May 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the May 8th meetup, we are thrilled to welcome Chad Thomse as the featured speaker. You may have seen Chad talk about containers earlier this month at the Global Azure Bootcamp – so you know he brings the deep technical expertise and passion! Chad is going to be sharing his insights and experiences on developoing highly scalable and reliable services using Service Fabric. Please join us on Monday, May 8th for what is sure to be a great discussion. Bring your questions!

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

Title: Service Fabric

Abstract: Coming soon!

Speaker:  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.

February 2017 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the February meetup on Monday, February 13th, we are excited to welcome once again Nick Martin back as the featured speaker. Nick will be sharing his experiences and real-world project lessons learned for bringing an IoT solution to market.  This is sure to be a great solution to get an overview of the plethora of services available in Azure to help you build amazing, scalable, and resilient cloud-powered solutions. Join us on February 13th for what is sure to be a great discussion. Bring your questions!

As in past months, following Nick’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 – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP via Meetup.com/coazure

Title: From Inception to Market: An Azure IoT Story

Abstract: What does it take to develop and release a real Azure solution to the market? What does the Azure platform provide for things like device registration, message processing, configuration management and deployment? All these considerations can certainly make it very intimidating. Thankfully, there is at least one Azure service to handle all of these, and more!

This presentation will walk you through what it took to build and release a small business and consumer-facing IoT device that is available for purchase on Amazon today. We will examine each Azure service that was used and how it fits into the solution architecture. This will not be a technical deep-dive, but an open discussion on the lessons learned about what worked and what didn’t work in delivering a product like this. For example, you will learn how the team utilized the power of Azure Resource Manager and Visual Studio Team Services to apply DevOps practices to great effect, how Azure’s IoT Hubs simplified the solution, and some alternative approaches that might be considered

Speaker Bio: Nick is a principal consultant at Cardinal Solutions, with 12 years of experience developing and architecting enterprise applications. Nick is passionate about helping clients get the most out of their software development efforts through following best practices and agile processes. When not honing his craft, Nick enjoys travelling with his family, going on gastronomic adventures, and occasionally pretending he can cook.

January 2017 Meetup

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For the first meetup of 2017, on January 9th, we are excited to welcome Michael Collier as the featured speaker. Michael will be sharing information on containers in a Windows environment. Over the past few years, containers have become one of the hottest trends for developers and IT Pros alike. Michael will share with the group more information on how containerization is making its way into the Windows ecosystem with Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10.

As in past months, following Michael’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 – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP via Meetup.com/coazure

Title: Containers for Windows Developers

Abstract: Over the last few years, Docker has popularized Linux containers, but Windows developers have been left out in the cold. This changes with Windows Server 2016. At this session we’ll cover the basics of the new Windows Server container model and how to develop applications/services that can take advantage of this exciting new advancement, for cloud, for on-prem, and for the future.

Speaker Bio: Michael is currently Senior Software Development Engineer in Microsoft’s DX TED organization, where he engages deeply with select global ISVs to help them best utilize Azure’s features. Michael has over 13 years of experience 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 a published book on Microsoft Azure entitled Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure, Second Edition. Follow Michael’s experiences with Azure on his blog at http://www.michaelscollier.com and on Twitter at @MichaelCollier.

December Holiday Party / Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

Instead of a “normal” meetup for December, we’re joining forces with three other Columbus user groups which focus on Microsoft technologies to hold one major holiday party! This year, all four groups come together for an EPIC Christmas party!

What’s in store – Networking | Board Games | Ping Pong | Holiday Spirit. Oh, and great food & drinks!

And what’s a holiday party without some great prizes? Thanks to our amazing friends at Cardinal Solutions, we’ll be raffling away an XBox One S and an Amazon Echo! There will likely be a few other surprise prizes as well. 🙂

All ticket sales go to charity.

Also highly encouraged are toy donations to The Ohio State University College of Engineering Toy Adaptation Program and Food item donations to Mid-Ohio Foodbank. Let’s spread the love this Holiday Season.

IMPORTANT: If you’re bringing a toy donation, it must be from the list provided on the holiday party registration page. Those are the only toys that can be used by the Toy Adaptation Program. Please adhere to the list!

A HUGE “Thank You” to Improving Enterprises in Columbus for providing the food and venue for event. Improving has a been a great partner in the community for years. Thank you!!!

When

Monday, December 19th, 2016
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Registration – $5.00, just go right here . . now

Location

Improving Enterprises
One Easton Oval
Suite 175
Columbus, OH 43219

November Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the November 14th meetup we are excited to welcome Michael Meadows as the featured speaker. Michael will be sharing guidance on one of the most popular Azure services, Azure App Service. This should be a great session to learn more the many features that can speed development and improve management for your cloud-hosted applications.

