Do programmers dream in Byte Code?

Just before Christmas a number of enhancements were released, the continual growth combined with the short release cadence is showing Azure to be an amazing platform for development and delivery.

Included in the update:

• Mobile Services
  • CRON – a well built job scheduler for routine maintenance (tutorial here)
  • CLI Support – The azure command line tool now has mobile service support
  • European Locations – now Europe is a Service location
• Web Sites
  • can be run across 6 Shared or 10 Reserved Instances
  • Publish from Source Control (TFS/Git)
• Portal Enhancements for
  • SQL Data Sync
  • ACS Management 
• Media Services
  • Job and Task management
  • Adding content from a Windows Azure storage account
  • Scaling to increase encoding concurrency
• Virtual Network enhancements (thank goodness)

to learn more come to a BM Azure event check out www.blackmarble.com/events

b.

The BizTalk team recently announced that the next version of BizTalk is to be a major release not R2.

Feature Updates

• ESB Toolkit integration –  ESB Toolkit is now fully integrated with BizTalk Server and the ESB Toolkit configuration has been simplified.
• Dependency tracking  - The dependencies between artefacts can now be viewed and navigated in Admin console
• Improvements in dynamic send ports 
• Improvements in mapping engine performance
• Ordered Send Port improvements – increased performance of ordered send port scenarios.

Adapter Updates

• Azure Service Bus –   adapters to send and receive messages from Windows Azure Service Bus and to transfer messages to relay endpoints hosted on Azure.
• RESTful services – adapters to invoke REST endpoints as well as expose BizTalk Server artefacts as a RESTful service.
• Enhanced SharePoint adapter – SharePoint integration is much simpler and the need for dependency on SharePoint farms has been removed
• SFTP adapter –

Most people forget about Host integration Server, HIS 2013 Beta includes

• Data Integration – New OLE DB Provider for Informix and new Service for DB2 DRDA.
• Application Integration – New Transaction Integrator runtime and web configuration-based administration and deployment.
• Network Integration – New 3270 emulator and improved Session Integrator, both with direct TN3270 connectivity.

BizTalk now has support for Window Server 2012, Visual Studio 2012, SQL Server 2012 as would be expected and HIS also supports the newer IBM platforms

but best of all now Azure host able and available from the Gallery.

Important Note, if you use IE10 you must use compatibility mode with the BAM portal

Get the bits here and the documentation here

b.

Spelunking through the internet I came across a project at Microsoft to engage people with various Microsoft Technologies using comic form. Black Marble have been producing Xmas comics over the last few years and the results have been great.

The series of comics follows “Squishy” the stress ball, Leah and Zach in a Manga inspired view of IT and development

In "Climbing Mt. PowerShell" the heroes learn PowerShell and the power of scripting to save the day, get it here

"Conquering Virtual Sprawl" Leah and Zach fights the chaos of large numbers of servers and harnesses virtual servers to save the day get it here

finally the heroes go where no heroes have gone before “Into the Cloud” get it here

the guys over at the Microsoft Born to Learn site really should be applauded at their efforts of tackling these subjects in such a great way

b.

SQL Azure Labs have released Project Houston a lightweight web based Database management tool for SQL Azure. Houston allows you to develop, deploy, and manage SQL Azure and includes support for basic database management tasks like authoring and executing queries, designing and editing a database schema, and editing table data.

b.

Well in that case the ever fantastic Eric Nelson is your man, if you join the fans of Windows Azure http://ukazure.ning.com/profiles/blogs/free-100-page-windows-azure

I am sure Eric will find it in his heart to send you the password to download this masterpiece.

b.

The usual suspects of Black Marble speakers presented on the Microsoft technologies from 2008 and the forthcoming developments for 2009.  A rapid fire run through covered everything from Oslo to Windows 7 through Azure and Performance Point to System Centre.  All the news, and milestones for Microsoft releases in 2009 and beyond.

Good lunch too.

b.

The Developer & Platform Group at Microsoft are pleased to announce a series of technical briefings, targeted at ISVs and Start-ups, focused on the cloud based Azure Services Platform (first announced at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles in October 2008).  Black Marble are delighted to host the Bradford leg of this event on 13 February.

This event will cover:

· Windows Azure – The operating system for the Cloud

· .Net and Live Services – Mesh, Service Bus, Access Control and Workflow.

· SQL Data Services and data access

· Next Steps

The briefings will consist of technical discussion, demos and interactive discussion and will focus on what Azure is and how it can be used as a platform for cloud-based development. The sessions will be small, typically less than 30, to keep the flow of conversation going, and are suitable for Technical Decision Makers, Application Architects, Senior Developers and CTOs. There will be time after the event for more detailed ‘one to one’ discussions on any topics related to this session.

13^th February 2009, Bradford: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=EE-AA-39-11-6B-DF-F0-2D-78-12-81-55-03-49-6A-33&Culture=en-GB Invitation code: 5A219E

Look forward to seeing you there.

b.