Microsoft SQL Azure Enterprise Application Development Book Review

This book starts out with an introduction to cloud computing and the Azure Services Platform. It covers the current state of the Cloud leaders and does a nice summary comparison to show the strengths of each. It compares Amazon, Google, SalesForce, and Microsoft. It continues with a nice introduction to the Microsoft Azure platform components. It covers the different types of storage, Azure AppFabric, the hosting service, and SQL Azure. It then does a good job of walking you through getting a subscription. The book then goes through a detailed introduction to the SQL Azure Services. It covers accessing SQL Azure Services, setting up the firewall, using SQL Server Management Studio, and a lite introduction to some basic administration and monitoring. There is then a chapter on Working with SQL Azure Databases from Visual Studio 2008, SQL Azure Tools, Populating SQL Azure Databases, SSIS and SSRS Applications Using SQL Azure, Working with Windows Azure Hosting, Database Applications on Windows Azure Platform Accessing SQL Server Databases, Synchronizing SQL Azure, and Recent Developments. This book does a great job of covering a ton of topics. Because it goes over so many different topics, it doesn't always go into depth, but I do feel that it goes into depth enough that you leave knowing where to go to find out more. There is no code available to download at this time. All in all this is a good book to get introduced to Microsoft SQL Azure. You can check out a sample chapter on publisher's web site here.

Microsoft Azure Enterprise Application Development Book Review

The book is a nice concise overview of Microsoft Azure. I have not had any clients express interested in the cloud yet. They are not willing to hear about giving up the control over their environments which is a stigma the cloud conversation carries with it. I still wanted to know what is going on with Azure, without having to spend 2 months mulling through a tome. This book was the perfect size and depth for getting me up to speed quickly. The book is intended to give you enough information to decide whether or not further movement toward the cloud is something you want to do, and it does that perfectly. The book starts off with an overview of cloud computing, an introduction to Azure, and covers setting up a development environment. After that the rest of the book designs and builds a sample application which is used to introduce the key components of Microsoft Azure. The book has a chapter on each of the following topics- Azure Blob Storage, Azure Table Storage, Queue Storage, Web Role, Web Services and Azure, Worker Roles, Local Application for Updates, Azure AppFabric, Azure Monitoring and Diagnostics, and Deploying to Windows Azure. Most chapters introduces the topic and then show a working example. The others that just describe the topic describe it in enough detail that you have a good understanding of the topic and they provide good references if you want to dig deeper. The book did a really good job covering the different types of services and different types of storage available. It also did a great job of describing the differences in SQL Server and SQL Azure. All in all I thought this book did exactly what it set out to do. It provided me with enough information that I now feel like I know what Microsoft Azure is all about. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants an introduction the Microsoft Azure platform. You can get more details, check out the table of contents, and read a sample chapter from here.

Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2010 SP1

Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2010 SP1. You can check out the details here.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Unleashed Book Review

This book covers a ton of topics. Actually more like 10 tons of topics. The book is broken down into 6 parts: Planning for and Deploying SharePoint Server 2010 Administering and Maintaining SharePoint Server 2010 Securing, Protecting, and Optimizing SharePoint Architecture Using SharePoint 2010 Technologies for Collaboration and Document Management Leveraging Office Applications with SharePoint Extending the SharePoint Environment Covering so many topics has its pros and cons. Pros include covering a wide variety of topics and they provide a lot of very helpful lists. Especially when comparing SharePoint 2010 Foundation, SharePoint 2010 Standard, and SharePoint 2010 Enterprise. The lists are one of my favorite features of the book. They include List of SharePoint 2010 Service Applications, Supported Direct In-Place Upgrade Targets for Various SharePoint Versions, The Advantages and Disadvantages of Search Federation in SharePoint 2010, Comparison of Legacy Versus RBS, SharePoint Server Role Resource Guidelines, Small Virtual SharePoint Environment Deployment Specifications, Comparison of Tools Available from the Home Page of the Central Administration, Site Collection Administration Tools in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise, Library and List Options in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise, Web Parts Available in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010, Document Library Settings Tools for Document Libraries, and Guidelines for Using Versioning, Page Approval Workflows, Content Approval, and Scheduling in Document Libraries. There are a ton more I could list, but I think I have made the point. These list really help give a quick glance into the features and tools available in a given area of SharePoint. The book also covers topics I have not seen covered elsewhere. It covers Protecting SharePoint with Advanced Antivirus and Edge Security Solutions, Virtualizing SharePoint Components, SharePoint Foundation Versus SharePoint Server, and Safeguarding Confidential Data in SharePoint. The chapter I found most useful so far was SharePoint Foundation Versus SharePoint Server. The biggest con is that the topics are not as in-depth as they need to be sometimes for field level use. An example would be the upgrade coverage. They cover a vanilla upgrade, but most upgrades are not going to go that smoothly. They list the security accounts needed but do not go into detail on how or where to use them. Another missing topic is setting up the secure store service. They mention it when covering Excel Services, but completely miss it when they discuss configuring PerformancePoint. They never cover how to configure it, and without it the services are useless. The cons do not really detract from the book because of the type of book it is. It covers far too much material to go into scenario based topics and I feel it goes in-depth enough to get you very familiar with the topics covered. The authors have made some of the code and the scripts available for download. Overall the book serves as a good introduction to a very wide variety of topics and goes to the level of depth needed to gain a thorough understand of the topic. All in all I recommend this book for anyone involve with SharePoint administration.

SPARX EA Version 9 Beta 1 and MDG Integration for Visual Studio 2010 Version 4.5 Released

SPARX has released release of MDG Integration for Visual Studio Version 4.5. Version 4.5 introduces support for Visual Studio 2010. They have also released Enterprise Architect Version 9 Beta 1.

I have list some of the new features in both products below (from the SPARX web site):

MDG Integration for Visual Studio Version 4.5
Tight integration of Enterprise Architect into Visual Studio 2005/2008/2010
Enhanced interoperability with Team Foundation Server (TFS)
Improved performance for large-scale models, with Enterprise Architect's Lazy Load

Check out MDG Integration for Visual Studio Version 4.5 here.


Enterprise Architect Version 9 Beta 1
New User Experiences
The new Personal Manager can send Model Mail, monitor allocated work and track project milestones.
Diagrams rendered as Hand Drawn help you elicit feedback on draft diagrams and promote discussion.
Use the Project Calendar to improve scheduling, view Gantt charts and better co-ordinate resources.
C# 4.0 and VB.NET 10 round-trip engineering support.
Improved Document Template Design and the ability to output documentation to PDF.
Easily add tagged value columns to the List View to improve data entry and element comparison.

Usability and New Tools
Define your personalized Working Sets of active diagrams and model views, to quickly regain context.
Support for line jogs in intersecting lines to help visualize complex systems.

New Modeling Language Support
Support for BPMN 2.0 and its new diagrams including Conversation, Collaboration and Choreography.
New support for SysML 1.2 and SOMF 2.1.
Expanded UI design tools to build wire frames, engineer code and model-driven prototyping for win32 applications.
Model Search and List View column filtering.

Productivity Gains
Publish Model Packages to new XMI formats including Ecore (EMF) and OMG XMI.
Enhanced modeling of Generics and Templates for C#, C++, Java and VB.Net.
Application Profiler reports highest cost functions and the call stack view.
Rapidly navigate and switch between active diagrams using previews.
Define language-independent test cases for faster, model-driven testing.
Improved display and management of Element properties.
Usability enhancements that help visualize, debug and analyze software designs.

Check out Enterprise Architect Version 9 Beta 1 here