Few bits about Cloud Computing & Microsoft Azure Platform

Cloud Computing  &  few bits about Microsoft Azure Platform,

Cloud Computing

[From wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing )]

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.

Leading companies offering Cloud Computing services, including:

• Amazon
• Google
• Microsoft

Amazon

• Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud)  - web hosting service http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
• Amazon S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service)  - providing storage in internet http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
• and many services like it... ...

Google

Google App Engine  - http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html

Allows to host application written in  Python  & Java

Microsoft

Azure services platform. Windows Azure - http://www.microsoft.com/azure/windowsazure.mspx

Allows to host application written in ASP.NET  & PHP

Java applications can also utilize “.NET services” by separate SDK

We can create, test and debug the applications using Visual Studio

 

Windows Azure Service Platform

Windows Azure is the cloud services operating system that provides various functionality for Cloud Computing. It serves as the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides on-demand compute & storage services on the Internet in Microsoft data centers.

It provides various services including,

• .NET Services
• Azure Storage Services
• Live Services
• SQL Data Services.

Azure Storage Services

• Windows Azure Tables
• Windows Azure Blob
• Windows Azure Queue

Windows Azure "Tables"
- Used for "DBMS like" functionality. provides scalable, durable structured storage in the form of tables. The tables contain entities, and the entities contain properties.  support ACID transactions. It can be accessed as "REST programming approach" via "ADO.NET Data Services".

Windows Azure "Blob"
- Used for "storing Binary data" (ex, Photos, Videos any any type of files). 

Windows Azure "Queue"
- provides reliable storage and delivery of messages for an application.

 

 

Microsoft .NET Services

- set of developer-oriented services that provide key building blocks "for communication among applications".

[Much like the .NET Framework, for the Cloud computing].

• Access Control Service
• Service Bus

Access Control Service
- The Access Control Service is a cloud-based "Security Token Service (STS)". It provides way for standards-based identity checking.

Service Bus
- provides the familiar Enterprise Service Bus application pattern.

 

 

Live Services

- is a set of building blocks for handling "user data and application resources". Live Services includes Mesh technologies for synchronizing user data and extending Web applications across multiple devices.

 

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(more will be in later post)

Article Published – ADO.NET Data Services

 

Few months before, I was checking about ADO.NET data services. Same I pointed out in my old post. I had put some initial notes in document for further view, and just forwarded that as a article to publish in ‘Chirp’ [in-house magazine in current employer] before 3 months.

This month publication, having that article.

I shared that here (in SkyDrive) for download, or you may view & download from below ‘docstoc’ upload.

If you find any flaw, please let me know in comments.

ADO.NET Data Services (aka Astoria) - Intro - Get more Business Documents

WCF Links, Web Casts, Notes

 

WCF – Webcast Links

Latest WCF Screen casts in MSDN

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/content/en-us/msft/netframework/wcf/Screencasts

 

MIKE TAULTY'S BLOG [Slightly out of date, but clearly explaining the concepts – MUST to See]

http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2006/09/13/8875.aspx

 

Nicholas Allen's Indigo Blog [year 2006 web casts]

http://blogs.msdn.com/drnick/archive/2006/05/31/611195.aspx

 

WCF (Indigo) – Some Important Blog Links

 

"Service Station", by Aaron Skonnard   (WCF Trainer, MVP) important Blog for WCF

http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/aaron/default.aspx

 

Wenlong's Blog (Microsoft WCF Team)

http://blogs.msdn.com/wenlong/default.aspx

 

SOWMY SRINIVASAN'S BLOG  (Microsoft WCF Team)

- He is posting rarely, but extreme quality discussion will be.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sowmy/default.aspx

 

Nicholas Allen's Indigo Blog  (Microsoft WCF Team)

http://blogs.msdn.com/drnick/default.aspx

WCF – Some Important Article/Discussions Links

Message Contract (vs.) Data Contract : Discussion
http://www.codeplex.com/servicefactory/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=21927

 

WCF Service : ASP.NET compatibility mode
http://blogs.msdn.com/wenlong/archive/2006/01/23/516041.aspx

 

Must Check
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332338.aspx

 

WCF instancing mode default (ServiceBehaviorAttribute.InstanceContextMode)
http://blogs.msdn.com/edpinto/archive/2006/10/16/wcf-instancing-mode-default-is-instancecontextmode-persession.aspx

http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/keith/archive/2006/10/13/40522.aspx

And I attached my brief notes here.

Fiddler : HTTP Traffic Debugger Proxy

While studying the basis of “ADO.NET Data Services”, I came to know about an excellent tool called “Fiddler”.

• HTTP Web Debugger Proxy
• Logs all the HTTP Traffic
• so able to view all HTTP communication, in may formats (as RAW format, as XML.. and may more options).

really useful, if you haven’t used yet, consider this. Here it is :http://www.fiddlertool.com/

Info about “Fiddler” in MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250446.aspx

Earlier while starting with .NET 2.0 XML web services, I was struggled to trace SOAP messages communication. I don’t heard about this that time. Fortunately now no problem about that. :-)

Looking at : ADO.NET Data Services

 

These days am looking in a new component in .NET Framework.
It is a new approach of "accessing the data".
It is "ADO.NET Data Services"

It is interesting, because we are going to access the data "as service".
Started to work with this.

Just here am sharing some introduction details what I got.

