500.000 API Calls. In the standard tier you can scale up to six units giving you a maximum scale of 9.000.000 API Calls per month. 50GB of outbound data transfer is included as well as a 20 MB SQL Database. There is no limit on the number of active devices you can have in the standard tie and the standard tier costs $25 / month per unit.

Premium

The premium tier is also measured in units and here each unit consists of 15.000.000 API Calls and can scale up to ten units. This gives you a maximum scale of 150.000.000 API Calls – per month. 20MB SQL Database is included as well as 500 GB outbound data transfer. There is no limit on the number of active devices you can have in the premium tier and the premium tier costs $199 / month per unit.

Auto Scale

The total price for your Mobile Service will of course depend on how many units you use. At the moment there is a preview of the automatic scalability functionality that you can use in the Standard and Premium tier. When you turn on autoscale you get to choose the minimum and maximum number of units that can be dedicated to your mobile service. The minimum number of units will always be ready to serve the requests and the maximum number is as far we will scale your service when the load increases. This will give you a minimum as well as a maximum monthly cost for you Mobile Service.

Please note that all of the prices mentioned above are the prices that are currently available at the time of publishing this post and is a subject to change. Current prices are always available at the pricing details page on windowsazure.com

How to calculate cost of Windows Azure Blob?

I'm often asked to explain how we charge for Blob Storage in Windows Azure. Time for a new blog post!

The documentation says:

Storage capacity is billed in units of the average daily amount of data stored (in GB) over a monthly period.

This means that every day we calculate an average on how much you have stored in your storage account. This is then summed up and divided with the number of days and gives you an average usage for that month.

An easy example: You store 1 GB day one and stores this for 30 days. Every day we calculate the average of much you have stored and the answer is 1 GB each day. So 1 GB * 30 days = 30 GB / 30 days = 1GB. Hence this month we charge you for 1GB of storage = $0.095 in total.

A bit more complex: You store 10 GB for the first 15 days and then you add another 10 GB for the next 15 days. The first 15 days your average is 10 GB and the next 15 days its 20 GB. This gives us 15 days * 10 GB + 15 days * 20 GB = 450 GB / 30 days = 15 GB in average = $1.425 in total.

Please note that the prices are from 17 of June 2013 and current prices can always be found at http://www.windowsazure.com.

My take on Teched EMEA 2013 - Windows Azure style

Teched US is started yesterday and TechEd EMEA is on a couple of weeks away. There is an impressive lineup with speakers on the Windows Azure Application Development track at TechEd EMEA.

Here are some highlights that are on my list:

Build Your First Cloud App: An Introduction to Windows Azure Cloud Services

So you're a Microsoft .NET developer who is ready to see what cloud has to offer. Come take a peek at Windows Azure Cloud Services, the fastest and most productive way to capture the benefits of cloud without leaving .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio—and without calling your IT department!

If you are new to Windows Azure you should start of with this session. David Aiken is a great speaker. It is placed on day 1 so you can take advantage of the other Windows Azure sessions during the week.

Patterns & Practices for Running Large Multi-Tenant SaaS Service on Windows Azure (How It’s Made: MyGet.org)

Ever wonder how some applications are built, or how to combine some components of the Windows Azure platform? Stop wondering and learn how we’ve built MyGet.org, a multi-tenant software-as-a-service. In this session we discuss architecture, commands, events, access control, multi-tenancy and how to mix and match those things together in a reliable, cost-effective solution that scales.

I saw Maarten Balliauw speak at Cloud Burst 2012 in Stockholm and it was really good so I have high expectations on this session, even thou it’s a level 200.

Introduction to Windows Azure Active Directory

Windows Azure Active Directory provides easy-to-use, multi-tenant identity management services for applications running in the cloud and on any device and any platform. In this session, developers, administrators, and architects take an end-to-end tour of Windows Azure Active Directory to learn about its capabilities, interfaces and supported scenarios, and understand how it works in concert with Windows Server Active Directory.

I have never seen Athanasios Kladakis speak but a session with an end-to-end tour of Windows Azure Active Directory should be mandatory for everyone!

An Introduction to the Web Workload on Windows Azure

Building, deploying, scaling, and managing resilient web applications has never been easy—there are many moving parts, lots of infrastructure and a number of different software components. Windows Azure aims to make this just really simple, with technologies such as Windows Azure Web Sites, SQL Database and ready-to-use content and digital marketing solutions to pick from. In this session we introduce you to these technologies, as well as others than are relevant to the web workload, and show you how to get started. You will take away immediate knowledge you can use in your first project back home.

