Tag: Azure

March Meetup – Azure Automation and Log Analytics

Posted on by mcollier

For the March 9th meetup we welcome a long-time member of the group, Matt Richardson.

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

Title: Azure Automation and Log Analytics

Abstract: Nobody loves supporting a system that is a complete black box where every issue is a detective story to figure out what is going on and a stressful engineering effort to re-learn how to recover. Discover how to use Azure Automation, Log Analytics, and related services to monitor, maintain, and remediate issues in your Azure cloud environment. Developers will gain a deeper understanding of how they can build observability and resiliency through automated remediations into their systems. Operations will learn how to use those same tools to achieve a comprehensive understanding of what’s happening under the covers and generally rely on the system taking care of itself, or build out new automated remediations as new scenarios are uncovered.

Speaker Bio: Matt is the Lead Cloud Architect for Re:Sources with 28 years of IT experience. Re:Sources is a subsidiary Publicis Groupe. Publicis Groupe is the 2nd largest Advertising company in the world, based out of Paris, France. Matt started his cloud journey in 2010 with AWS. Since then, he has done major datacenter consolidations by migrating virtual servers and related resources to Azure, as well as managing and championing the transformation to serverless for his company. Today, Matt’s main focus is cloud enablement and helping subsidiaries of Publicis Groupe migrate workloads to the cloud.

March 2019 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For Monday, March 11th meetup we welcome Sriharsh Adari, Cloud & BI Architect. He has around 15 years of experience helping customers with setting up Data Platforms. Over the past few years he has been helping customers to migrate on-premise data workloads onto Cloud Data Platforms – Azure, AWS. Sriharsh is passionate about all things related to Data, Big Data and Business Intelligence.

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

Title: Modernize Data Platforms with Azure – Data Factory, Data Lake & Stream Analytics

Abstract: Microsoft Azure is becoming one of the most popular public cloud platforms available, and its popularity is only continuing to grow. To date, more than 85pc of Fortune 500 companies are on the Microsoft cloud. Microsoft Azure offers multiple options to modernize your data platform on the cloud. This session will commence with options, approaches and challenges to set up a Cloud based data platform. Attendees of this session will become familiar with the most commonly used data services in Azure, including considerations for making sound decisions when designing a data architecture to support analytics and big data. You will leave this session with an understanding of the benefits, challenges and suggestions for getting started with Azure Data Factory, Data Lake and Stream Analytics technologies.

October 2018 Meetup – Security in Azure

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, October 8th meetup we will welcome Michael Nardone to share his insights on how to effectively secure your Azure networks.  Security, especially in “the cloud”, is one of those hot button topics that gets many people excited.  Some of that excitement is based in legitimate concerns, some is based on FUD. In Michael’s session, he’ll share proven strategies and tools to help you ensure that you are covering the proper security controls when deploying your solutions to Azure.

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

Title: Securing Your Azure Networks: Don’t be the next <insert_breach_here>!

Abstract: You’ve been tasked with creating secure compute environments using the tools available to you in the cloud.  The amount of security controls and regulatory requirements that need to be met can be overwhelming.  What are the pertinent details and key aspects of securing your workloads that are unique in Azure?  Let’s take a deep dive with a focus on network security across IaaS and PaaS services in Azure.

Bio: Michael is a Practice Manager for Applications & Infrastructure at Cardinal Solutions. He is a focused Infrastructure professional with experience leading, developing and implementing large scale on-prem and cloud based platforms. Michael is fueled by helping teams break the chains of traditional compute models and stretch to modern architectures in Azure.

September 2018 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, September 10th meetup we will conduct our second hands-on solution architecture meetup! COAzure held it’s first hands-on solution architecture meetup in October 2016, and the feedback was very positive. A lot has changed in Azure in the last two years. So, it’s time to do it again!

The goal of this meeting’s activity will be to learn more about the various Azure services, and how to use them together to architect a solution in Azure. We’ll provide two technical case studies and application/system requirements, and then you’ll work as teams to research various Azure services and decide how to use those to propose an architecture for the system.

Each team will have a little over an hour to come up with its solution architecture, drawing them up on large sheets of paper. We’ll have experienced Azure architects available to answer questions and provide guidance. Bring your laptop so you can research the many available services. We’ll end the meeting with each team sharing its solution with the whole group, and then review the actual architecture that was implemented in Azure.

**You do not have to be experienced with all the Azure services, just interested in learning.**

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

August 2018 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, August 13th meetup we will welcome DJ Maley to share his insights on how to effectively manage data in Azure. Data is often a key component to any system.  Nearly ever system needs “data” for something.  When it comes to building a solution in the cloud, there are a myriad of choices available.  Do you use a relational database, or a NoSQL database?  Who is responsible for managing the database platform (security, maintenance, etc.)?  How can you gain insights from the data?  There are lots of answers to all these questions.  DJ will provide some guidance on choosing the right platform, and pros/cons with some of those approaches. This is sure to be a very relevant session for many people. Should be fun!!

