IoT is spanning across a gamut of things such as “wearables”, medical devices and processes, sports, logistics, retail, manufacturing, home appliances, and more.  Cloud has arguably been the catalyst to turning what is traditional M2M into IOT.  But also the muscle of giants like Microsoft... Microsoft, via cloud services available on Microsoft Azure, has targeted the IOT space.  Microsoft Azure cloud platform makes for an ideal backbone for pre-existing hardware devices that exist in enterprises today, as a startup entering this space for the first time, or academia and "Makers".  Connectivity, security, data storage, analytics, command and control.... checkout what Microsoft's is doing in this space. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/internet-of-things.aspx

I was recently interviewed on this topic as well where I discuss Microsoft IOT among many others that should be of interest as well.  You can download the podcast here - https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode37.mp3

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/agile/archive/2013/07/02/windows-azure-autoscaling-now-built-in.aspx

https://technologyandfriends.com/SubText/archive/2012/09/03/tf228.aspx

So what's the good and bad of this Private PaaS appliance?  The bad thing is no doubt going to be the "capital expense".  Most businesses are looking for ways to cut cost and get out of the IT business where it makes sense.  Eliminating the hardware cost is one primary benefit of going to Windows Azure, among many others obviously.  Without exhausting this blog with all the benefit of Azure itself (which this appliance inherits), the true benefit of the Windows Azure Platform Appliance is "control".  For some industries (healthcare, financial, government, etc.) the benefit of having this appliance behind their firewall may out weigh the capital expense of the appliance itself. 

When should we expect to see these appliances for sale to the consumer market?  There hasn't been any official date, but one could reasonably suspect to see something ship in calendar year 2012. 

It’s intended to be a very simple demonstration to convey the concept and tools used.  It does NOT include all features of Azure or various enterprise scenarios such as large database partitioning/scaling, service bus integration, authentication, Worker Roles for background processing, or the multiple storage options available in Azure.

Step 1.  Setup your environment, download/install the required tools, and create your Azure Subscriptions.

Step 2.  Create a simple ASP.NET web application and SQL Server database using Visual Studio 2010.

Step 3.  SQL Server migration to SQL Azure.

Step 4.  ASP.NET (on-premise) to SQL Azure hybrid integration.

Step 5.  Migrate ASP.NET application Windows Azure.

Hope this was helpful… future screen casts will delve into further details in various areas.

Over the years, education has evolved with the decades of change in software platforms and IT.  The platform paradigms shifted from the mainframe/midrange, client-server, web/mobile, and services oriented infrastructure/architecture.  Each designed to resolve the shortcomings of its predecessor.  Today, students are digital natives proving once again that “Moore’s Law” holds true.  They expect a seamless user experience across an ever growing variety of computers, mobile phones, embedded devices, and even TVs that are changing at an exponential rate.  However, keeping up with the rate of change and providing adequate academic services have challenged the cash-strapped education industry, polarized further by the current economic recession.

The cloud has now emerged as the next wave innovative IT services that address the challenges of today.  By providing a familiar Microsoft platform, database/storage, and computing environment across a fabric of virtual servers “as a service”, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform (Windows Azure) offers immediate and tangible returns of your investment.  Instead of spending “months of money” per IT initiative on capacity planning, data center real-estate, hardware, staff, and related resources, the cloud provides a scale-on-demand infrastructure, pay-as-you-go subscription pricing model, an  SLA with 99.9+% uptime, and 24/7 IT support.

Some have positioned the cloud as the “platform of choice”, while Microsoft sees it as a “choice of platform”.  It’s not an “all or nothing” approach, but rather a choice to host your line of business applications, data, and/or services on-premise, in the cloud, or a hybrid of any combination, which we refer to as “Software plus Services”.  Choice is especially beneficial to education institutions, which until now, have had little/no choice but to invest heavily into fragmented IT cost centers on-premise. 

How can Microsoft’s cloud computing platform (Windows Azure) turn your IT cost center into an IT enabler for teaching and learning? 

To help answer this question, let’s meet two education industry leaders.

First meet David.  David is the superintendent for a large school district that is embarking upon a Student Lifecycle Management initiative. The goal of this initiative is to track a student’s academic performance, extra circular activities, college-prep projects, and progression from enrollment through graduation and beyond.  David knows he can easily leverage information already stored in the districts existing systems, such as their Grade book application, Student Information System, and Learning Management System on-premise, but is challenged at how he will be able to aggregate it, security, and make it accessible post-graduation to the state Department of Education, the student or anyone the student wishes to grant access, such as an employer or higher education institution.

Our second education industry leader is Nancy.  Nancy is the provost a local university in the same state as David’s school district.  Nancy has collaborated with David in the past about ways to streamline the student admissions process, since David’s district represents the largest percentage of prospective student applying for admission at Nancy’s university.

As part of their discussions, it was clear that David’s “Student Lifecycle Management” initiative could help benefit Nancy as well.  If only David could provide Nancy direct access to student transcripts and related academic assets, it would help automate the university’s student admissions process.

Instead of opening up firewall access, providing authentication rights to an FTP server, or creating an on-premise solution, they opted for a platform neutral cloud services solution.  David published student transcripts and associated essays and research project to the cloud and provided claims-based authorization to Nancy’s university.  The project required no hardware, no IT resources to manage IT environment, and no upfront capacity planning because the solution scaled up and down on-demand.

Nancy enabled her admissions office to more efficiently process student transcripts from David’s school district without having to formally request and wait for postal-services to deliver hard copies by mail and re-enter the data into the university systems.

In summary

This solutions could be further automated in a Software plus Services (S+S) scenario. by which on-premise integration and process management software such as Microsoft BizTalk Server and/or Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services work in conjunction with Windows Azure “services” off-premise, to allow scheduled or real-time message exchanges between the two education institutions.

For Education, the power of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform (Windows Azure) is about choice. The choice to determine what software platform model best meets your needs today and tomorrow while adapting to change.

·         What is Windows Azure -  https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dunnry/What-is-Windows-Azure/

·         Windows Azure Storage Overview -  https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dunnry/Windows-Azure-Storage-Overview/

·         Deploying Applications on Windows Azure -  https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dunnry/Deploying-Applications-on-Windows-Azure/

·         Doug Hauger: Insider the Windows Azure Platform Business Model -  https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Doug-Hauger-Inside-the-Windows-Azure-Platform-Business-Model/

You can have on-campus applications/systems accessing and updating this data that is hosted in the cloud.  This database is easily accessible via industry standard REST and SOAP based interfaces.

I have recorded this podcast prior to the public announcement of SQL Data Services at PDC in October 2008, but still very applicable toward the IT and economical benefits of this solution for Education.

Created by Marines for the children of fallen Marines for education scholarships!

If you’d like to learn more about this foundation, make a donation, or receive scholarship benefits visit www.mcsf.com.  If you just want to enjoy a nice glass of wine and know that the proceeds went towards a good cause, it’s called “Jarhead Red”.

In this podcast I cover the broader impact of Software + Services across the vast IT and economic challenges faced by both K-12 and Higher Education.  In later podcasts I will drill down into more specific technologies, solutions, and scenarios; however if you have questions or requests for details in any area, please comment or email and let me know!

I recorder this podcast a few months back, before the Azure Services Platform was publically announced at PDC in October 2008.  While you can register for more current and upcoming webcasts/podcasts at www.educationwebcasts.com, the message here is still very applicable.  In summary I discuss the benefits of Software + Services in Education.