http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mariok/archive/2011/05/11/hadoop-in-azure.aspx

So I go to my portal, and, lo and behold, there it is! FINALLY!

<more trumpets blaring than at the royal wedding>

Another thing worth noting is that you can have up to a 4GB cache… nice!

If you want to simply add this functionality to an existing namespace, just select the namespace, and choose “Modify Namespace” from the buttons on top.

This is a HUGE important piece of functionality, if you are using SQL as the ASP.NET session state provider, switch to this provider immediately! It will increase performance while reducing connections to your DB and reducing DB workload, allowing your DB to work more efficiently.

Enjoy!

I’ve heard a few instances of people having difficulty using WA Connect to reach their on-premises SQL Server from a web or worker role, so I thought I’d provide a few tips:

1.    Configure your role for access via Remote Desktop, remote into a role instance   

2.    Confirm that you can ping from web role to SQL server and vice versa.

a.       If you can’t ping, check the firewall rules

3.       Confirm that you can reach the SQL server on its port 1433

a.       From your web role run: telnet <SQL-SERVER-NAME> 1433 – if you get an error:

                                    i.      Check the firewall rules on SQL server, ensure tcp 1433 inbound is allowed.

                                   ii.      Make sure that SQL server is configured to accept remote connections.

4.       Increase the timeout on your SQL connection string. For example:

connectionString = "Data Source=(local);Database=AdventureWorks; Integrated Security=SSPI;Connection Timeout=60”

Also keep in mind that you are traveling a longer distance to reach your SQL Server than you would if it were in your datacenter, so understand that the simple physics of network latency could hamper performance.

Here is an awesome post by Hanu Kommalapati about capacity planning, and it contains some information you might not know about the capacity of each VM (hint: bandwidth per VM):

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hanuk/archive/2011/02/01/windows-azure-capacity-assessment.aspx

Hanu and I work together to help ISV’s in Microsoft Central Region adopt the Windows Azure Platform, and his blog is a great source of information.

By the way - I’m in Chicago, if anyone has created a cloud app that will shovel my driveway, let me know. I’d pay just about anything at this point!

A customer called me recently with an interesting question. he had set up a co-administrator (newly available functionality) for his Azure subscription. However, the co-administrator couldn’t see any SQL Azure instances through the portal. he could see the hosted services and storage fine, but not SQL Azure.

So, I did some homework and asked a few questions, and found out that this is indeed true. The ability for co-administrators to see SQL Azure in the portal has not yet been enabled ( or Windows Azure Connect for that matter). As far as I know, the product group plans to correct this in the future.

However, all is certainly not lost! Just because it isn’t in the portal doesn’t mean you co-admin doesn’t have access to do anything they need to do. Your co-admin can still use all the tools (SQL Server Management Studio, Database Manager, etc…) to login to the DB to do their work. All they need is either the ‘sa’ password, or their own login created.

Hopefully, this issue will be corrected soon, but it’s important to note that work can still be performed.

Today the Azure team released SDK 1.3 and the updated tools for Visual Studio. I’m really looking forward to being able to use these on production projects! To download click on the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7a1089b6-4050-4307-86c4-9dadaa5ed018

Some of the enhancements are truly amazing:

• Virtual Machine (VM) Role (Beta):Allows you to create a custom VHD image using Windows Server 2008 R2 and host it in the cloud.
• Remote Desktop Access: Enables connecting to individual service instances using a Remote Desktop client.
• Full IIS Support in a Web role: Enables hosting Windows Azure web roles in a IIS hosting environment.
• Elevated Privileges: Enables performing tasks with elevated privileges within a service instance.
• Virtual Network (CTP): Enables support for Windows Azure Connect, which provides IP-level connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources.
• Diagnostics: Enhancements to Windows Azure Diagnostics enable collection of diagnostics data in more error conditions.
• Networking Enhancements: Enables roles to restrict inter-role traffic, fixed ports on InputEndpoints.
• Performance Improvement: Significant performance improvement local machine deployment.

As my colleague Brian Loesgen points out in his blog, anyone can now get 30 day free Azure accounts. I haven’t read the limitations yet, but one important thing to remember is that this offer DOES NOT REQUIRE A CREDIT CARD!

Also important – enter promo code DP001, or else you’ll be told it’s not available in your country…

http://www.windowsazurepass.com/?campid=C4624604-86EE-DF11-B2EA-001F29C6FB82

I was going to write up a summary myself, but this summary is so well done, I think I’ll just be lazy and provide a link:

http://jcstame.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/pdc-2010-windows-azure-update-summary/

MANY great improvements and new features coming that will enable amazing things to happen on this platform. Enjoy!

Recently, Rodney Sloan and I conducted events for ISV’s to learn more about Azure and specifically, some of the opportunities and challenges faced by ISV’s when moving to a Cloud-based model.

I’d like to thank Paddy Srinivasan and John Schindler of Cumulux for presenting sessions at this event as well as leading discussions based on their cloud experience.

Here are links to some of the presentations, the ones I presented. I’ll try to get them all up but I want to make sure I have permission to do so, and then update this post.

Thanks!

https://tonyguidmsdn.blob.core.windows.net/public/ISVDiscoveryGettingStarted.pdf

https://tonyguidmsdn.blob.core.windows.net/public/ISVDiscoverySaasSolutions.pdf

• Define – help understand the cloud and the capabilities offered, and how they might align with strategic goals
• Explore – applicable strategic goals for each company, and design some potential architectures
• Plan – Plan a cloud implementation

We built all of our materials for the program, and from the ground up were able to execute this program for ~60 companies. Some were only step one, some started at steps 2 or 3, some chose to implement after step 2. However, it was very exciting to be at the forefront of this technology wave. The program was quite successful, and has been integrated into other processes at Microsoft. I and my counterparts, Tejaswi Redkar and Danny Garber (program lead), received several awards for the success of this program. Also, it couldn’t have been done without the leadership and executive sponsorship of Ken Archer and Kevin Fleck.

What’s great is that a new opportunity arose that I am even more excited about. I have taken on a new role, moving from Services to the Developer and Platform Evangelism group, as an Architect Evangelist for the Azure ISV team. I will be specializing in helping ISV’s in the Central Region leverage the Windows Azure platform.

I intend to use this blog to communicate relevant information, both public successes by ISV’s I’m working with, as well as important cloud information.

Updates coming soon!