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

Title: How to manage your data in the cloud (and give yourself an advantage in Fantasy Football)

Abstract:  There’s many ways to build a solution in the cloud today. Ever wondered what options Azure provides from a data management perspective? How do we deal with the upcoming challenges around size, scale, speed, and trusting the way data is stored? We’ll talk about how we can leverage some of these options around storing and processing data, the pros/cons with many of the approaches, and ultimately how we empower our data utilizing Machine Learning and AI (and how some of these tools might give you a leg up in Fantasy Football this year).

Bio:DJ manages the Columbus Data and AI Practice for Cardinal Solutions. He is a Business Intelligence professional with experience leading, developing and implementing data warehousing, big data, and data visualization projects. DJ is passionate about enabling organizations to make better decisions using good analytics.

July 2018 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, July 9th meetup we will welcome the return of Michael Collier! Michael will share details of a new Service Fabric offering, Service Fabric Mesh! If you like Service Fabric, but dislike management of VMs, have a fondness for containers, and are curious learn more on the road ahead for Azure Service Fabric, this is a meetup you don’t want to miss!

Please RSVP for the meetup so we can best plan for food and drinks!

Title: Azure Service Fabric Mesh: The Road Ahead

Abstract: In this session we’ll take a look at a new offering in the Service Fabric family, Service Fabric Mesh. Service Fabric Mesh provides the same scale, reliability, and performance you’re used to with Service Fabric clusters, but without the overhead of cluster management! Additionally, Service Fabric Mesh supports both Windows and Linux containers, thus allowing you to develop in the programming language and framework of your choice. As part of this session, you will gain a better understanding of the new resource model with Service Fabric Mesh. You will also see how easy it can be to build and debug your application before publishing it to Service Fabric Mesh.

Bio: Michael is currently Senior Software Development Engineer in Microsoft’s Commercial Software Engineering (CSE) organization, where he engages deeply with select global ISVs to help them best utilize Azure’s features. Prior to joining Microsoft, Michael worked with various consulting and technology firms where he was instrumental in leading and developing solutions for a wide range of clients. He has a vast amount of experience in helping companies determine the best strategy for adopting cloud computing and providing the insight and hands-on experience to ensure they are successful. Michael is also a respected technology community leader and is often found sharing his Microsoft Azure insights and experiences at regional and national conferences. Michael is also the co-author of two published books on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure (1st and 2nd Edition). Follow Michael’s experiences with Azure on his blog at http://www.michaelscollier.com and on Twitter at @MichaelCollier.

October 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, October 9th meetup, we will be joined by Ryan Miller for a discussion on building an Alexa Skill using Azure Functions. Please join us on Monday, October 9th for what is sure to be a very entertaining and information meeting.  Bring your questions!

Please RSVP today (helps to ensure we have the right amount of food & drinks).

Abstract: I have an 11-year-old child and a 14-year-old child and I’ve discovered a real pattern with the speech of these two. Unfortunately, sometimes they aren’t around because they’re at school or maybe off at camp. In those times, I have no one around to tell me how much everything sucks. That got me thinking, “Some poor folks don’t even have a teenager in the house. How would they know that everything sucks?” With the proper skill, Alexa can help them out.

In this session, we’ll see what it takes to build an Alexa Skill called Teenage Daughter. The code is C# and the service host is Azure Functions. We’ll cover Custom Slots, Intent Schema, Utterances, and Testing; we’ll delve into Azure functions and how to create multiple environments to keep our production instance separate from development instance; and we’ll cover any other tips and tricks that I’ve learned while creating my Teenage Daughter, which can be found at https://github.com/Intranoggin/AlexaFunctions.

Presenter: Ryan Miller – Principal Consultant, Cardinal Solutions

I am a Solutions Architect with over fifteen (15) years of professional experience. I enjoy building enterprise solutions because those solutions affect change in an organization that can have a long term, positive impact on employees and customers. For the last decade of my career, I have been helping clients design and build enterprise web solutions efficiently on SharePoint and .NET. It can be a challenge to create robust solutions that seamlessly blend out-of-the-box platform capabilities with custom .NET features, and integrate them with other systems. The rapid growth in utilization of Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud (Office365 & Azure) has made these software challenges even more exciting because the available cloud resources are so diverse and extensive. I learned early on in my career that creating the right application can transform the way an enterprise works and have long lasting impacts. As an intern, I created an application for a local manufacturing company to electronically enter and track ISO 9000 & QS9000 documentation. As information became untethered from its filing cabinet, Engineers and Quality Assurance teams who once begrudgingly filled out the required paperwork and filed it, were suddenly collaborating around data that was accessible, discoverable, and pliable. Some years later, I had graduated, gotten married, moved to Boston, bought a bulldog, moved back to Columbus, and had my first child. I had transitioned through 3 different jobs in 2 states and other major life events and then found that this application was still in use and had become a key system for every product being produced out of this manufacturing facility. I was humbled by the application lifecycle and the durability of software in the enterprise. The experience underscored my belief that creating enterprise applications is an opportunity to cause long term business transformations that warrants a real investment in thought.