As in past months, following Michael’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 – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP at via Meetup.com.

Making Development Great Again: Azure App Services
Abstract: In the past few years, Microsoft has invested in building out a robust application Platform as a Service (PaaS) architecture. Under the umbrella of “App Services,” Azure is able to simplify many of the boilerplate aspects of application development. From authorization/authentication to WebJobs, App Services allow you to focus on developing quality services. This talk provides a high level review of the features currently available, focusing on a few features for hands-on demonstration.
Speaker Bio: Michael has been a professional programmer and architect for fourteen years, and a hacker for much longer. He has served as architect on multiple large-scale, cloud-based Line-of-Business implementation projects. Additionally, Michael has extensive experience building high volume, processor intensive business logic applications using distributed architectures. He is a Director at Fusion Alliance where he is the Enterprise Architecture Competency Manager.

October 2016 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

Join us for our first hands-on COAzure meeting. 

Solution Architecture: Hands-on

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 a case study 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.

Please RSVP via Meetup.com.

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

Of course there is plenty to learn about the variety of service options available.  Here’s a portion of what there is to choose from that might be utilized in your architecture:

Speaker / Lead Facilitator: The Azure solution architecture workshop will be led by Nick Martin. Nick is a principal consultant at Cardinal Solutions, with 12 years of experience developing and architecting enterprise applications. Nick is passionate about helping clients get the most out of their software development efforts through following best practices and agile processes. When not honing his craft, Nick enjoys travelling with his family, going on gastronomic adventures, and occasionally pretending he can cook.

September Meetup

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For the September meetup we are very excited to welcome Kiff Kammur as the featured speaker. Kiff will be sharing guidance on microservices and Azure Service Fabric. This should be a great session to learn more about a very hot architecture pattern in microservices, and one of Azure’s newest and intriguing services.

As in past months, following Kiff’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 – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP at via Meetup.com.

Title: Building Microservices using Azure Service Fabric

Abstract: Azure Service Fabric is a relatively new and very cool technology in the Azure ecosystem.  The core technology isn’t really new, because it’s actually the technology Microsoft used to build Azure PaaS services such as SQL Database and DocumentDB.  Wouldn’t you like to build apps/services that perform and scale like native Azure services?  First you’ll have to learn how to architect cloud-native apps with microservices.  This session will give an overview of microservices and demonstrate how to build scalable and reliable microservice-based apps using Azure Service Fabric. We will discuss the architecture, packaging & deployment, and scaling of microservices using Azure Service Fabric.  Service Fabric runs pretty close to the metal, so this session will be particularly interesting to application architects and developers, as well as infrastructure architects

Speaker Bio: Kiff Kammur is the Practice Leader of Cloud Services and SOA/Integration at ICC. Kiff has developed and architected solutions over a decade using Java, IBM Integration and Microsoft technologies for multiple clients in different industries such as banking, healthcare, manufacturing, and travel. Kiff has a passion and focus on cloud computing technology platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and IBM Bluemix. Kiff is not only passionate about learning latest technologies and best practices but also passionate about spreading his knowledge to others by giving speeches.

August 2016 Meetup

Posted on by mcollier

For the August meetup we are very excited to welcome David Benedic as the featured speaker. David will be sharing guidance and vast experiences in working with Azure Resource Manager. If you’re curious how you can best work with the Azure Resource Manager API, including Resource Manager templates, this is a can’t miss session!

As in past months, following David’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 – a time to ask the “Can or How do I do X with Azure?” question.

Please RSVP for Central Ohio Azure meetups viahttp://meetup.com/Central-Ohio-Azure/. You can find out more info about the Central Ohio Azure group on our web site at http://www.coazure.org and Twitter at @COAzureUG.

Title: Take control of your cloud with Infrastructure-as-Code

Abstract: Looking to leverage the cloud or already using it today? How do you stand up and maintain your infrastructure? Infrastructure-as-Code is part of the DevOps toolbox that gives developers and sysadmins the power to predictably deploy and maintain secure infrastructure to the cloud. We’ll take a dive into the reasons, resources, tools, and workflows available today in Azure that empower you to simplify your cloud infrastructure. There’ll be containers! DevOps-y stuff! and internet memes! You’ll leave the session with an understanding of the benefits of moving your infrastructure to the cloud and the confidence to take control of it.

Speaker Bio: By day, David Benedic is a mild-mannered consultant at Cardinal Solutions Group in Columbus, Ohio. By night, well, he has two young kids, so mostly superhero Dad stuff… but when he does get free time, he likes to create things .. things that involve software and technology. Find David – @davidbenedic | github.com/daveyb