#Azure Action - Weekly Newsletter - 11th March 2011

Local Overview

Microsoft Australia: CloudCast Episode 1 & Episode 2 now published

Now available: Attach your Windows Azure subscription to your local Enterprise Agreement (Talk to your local Account Manager)

Readiness & Resources:

Reading:

• Windows Azure

Facebook, Bing, Azure - Everything rolled into one example

Understanding Security Account Management in Windows Azure

Government Should Consider Windows Azure as Part of its "Cloud-First" Strategy

Book Review: Microsoft Azure Enterprise Application Development

• SQL Azure

SQL Azure Pricing Explained

Watch:

• Windows Phone Meets Azure: Boris Johnson uses the Love Clean London App
• Cloud Casts - Various Webcasts including Windows Azure
• Predixion talk about their use of medical data to find the top 10 medications and use predictive analytics to suggest possible related conditions.

Case Study:

• New South Wales Education Department avoids A$200,000 infrastructure investment by hosting online science testing in the cloud.

Tools:

• Live Windows Azure Apps, APIs, Tools and Test Harnesses

Guidance:

Walkthrough:

• Put a VM on Azure

Design:

• Taking advantage of Windows Azure CDN and Dynamic Pages in ASP.NET - Caching content from hosted services

Book:

• Book Review: Microsoft Azure Enterprise Application Development

In the news:

General news:

• HP gets data centre fever in NZ

• ineffective and inefficient usage of the cloud services mean more costs to your business and more risks of security troubles

• Does PaaS break the Cost-Quality-Time paradox?

Microsoft:

• Microsoft is making preparations to move applications that developers are hosting on its Azure cloud infrastructure out of its Washington state datacenter, due to a change in the tax laws there.

Windows Azure:

• A Windows Phone 7 app that explores the outer atmosphere
• A new and improved Windows Azure AppFabric Silverlight  Portal released!
• SDK 1.4 up and out there! Updates across the platform (e.g. CDN support for web roles)
• Windows Phone 7 + Cloud Services SDK Developer Preview is now Available

Fun (twitter):

• On twitter: "I hear #AppFabric is made from #tigerblood"

Events:

Local:

• Azure ISV Acceleration Labs on for 28th-30th March

• Readify DevDays - 17th March Build a Web Application. and on 10th May Introduction to Windows Azure

• Cloud Summit - Adelaide March 22nd and Perth March 24th

Webinar:

• Free Webinar Tuesday, March 8 8am PT : "Moving Client/Server and Windows Forms Applications to Windows Azure with Visual WebGui Instant Cloud Move"

Community:

Like Azure?

• Become a fan: www.facebook.com/windowsazure (Azure Facebook Toolkit)
• Want answers? See the forums
• Add yourself to my Azure Australia Twitter list
• Coming soon: Azure Meetups!

Questions:

Where do I find out more information about AppFabric Caching? Here a few starter links:

• DIY: Hands on Lab / API Reference / Feb SDK training
• Video: Introduction to AppFabric Caching
• Using Windows Azure AppFabric Cache (CTP)
• How to: Create a Windows Azure AppFabric Cache