September 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the Monday, September 11th meetup, we will once again be joined by Neudesic’s Chad Thomas for a discussion on Service Fabric. Chad joined us in May for an introductory look at Service Fabric. This month he’ll share his guidance and experiences on building real-world solutions with Service Fabric. Please join us on Monday, September 11th for what is sure to be a great discussion. Bring your questions!

Please RSVP today (helps to ensure we have the right amount of food & drinks).

The Central Ohio Azure group would like to thank Neudesic for once again sponsoring our meetup!

Abstract: Service Fabric is the foundational technology powering core Azure infrastructure as well as other Microsoft services such as Skype for Business, Dynamics 365, Cortana, Azure SQL Database, and many more.  Service Fabric solves the hard distributed systems problems such as reliability, scalability, management, and latency, so you can focus on building applications.

At the May meetup, we discussed Service Fabric’s architecture, use cases, and many of the problems it alleviates.  This month, we’ll dive a bit deeper and build a representative Service Fabric application that highlights Service Fabric’s programming models.  You will see how to use Reliable Services and Reliable Actors to build a solution. You will learn the pros and cons of each, and guidance on selecting the model for your solution.  We’ll wrap up by discussing exciting new features in Service Fabric, including using Service Fabric for hosting Docker containers on Linux or Windows and running them alongside other workloads.

Presenter: Chad Thomas – Director of Technology, Neudesic

Chad Thomas is Director of Technology for Neudesic’s Digital Platform service line, spanning mobile, web, architecture, and cloud. He and his team help companies transition from Agile to Continuous, from monoliths to microservices, and ultimately from incremental improvement to innovation at scale. Azure is a big part of Neudesic’s strategy and they are very excited about the Service Fabric.
Even when Chad is not working, technology is deeply engrained in his daily life. Currently, that manifests itself in the form of modernist cuisine, sous vide immersion cookers, and digital electric smokers. If anybody wants to start an open-source autonomous electric vehicle project, hit him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

April 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the April 10th meetup, we are thrilled to welcome back Brian Jackett as the featured speaker. Brian will be demonstrating how to use Microsoft PowerApps and Flow as a way to integrate a wide variety of internet connected services. Join us on Monday, April 10th for what is sure to be a great discussion. Bring your questions!

As in past months, following Brian’s session, we will once again hold an open architecture Q&A session. This is a time set aside for the attendees to discuss ideas or questions about Azure.

Please RSVP today (helps us get the right amount of food & drinks)

Title: Integrate All the Things: PowerApps and Microsoft Flow for Developers

Abstract: PowerApps and Microsoft Flow are enterprise services that allows power users and developers to build applications that connect with numerous consumer and enterprise sources using PowerPoint and Excel-like tools.  In this session we will dive in to the integration points for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow with various sources such as Azure SQL, OneDrive, Twitter, API apps, and more.  We will also talk about the developer story for integrating with custom APIs and on-prem data sources such as SQL Server and SharePoint.  Lastly we will have an interactive demo combining multiple services to show how easily you can create and consume apps across Windows, iOS, Android, and web.  All source code is available on GitHub.

Speaker Bio: Brian T. Jackett is a Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft specializing in Office 365, Azure, SharePoint, and PowerShell for over 9 years. Brian enjoys giving back to the community through giving presentations, planning and volunteering at conferences, maintaining a SharePoint / .Net centric blog, and contributing to the SharePoint Twitterverse. He also holds several Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) for SharePoint related technologies.

March 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the March 13th meetup, we are thrilled to welcome Chris Steele as the featured speaker. Chris, along with a few of his teammates, will be sharing their experiences on a real-world Azure mobile project. They’ll share how they built a cloud-scale back-end for a new mobile application – what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons learned on the journey. This is sure to be a no-holds-barred session on what it is really like in the trenches! Join us on Monday, March 13th for what is sure to be a great discussion. Bring your questions!

As in past months, following Chris’ session, we will once again hold an open architecture Q&A session. This is a time set aside for the attendees to discuss ideas or questions about Azure – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP today (helps us get the right amount of food & drinks)

Title: From noob to dangerous: The story of a team’s first large-scale project on Azure

Abstract: From never using Azure, to implementing a large-scale Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) and a Software as a Service (SaaS) in under a year, come listen to 3 developers reflect on their good and bad experiences. We will begin with reflecting on our decision to use Azure and end with what is next for the team. Along the way, we will also reflect on the challenges, and solutions, pertaining to security, offline data synchronization with iOS and Android, migrations, and environment management.

Speaker Bio:  Chris Steele grew up in Pataskala, OH and received his Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems (CIS) at DeVry University and his Master’s in Information Systems Management (MISM) at Keller Graduate School of Management — all while working full-time. Now with 7 years of industry experience, Chris is a Senior Consultant for Improving Enterprises where he’s primarily a Full-Stack developer. Chris’ passions include web technologies, professional development, teaching/growing/mentoring others, fitness, and his soon to be family of 6.