Cloud for the IT Pro – Give Azure a try

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imageDuring my session at TechDays Calgary about Cloud for the IT Pro, I “challenged” the Technical audience to get out there and dip their toe into the Platform As A Service world with Windows Azure. The challenge was quite simple:

  • Sign up for the introductory FREE 25 hr trial
  • Register and complete the provisioning process
  • create a new instance and deploy a sample application to staging
  • browse to the application and take a screenshot to say you’ve completed the process
  • Delete the instance to ensure you don’t incur any additional charges.

If you are able to do this – you’ve just experienced the new environment of what it would be like to provision a new web based application running on the Azure platform. You’ve also just proved that Cloud services DOESN’T have to mean that you BYPASS the IT Department – congratulations!  If you attended Calgary TechDays and you send me a copy of the ScreenShot app CLEARLY showing me the URL and your app running (rick.claus@microsoft.com) – I’ll be handing you a prize (you know what it is). If we can’t connect personally to complete the exchange (I’ll be at Coffee and Code from 11am to 5pm on December 16th here in Calgary. It’s at Second Cup, 607 8TH AVENUE SW) – include your mailing address and I will personally write you a thank you note and ship it out to you before the holidays.

Now – here’s the help I promised. All the steps I outlined above are documented over on Barry Gervin’s blog. Complete with step by step and video screencasts of the process!!! It should only take you 15 minutes to do from start to finish. Barry and Object Sharp put on an Azure Fest recently in Toronto targeting developers – but hey – all the information covered applies to us IT Pros for setup and configuration of Azure and provisioning instances. You know what – I’ll even link you to a sample application (the packages and config file) for a sample application called NerdDinner. Download it local to you system, extract the files  and use it as the package and config for your application. In the video they reference their own version of the same package – you can use this one.

I look forward to seeing your screenshot and satisfied that you’ve taken a step in the right direction to understand how to be PROACTIVE about talking “cloud” in your environment.

Keep up the good work!

Rick
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