Windows System/36

Microsoft San Francisco hosted Startup Weekend San Francisco. Tickets for the Sunday Night Demos were $5.99, less than a matinee movie, with a Tandoori dinner included. Turns out, I was in for helluva treat. About 140 people, developers, designers, had ozmosed into 20 teams following un-conference format.

Unconference implies no rules, wrong!

Teams group together based on similarity of interest, merit skills, capability to-do the job and good spirit. The Startup Weekend goal is to develop a working demo (not power-point), and a presentation pitch to catch the interest of venture capital.

The 20 teams leaned young and no team had developed Windows apps, all demos were Web and mobile apps. I feel we are at the inflection point where the new generation app patterns offer a 10x increase in productivity over the prior.

Analogy, IBM System/36 apps were replaced by Microsoft Windows apps. Azure looks likes Microsoft’s next generation, and I expect Startup Weekend like events to evangelize and win mindshare.

Enough yap, the Sunday Night Demos!

Startup Weekend Sunday Night Demos 1-2

Startup Weekend Sunday Night Demos 2-2

Windows Azure with David Chappell at Bay.NET

David Chappell, Distingished Speaker spoke (1/28) @ Bay.NET User Group. Foot Hills Technical College, Los Altos, CA.

* Backgrounder
* Azure Services Platform by David Chappell
* Future Direction
* Impact
* Steps to move Apps into AZURE...

Window Azure with David Chappell at Bay.NET

View more presentations from Clive Boulton. (tags: azure windows)

Backgrounder

AZURE is Microsoft's platform entry into Cloud Computing. The name means encompasses; Windows Azure vs Azure (the whole platform) vs Azure Platform Services. More http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Services_Platform

Azure Services Platform by David Chappell

David PPT slides covered Overview, Architecture, Characteristics

Architecture

* VM's are Win 2008 64-bit
* Web Apps supported, any which can invoke IIS7
* Data Access is RESTful (ADO.NET apps not supported)
* Azure service model has an config file - (yay, config)
* SQL Server not supported, all data storage is Tables.
* Tables are supported like schema free. Allowing horizontal sharding over multiple data servers ("MSFT must have hired an architect from Google, or Grid company)

Future Direction

Currently Azure does not host SQL server instances. The current data structure is tables accessed via RESTful services. David Chappell polled the audience of about 100, what they needed (I know many are CTO, Architects or Lead Developers working on business apps). Perhaps predictably out of familiarity, people wanted SQL services (this was not a Google audience). David mentioned he is in Redmond next week meeting the head of Azure, after touring Europe, Brussels, Amsterdam and meeting with big banks and groups like Bay.NET and not to be surprised if Microsoft switches to supporting SQL server, just like Amazon EC2 does (its paid option over the standard SimpleDB). Azure does have access to on premise SQL server data via a service bus....

Impact

* "Some data will never go in the cloud, which goes where is the issue" - David Chappell.
* Data written to Azure storage is saved to 3 physically different data stores.
* Financial data vs CRM - Compliance / Trust. On premise Accounting (Compliance) vs Saas (Trust).
* Apparently Sarbanes Oxley does not allow Financial Data off premise, yet CRM data is allowed off premise, SalesForce.com - David Chappell. (I plan to research Sarbanes, true or not)
* Cloud Computing is heaven for start-ups, 2 guys can lever the Cloud Platform and look like 200.
* 250 guys can look like 2500. No VC funding needed, just a credit card an go
* Integration to other web sites services, like Sales Force.CRM or Google maps is potentially far easier in the Cloud, but may be more expensive depending on how data is metered.

Steps to move Apps into AZURE…

The big conceptual change for developers / CTOs / founders / etc where do you want store the data, at customer premises, like most Client Server Apps. In data center like your ATM account is hosted by a bank, hosted under the lock and key of our your IT team, or hosted in Microsoft data centers around the world. What data goes where, financial on premise, CRM data in Azure, HR data on premise. All of a sudden more questions, without obvious answers.

Final thoughts, many codecamps required before moving forward.