There are more steps involved in debugging or running a Windows Azure Project than a typical ASP.NET project, so it takes longer. Although you can debug or run the ASP.NET project more quickly when developing a Windows Azure project, there are some restrictions and caveats, as Wely Lau explains.… Read more
So how easy is it to set up a database-driven application on Azure, using the tools that one is familar with. There are several different ways of doing it, and Bud decides to find out which is the best way… Read more
The elasticity of a PaaS solution allows you to react quickly to increasing load, but at a cost. How do you test your software to make sure that it can scale without denting your profits? Fortunately, you can set up a test lab easily and reasonably cheaply to spot bottlenecks and budget for the cloud provision.… Read more
There are some essential tasks to be done in move existing applications to the cloud, because of the differences between the on-premise and cloud architecture, though the move from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Azure is generally straightforward. … Read more
By caching static content on the Content Delivery Network CDN, the web server can offload the serving of content that doesn't change, and so will have more resources for processing requests for active content. Browser-based users of your application will get static content delivered with less latency from a server that is closer to them.… Read more
Imagine that you are running a website that is subject to wide fluctuations in demand, such as a ticket-selling system for events. How would you plan for migrating a seemingly-ideal candidate for a cloud platform to Windows Azure? … Read more
There are four major changes that are required when moving applications to the cloud: Architectural, Application-level security, overcoming shortcomings, and diagnostic logging and monitoring. It is likely that the changes to the architecture of applications will take the most effort if you are to get the most advantages from the cloud.… Read more
When you are planning to implement a cloud system, there are twelve architectural guidelines that can help you to get the most out of the advantages that a cloud platform can provid… Read more
Under the pseudonym of 'SwePeso', Peter Larsson is famous on SQL forums for the amazing performance he can get from SQL. How does he do it? In the first of a series of articles, Peter explains his secrets. … Read more
This is the second article of a two-part introduction to Windows Azure. The first part discussed the Windows Azure data centers and examined the core services that Windows Azure offers. This article explore additional services available as part of Windows Azure which enable customers to build richer, more powerful applications.… Read more
Migrating applications from physical servers to a new set of virtual machines on Amazon Web Services (AWS) has proved to be a rewarding experience. It was more expensive than expected but has proved to perform well, and given a means of rapid scaling up horizontally and/or vertically when required … Read more
Shameer continues in his quest to use the Toto Blogging engine and Git to create a fast blogging platform on Heroku. In part 1, he showed how to get a basic blogging platform up and running. Now he shows how to customize a Toto template and engine, and edit the engine to have more sophisticated functionality such as tag clouds or related articles.… Read more
Windows Azure is the Microsoft cloud computing platform which enables developers to quickly develop, deploy, and manage their applications hosted in a Microsoft data center. As a PAAS provider, Windows Azure not only takes care of the infrastructure, but will also help to manage higher level components including operating systems, runtimes, and middleware.… Read more
When providing cloud solution to connected mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets in particular, there are several practices that make a great difference to the quality of the service that you provide.… Read more
It doesn't take much to create a limited, but fast, blog in Ruby if you use existing tools such as Toto (the flat-file blogging engine) and Git, and deploy it to the Heroku cloud platform. … Read more
We all understand the value of Unit Testing, but how come so few organisations maintain unit tests for their in-house applications? We can no longer pretend that unit testing is a universal panacea for ensuring less-buggy applications. Instead, we should be prepared to actively justify the use of unit tests, and be more savvy about where in the development cycle the unit test resources should be most effectively used.… Read more
So what is a PaaS, an IaaS or a SaaS? why would one need one? If you are still wondering about what the cloud can do for you, then it is time to read this indroduction… Read more
Before leaping head-first into the cloud, spinning up a few EC2 nodes or Azure web roles, it pays for an existing company with established servers to set up private cloud, virtualise your existing servers, spin up a second e-commerce server to prototype a multi-node solution, and sort out all the snags.… Read more
Compliant Database DevOps
Standardize team-based development
Automate database deployments
Monitor performance and availability
Protect and preserve data