What to learn more about running web sites on Windows Azure? This is the session for you!

Developing Connected Windows Store Apps with Windows Azure Mobile Services: Overview

Join us for a demo-packed introduction to how Windows Azure Mobile Services can bring your Windows Store and Windows Phone 8 apps to life. We look at Mobile Services end-to-end and how easy it is to add authentication, secure structured storage, and send push notifications to update live tiles. We also cover adding some business logic to CRUD operations through scripts as well as running scripts on a schedule. Also, learn how to point your Windows Phone 8 and Windows Store apps to the same Mobile Service in order to deliver a consistent experience across devices. Gary Pretty of Mando Group will join us on stage to share how TalkTalk Business implements everything we've covered during the session in its MyAccount Mobile app.

If you are building mobile apps and need services like storage, push notifications and authentication this will be a great session.

Windows Azure Web Sites and On-Premises Connectivity

Windows Azure Web Sites is a great platform for hosting web applications and APIs written in Microsoft ASP.NET, Node.js, PHP, and Python. Customers who want to move into cloud technology a step at a time find great success when initiating their move to cloud by standing up their website presence using Windows Azure Web Sites. Many developers who aim to move to the cloud want to do so in phases. For these situations, many questions arise around how to connect a website back to an on-premises enterprise or even to connect to a Microsoft Office 365 site. In this session, various techniques of connecting a Windows Azure Web Site to an on-premises enterprise architecture are discussed. Through a series of deep-dive demonstrations using Service Bus, SignalR, data marts, and Windows Azure Active Directory, you are introduced to the opportunities that enable communication between Windows Azure Web Sites and your enterprise environment. If you've been wanting to get started with Web Sites but have been unable to conceptualize how you can set up a hybrid environment using Windows Azure, this session will clear the air and give you some ideas of what's possible.

This session features another speaker that I met at Cloud Burst in Stockholm. Many times I get the questions from my customers on how you can use Windows Azure Web Sites together with other stuff in Windows Azure as well as thing that you have running on premises. I expect to learn some tricks here!

Take Control of the Cloud with the Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets

In this session, learn how to tame the simplest to most advanced Windows Azure deployments with the Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets. Automate repetitive tasks and learn how build advanced reproducible deployments so you can save time and money while working in the cloud. The presenter covers dev-ops scenarios with Virtual Machines and Cloud Services in this demo-packed session.

I know I need to learn more about PowerShell simply cause its so powerful! I have seen Michael a couple of times on internal conferences and this session will be fully packed with stuff that you can take home and use instantly!

Building Elastic, Autoscalable Solutions with Windows Azure

In this session, learn how to implement true elasticity for your Windows Azure solutions. See how to automate the scaling of your Worker/Web Role instances depending on predictable usage patterns. Whether you expect high load during business hours and low load during the nights, or have different resource allocation needs, this session on using the Enterprise Library Integration Pack for the Windows Azure Autoscale Application Block shows you how your Windows Azure solutions can achieve higher levels of elasticity.

If this session delivers what it promises its like the pandoras box of cloud computing. Level 400 and high expectations!

Windows Azure Internals

Mark Russinovich goes under the hood of the Microsoft datacenter operating system. Intended for developers who have already gotten their hands dirty with Windows Azure and understand its basic concepts, this session gives an inside look at the architectural design of the Windows Azure compute platform. Learn about Microsoft’s data center architecture, what goes on behind the scenes when you deploy and update a Windows Azure app and how it monitors and responds to the health of machines, its own components, and the apps it hosts.

Windows Azure from the horses mouth! Mark Russinovich – say no more! Don’t miss this session if you want to know more about Windows Azure and probably stuff that you can’t read in the books.

Continuous Integration with Team Foundation Services and Windows Azure Websites

Windows Azure Websites and Team Foundation Services are a match made in heaven. In this demo-heavy session, learn how to connect your Azure Website with Team Foundation Services and setup continuous integration. Rainer Stropek, Azure MVP, shows how you customize your build process in the cloud. Get practical tips for how continuous integration in the cloud will work in your team.

