As a Cloud Architect I often need to be platform independent - although I tend to focus a lot on Microsoft products, the simple fact is I need to be conversant across platforms.
The same goes for development - I don’t code now as a full time job, but I do sometimes need to create proof of concepts, or even just learn a new technology to better my architectural understanding of it.
Buy Go for DevOps on Amazon.com
Buy Go for DevOps on Amazon.co.uk
I have a confession to make - when I was first asked to write a review for Go for DevOps - I originally thought this was just a book about DevOps - as in ‘Yay! Lets go do some DevOps!’
Actually, this book is about how to automate DevOps tasks using Go - as in the Go Programming Language!
For any organisation moving to the cloud, whether they have existing on-premises assets or are ‘born in the cloud’, having a clearly defined strategy is crucial but sometimes overlooked. I feel the word ‘strategy’ has become one of those overused business-speak words. In fact, so many ‘strategies’, especially in cloud and IT, are, in fact, not strategies at all. Any strategy should help answer questions when a fork in the road appears so that whoever is dealing with the decision is armed with the knowledge they need to make the right choice.
In today’s connected world the subject of security is perhaps the hot topic – at least when it goes wrong! Unfortunately, many risk teams argue that security is often thought about too late – i.e., after a security incident has occurred and an application has been compromised.
To innovate we need to be able to build new solutions rapidly – using Agile frameworks there is much emphasis on getting out the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) as fast as possible and then iteratively building upon it every two weeks or so.
Azure Data factory is a great tool for moving and transforming data between different storage and database mechanisms in Azure.
A common scenario, and one that’s easy to use and setup, is to import data from a CSV file into SQL Azure or CosmosDb. In an on-premise world you could use a BULK import statement to perform this action, however as you move to SQL Azure and need to start hooking into other Azure services can be a bit more complex.
Coder, Hacker or Developer - which do you think best sums you up? I’ll wager that most would consider themselves a ‘Developer’.
But in my many years experience - from learning the basics of coding, to my present day role of Architect and teacher/mentor - I’ve come to the conclusion that actually the three titles are all part of the career path in software development.
For me the titles perform a very good job of defining the role, but I feel the perceptions associated with each can be misleading.
I don’t normally blow my own trumpet, but this week the team I work with won a prestigious ‘Innovation’ a for an iPad/ASP.NET/WebAPI solution we have built to address a specific business need.
The application essentially allows building Surveyors to record information about properties using an iPad in offline or online mode, sync that data up to a backend SQL database via a ASP.NET WebAPI service, and then expose the data through an ASP.
I’m a great fan of Azure, I love the flexibility it gives, and the option to start small with low costs and scale as needed. Azure Table Storage is a great example of this - as you only pay for what you need. I’m also a fan of the Repository Pattern, and so in this post we’re going to look at how we can wrap a repository pattern around Azure Table Storage.