- Data as a Service
- Earlier code named as ‘Astoria’
- Part of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
- REST based approach
- So, Best Suitable for Rich Interface Applications (like ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight)
- Accessible by all kinds of .NET Application

Main thing is, as in the client's view, we are going to access the data using URIs

Some URI examples:
http:// myserver / data.svc / Customers
By this we can get all customer details

http:// myserver / data.svc / Customers(‘userA’)
By this we can get only particular "userA" details

So, how it is working only with URI itself for Accessing the data.!!!?
Because, it is working with HTTP methods GET, POST, PUT and DELETE

As a learning workarounds, "ADO.NET Data Services" would be around the following

· ADO.NET Entity Framework

· ADO.NET Entity Data Model

· LINQ

· Web Services

· REST

· JSON

· ATOM Feed

Just working with this new approach, with sample applications.
We may interested with publically deployed any existing "ADO.NET Data services", one of the example  http://stevef.goes.com/northwindservice/NorthwindService.svc/

some useful links regarding this,

MSDN : Using ADO.NET Data Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc907912.aspx

MSDN : Overview of ADO.NET Data Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc956153.aspx

Astoria Team Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/astoriateam/

NOTE: for developing application in this, minimum we need

• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

 

Hope soon I will update here with more details about this.

Hello WCF

From a long time, I wanted to learn the unified distributed application development technology WCF. Yes, I downloaded many webcast, presentation…. from this year beginning itself. but,

 

Now, only I am writing WCF hello world, and this basic program is working. Hope I will learn more soon, and share some concepts here.

 

:-)

Web21C SDK is joining Ribbit!

Today, i received an important information about "BT Web21C SDK". Herebelow am sharing this with you.

Announcement from "Mr JP Rangaswami (Managing Director, Strategy & Innovation, BT Design)

Dear Web21C SDK Developer,

BT has consistently supported the vision of an open, programmable telephony platform through its investment in its award winning Web21C SDK initiative. BT's vision has been to enable global innovation by giving software developers the tools they need to creatively embed voice into high-value business and personal processes through software applications. BT's goal has been to enable developers to build communications solutions that our customers want and need, as they define them, today and into the future.

Supporting our vision and goal, BT announced on 29 July that it acquired Ribbit Corporation (www.ribbit.com), underpinning our ongoing commitment and belief that voice can be integrated, personalised and monetised by developers everywhere for both enterprises and consumers, bringing to life new ideas, new experiences and new business models.

Complementing the server side tools provided by our Web21C SDK, Ribbit brings a host of client side features that will enable you to bring together voice calling and Web 2.0 experiences, turning voice into a rich feature that can be added to any application, on any device.

Ribbit's client-based API is currently based on Adobe Flash and Flex components and libraries. This API allows a web programmer or designer to access Ribbit's capabilities directly through a web page in a browser or in the case of Adobe's AIR technology, as a entirely standalone application. Ribbit is also in the process of extending its client-based APIs to Microsoft's .NET/Silverlight and Sun's JavaFX.

For more information on Ribbit's current set of APIs, which include, calling, the ability to play and record audio files and phrases, transcription of voice, access to directory listings, the ability to create, provision, and access user data and many, many more, go to http://developer.ribbit.com

We are also in the process of migrating the Web21C SDK into Ribbit, providing you with the same server-side APIs which allow machine-to-machine communication. Supporting this migration, Ribbit will provide a REST-based API in December 2008. On top of this API, Ribbit or third parties can add numerous server language bindings including Python, Perl, Java, Ruby, and others.

To ensure a smooth transition and to focus on efforts on providing you with the REST API as soon as possible, we will be suspending the Web21C SDK platform at 12:00 pm GMT on Friday, 10 October.

In the meantime, come and play at Ribbit! If you haven't already, go to http://developer.ribbit.com and sign up for a developer account, giving you immediate access to all the benefits already shared by the over 6,000 Ribbit developer community members including comprehensive documentation and code samples to help you "Ribbitize" your application!

As a member, you'll be able to create and share your Ribbit applications, get feedback from other developers and see what others are building. You'll also be able to participate in the community forums, where you'll receive first hand support from the Ribbit team. Additional support can be found at developersupport@ribbit.com. Contact us with your questions and we will be happy to address your needs and get you coding with Ribbit!

We look forward to enhancing your development efforts with Ribbit and we would like to thank you and your involvement with the Web21C SDK. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and look forward to your continued support during this transition, as we continue to provide you with more tools to allow you to innovate with voice and communications.


JP Rangaswami
Managing Director, Strategy & Innovation, BT Design

BT Webservices SDK : Doing call with our application

Today, tried to access Webservices provided by BT, for accessing Telecommunication services. Just tried to do normal Voice Call & conference Call using "Web21c SDK" from BT. now Web21c SDK is available for .NET, JAVA, PHP & Python [as you think, just i tried SDK for .NET :-)


- Created an account in BT site https://web21c.bt.com/users/new

- Downloaded latest SDK for .NET framework (Web21C .NET v5.2.2 : size 1.35 MB) http://web21c.bt.com/downloads/

- Configured two certificates ( one for our application, and one for BT Server)

- Configured our application's "app.config" file based on certificate process

then in code gave phone number in the format "tel:[country code][phonenumber]"
Just tried for basic function in "Voice Call" & "Conference call" services.


About Trail Usage Limit:
Sandbox certificates are only valid for 30 days, and you can only register 5 sandbox certificates. for more details about pricing http://web21c.bt.com/pricing