Month: April 2013

Windows Azure Free Trail

By Marcel Meijer

Because I wanted to connect a Windows Azure account with my Office 365 account, so I started a new Windows Azure subscription. In this blogpost I will show you the steps needed in the process of creating a new subsciption. You can start with Windows Azure without any risks, when the free usage is done it will stop without any costs. The first step is going to: https://www.windowsazure.com/nl-nl/pricing/free-trial/.   When choosing for “Buy now”, you get a screen like this. I assume a private use, meaning we want to use what we really use and we do not want to … Continue reading Windows Azure Free Trail

Global Windows Azure Bootcamp NL

By Marcel Meijer

Last Saturday there was the Worldwide Global Windows Azure Bootcamp. In The Netherlands this was organized by WAZUG and SDN. The program contained a Windows Azure introduction by Marcel Meijer and after the lunch a session about HD Insight by Dennis Mulder. In the meantime there was the possibility to work on the Hands-on labs of the Windows Azure trainings kit. Patriek van Dorp, Dennis Mulder, Edwin van Wijk and Marcel Meijer were available for questions and helping with solving problems.   At the end of the event there was Worldwide experiment. All countries run the Kinect and Windows Azure … Continue reading Global Windows Azure Bootcamp NL

WAAD – Integrate with Web App

By Marcel Meijer

I showed the following screenshot already in my previous blogpost about Windows Azure Active Directory. I told you I would show you more of it.   If you follow the Wizard, the site will go humming for a moment and the following appears. Your Website is connected to your Active directory. The Federation Metadata document URL will be needed in a moment in Visual Studio.     It is a quick demo which the naming is showing 😉 I started Visual Studio and I did File –> New Project. Afterwards I choose my personal favorite a MVC 4 website. On … Continue reading WAAD – Integrate with Web App

VCards and QRCodes

By Marcel Meijer

For my employer we have developed the QRCode on our business cards. This QRCode contains a link to a website where the VCard of the employee can be downloaded. A VCard is a standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard for electronic Business Cards. The idea of the QRCode was to download the VCard of the employee and so add the data to your address book. The VCard could also be added to the QRCode, but then the QRCode changes with a function change or mobile number change. To us this looked not quite handy. That is why we choose to make the VCard available on a … Continue reading VCards and QRCodes

Windows Azure Global Bootcamp

By Marcel Meijer

On April 27th, 2013, you’ll have the ability to join a Windows Azure Bootcamp on a location close to you. Why? We’re organizing bootcamps globally, that’s why! Learn about locations, install the necessary prerequisites and get excited! This one day deep dive class will get you up to speed on developing for Windows Azure. The class includes a trainer with deep real world experience with Windows Azure, as well as a series of labs so you can practice what you just learned. Awesome. How much does it cost? This event is FREE to the attendees. Gratis! Gratuite! Libero! Even more … Continue reading Windows Azure Global Bootcamp

Windows Azure Endpoint monitoring

By Marcel Meijer

When going to the Windows Azure portal you can choose for the different services on the portal, one of the things you see is the Dashboard. The Dashboard is aggregation of a couple of performance counters. Now there is a new option: Web Endpoint Status. With this option you can automate the monitoring of the availability of your Windows Azure website from an other Windows Azure datacenter. The setup is relatively easy. Go to the Configure tab. Enter the URL and check the Windows Azure datacenters to test from. Ready. Besides the dashboard there is also logging.   Again a … Continue reading Windows Azure Endpoint monitoring

Windows Azure IAAS Public Available

By Marcel Meijer

Yesterday Windows Azure IAAS was announced public available by Scott Guthrie via his blog http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2013/04/16/windows-azure-general-availability-of-infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas.aspx. Besides the word Preview has dropped on the portal, there are more new things available. There are also new images added, like more versions of BizTalk 2013 and also a SharePoint 2013 image. The other images were already available during the preview. Besides new images there are also other sizes of VM’s available. VM size with the name A6 and A7 with 28 and 56 Gb memory and 4 or 8 cores. What’s in a name 😉 But the Windows Azure Virtual Network is now also … Continue reading Windows Azure IAAS Public Available

Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD)

By Marcel Meijer

One major drawback of Webapplications in the Cloud compared to Intranet applications is the availability of Active directory. One solution is the usage of social networks (like Google, FaceBook, Twitter, Yahoo, Windows Live) to validate users. You know if the user is the one he tells you he is, but you still have to handle the authorization yourself. That is not always very handy, because your are not really in control for the authentication. Especially if the users are employees of your company, then you want them to login with your corporate account of course. Modern companies nowadays use Office … Continue reading Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD)