May 13th Meetup

For Monday, May 13th meetup we review many of the exciting Azure-related announcements from the recent Microsoft Build conference.  While we will not be able to cover everything, we do plan to discuss many topics, such as Azure Functions, AKS, Bots & Cognitive Services, and IoT.  If there is something you found especially interesting and would love to share it with the group, please let us know and we’ll get you a slot at this meetup.

We will look forward to seeing everyone and discussing all the excitement from Build!!

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

April 2018 Meetup

For Monday, April 8th meetup we will once again welcome Michael Meadows to the Central Ohio Azure User Group. Michael brings an extensive set of experience as developer and architect on a wide range of critical solutions. We’re thrilled Michael can once again join us, this time sharing his experiences with Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Functions.

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

Title: Cosmos DB By the Firehose: A Crash Course
Microsoft powers many of its global scale applications with Azure’s Cosmos DB. It offers unlimited scale, push-button global distribution, low latency, and very little compromise. This talk will introduce you to Cosmos DB and its interfaces, and show you how easy it is to get started with Azure Functions. We will also explore some advanced features, and discuss the tradeoffs of Cosmos DB versus traditional RDBMS systems.

Speaker Bio: As a principal software engineer at Insight Digital Innovations, Michael helps companies get the most out of Azure PaaS services. Lately, he has been specializing in micro service architectures (Azure Functions, Service Fabric, and Kubernetes), and distributed storage platforms.

March 2019 Meetup

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.

February 2019 Meetup

For the Monday, February 11th meetup we will welcome back Michael Meadows to share his insights on containers and microservice architecture in Azure. These are two very popular topics for organizations moving to the cloud for the first time, or those looking to build new cloud-bases services.

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

Title: Modernizing Apps with Containers & Microservices in Azure

Abstract: Moving from traditional application architectures to a true microservice environment in the cloud has some clear advantages, but getting there can seem complex to those not familiar with containers and microservices. The first step on this journey is understanding containers and how they can pave the way toward application modernization. This talk introduces the audience to the technologies that underpin that path in Azure: Azure Container Registry, Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Container Instances. Attendees will also learn some concepts of microservices and how they relate to containerization.

December 2018 Holiday Party!

It’s that time of year, again.  Time for the annual Central Ohio Azure / Microsoft user group holiday party!!!

Once again, the Central Ohio Azure user group is joining with three other Microsoft technology focused user groups in Central Ohio to host an annual holiday party.  The party is a joint effort of the Central Ohio .NET User Group, the Columbus App Dev User Group, the Buckeye SharePoint User Group, and the Central Ohio Azure user group. The event will be on Monday, December 10th from 6pm – 8pm at the Improving Enterprises office.  A $5 ticket is required for attendance.

The annual holiday party is a great way for you to network with other geeks in the Central Ohio technology community.  Plus, there will be plenty of board games, ping pong, and food!  We’ll also be raffling off a few fantastic prizes (more details on those to be announced soon).

As in year’s past, we’ll also be supporting a few local charities.  Your $5 ticket will go to support TechCorps.  Additionally, you can bring a toy (or two, or three) to support OSU’s Toy Adaption Program.  You can also bring food to donate to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.  That’s a lot of giving!!!  Each item you donate earns you another ticket to the prize raffle.  For example, if you have a $5 + one toy + one food item, that will earn you three tickets.  The more toys and food you bring, the more tickets you earn!

Please purchase a ticket now by clicking on the “Get a Ticket” link below.  You’ll be redirected to Eventbrite.com where you can purchase your ticket, and also learn more about suggested food donations and toys for the Toy Adaption Program.  You must purchase a ticket to be eligible for the raffle, and you must be present to win.

Get a Ticket

October 2018 Meetup – Security in Azure

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

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

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

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.

June 2018 Meetup

For the Monday, June 11th meetup we will provide a recap of Azure-related announcements from BUILD 2018. There will be at least three lightning talks lead by Brian Sherwin, Nick Martin, and Brian Jackett covering exciting topics such as advances in AI/ML and Azure Durable Functions.

We will also have some “open mic” time to allow you to ask your burning questions. Please keep those questions to Azure . . . while these presenters are great, they don’t know all knowledge of all the things . . yet. 🙂

Please RSVP here!