Joe's Blog

The latest really cool Microsoft technology I have been working with is the Cloud Services, named Windows Azure.  These Cloud Services allow you to put your code (.Net Services) and data (SQL Data Services or SDS) onto a distributed shared operating system living out in the internet (the cloud).  This is a “shared” hosting environment that gives you a development setting that is maintained by Microsoft, basically taking away your infrastructure concerns for anything you put out on the cloud.  You can use Visual Studio 2008 to write and deploy your code to cloud. 

A couple of complementary technologies that you can look at to get ready for this new development environment are the Model View Controller (MVC) architectural approach to web applications http://www.asp.net/mvc/http://www.asp.net/mvc/, ADO.Net Data Services http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/bb931106.aspx and Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 applications.  MVC gives you an efficient means to write and maintain your applications, not only on the cloud, but also your current web applications.  Since with Cloud Services you are working in a shared environment, you need to be a good citizen and understand how security is implemented to assure that you are.  By building applications that work in the default security context of IIS 7.0, you will be meeting the majority of security concerns you will run into on the Cloud.  By using the MVC architecture along with ADO.Net Data Services and deploying your applications to IIS 7.0, you will be well positioned in moving these applications to the cloud.  Sign up for a beta Azure cloud service account at http://lx.azure.microsoft.com

If you are interested in Cloud Services along with other emerging web technologies such as Silverlight, Internet Explorer 8.0, Windows 7, MVC and ADO.Net Data Services, the MIX 09 conference taking place in Las Vegas, March 18-20 is the place to be.  This is a must conference for me to maintain my skills on the latest web technologies, which I have attended for the last three years.  Considering how cheap it is to travel and stay in Vegas right now, it is definitely worth the learning experience.  Check it out at http://MIX09.com.