75 minutes of how to automate and get more efficient in your dev/ops process. Another session where I expect to get a lot of tips and tricks to bring home.

Build Real-World Modern Apps with Windows Azure Mobile Services on Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS, or Android

Join us for and in-depth walkthrough of everything you need to know to build an engaging and dynamic app with Mobile Services. See how to work with geo-fencing, multiple auth providers (including custom identity), periodic push notifications, and your favorite APIs through scripts. We begin with a Windows Store app then point Windows Phone, iOS, and Android apps to the same Mobile Service in order to ensure a consistent experience across devices. We finish up with unit testing, debugging, and the the other app lifecycle goodness you need in a real-world app.

Kristofer Liljeblad, my main man, closest co-worker and good friend. This is my number one pick at TechEd this year! I know that he will be well prepared, I know that he will deliver a great session and I know that he has a lot of ground to cover to live up to the session abstract! Good luck my friend!

Designing and Building Disaster Recovery Enabled Solutions in Windows Azure

One of the biggest problems we have in an application and its data is the fact that we need it to be able to survive a disaster of any kind, from a Natural Disaster to a Vendor Disaster. In the cloud this is even more important because we need to understand how to prepare ourselves for that, since in some cases we "seem" not to have the same control over the data, and so in this session we talk about some of the Windows Azure capabilities and features that help us be prepared for disasters, and also to better prepare our apps and data to survive them.

Nuno Godinho is another great speaker that I had the pleasure to work with at TechEd and at Cloud Burst. His topic about disaster recovery is often overlooked and but still much needed in many cases.

Getting the Most out of Windows Azure Storage

In a world increasingly dominated by mobile and cloud computing, application developers require durable, scalable, reliable, and fast storage solutions like Windows Azure Storage.  In this session, learn how to get the most out of storage, patterns and best practices for developing performant solutions on storage that optimize for cost, latency, and throughput. Find out how to best develop mobile apps using storage, how to monitor, analyze and improve your storage apps. You don't want to miss this session, which is heavy on code and real-world examples that you can leverage.

Windows Azure Storage is service that have always been close to me. I love the things you can do with the services and knowing how to use them efficiently is crucial. I have never seen Joe Giardino present but he is Senior Development Lead on the Windows Azure Storage team so I expect to get to learn great stuff here!

Building Media Workflows in the Cloud with Windows Azure Media Services

Come and learn how to build media workflows for encoding, encrypting, and delivering media to multiple formats and devices. Learn how to ingest content securely into the cloud using the Media Services SDK for .NET and partner applications from Aspera. Watch as the Media Services team encodes content in the cloud and delivers to multiple devices including your own! Get insight into the roadmap for Windows Azure Media Services features including PlayReady DRM protection, License Delivery, and Live Streaming.

Windows Azure Media Services will be huge in a lot of solutions in the future (future meaning not today but tomorrow and beyond). This is a session I will watch as soon as I get the opportunity.

Lap Around Monitoring, Management and DevOps Solutions in Windows Azure

Windows Azure has made a great deal of improvements in the area of management and monitoring of cloud applications since the first release early last year. In this session, you will get a preview of the exciting, new monitoring and management capabilities that gives you insights into your running application and troubleshooting your applications end-to-end across all Azure workloads. Learn about the new management capabilities for Virtual Machines, Virtual Networks, Service Bus, SQL Azure and your other business critical workloads running on Windows Azure.

Sessions that promise “preview of the exciting, new” is always interesting if you want to be on the edge! Don’t miss this one!

Messaging with Windows Azure Service Bus

Windows Azure Service Bus offers a rich set of messaging capabilities in the cloud as well as on-premises. This session discusses some of the advanced messaging capabilities in Service Bus. Join us to learn about publish-subscribe patterns, Using the Service Bus sessions, interoperability with AMQP, scaling with Service Bus, and messaging strategies for server to cloud federation.

If you want to know more about Windows Azure Services Bus, Clemens Vasters is the guy. He will be able to answer any question you have, explain any feature there is and know about any issue that you might have experienced. This I know from my own experiences from working with Clemens with customers. As always, I expect an entertaining session!

And wait, there is even more!

Apart from these session there is even more. There are sessions on BizSpark in the Cloud, more on Windows Azure Media Services, more on Windows Azure Active Directory, more on Windows Azure Service Bus and more and more and more… Make no mistake – Windows Azure will rule TechEd!