Microsoft Cloud Day – the ups and downs

by | Jun 22, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The term ’cloud’ can sometimes obscure the obvious. Today’s Microsoft Cloud Day conference in
London provided a good example. Scott
Guthrie was halfway through what was an excellent keynote when he lost network connectivity. This proved very disruptive to his
presentation which centred on a series of demonstrations of the Azure platform
in action. Great efforts were made to find
a solution, but no quick fix presented itself.
The venue’s IT facilities were dreadful – no WiFi, poor 3G reception
(forget 4Gthis is the UK) and, unbelievably, no-one on hand from the venue staff
to help with infrastructure issues.
Eventually, after an unscheduled break, a solution was found and Scott
managed to complete his demonstrations.
Further connectivity issues occurred during the day.

I can say that the cause was prosaic. A member of the venue staff had interfered
with a patch board and inadvertently disconnected Scott Guthrie’s machine from
the network by pulling out a cable.

I need to state the obvious here. If your PC is disconnected from the network it
can’t communicate with other systems. This
could include a machine under someone’s desk, a mail server located down the
hall, a server in the local data centre, an Internet search engine or even,
heaven forbid, a role running on Azure.

Inadvertently disconnecting a PC from the network does not
imply a fundamental problem with the cloud or any specific cloud platform. Some of the tweeted comments I’ve seen today
are analogous to suggesting that, if you accidently unplug your microwave from
the mains, this suggests some fundamental flaw with the electricity supply to
your house. This is poor reasoning, to
say the least.

As far as the conference was concerned, the connectivity
issue in the keynote, coupled with some later problems in a couple of presentations,
served to exaggerate the perception of poor organisation. Software problems encountered before the
conference prevented the correct set-up of a smartphone app intended to convey
agenda information to attendees.
Although some information was available via this app, the organisers
decided to print out an agenda at the last moment. Unfortunately, the agenda sheet did not
convey enough information, and attendees were forced to approach conference
staff through the day to clarify locations of the various presentations.

Despite these problems, the overwhelming feedback from conference
attendees was very positive. There was a
real sense of excitement in the morning keynote. For many, this was their first sight of new
Azure features delivered in the ’spring’ release. The most common reaction I heard was
amazement and appreciation that Azure’s new IaaS features deliver built-in
template support for several flavours of Linux from day one. This coupled with open source SDKs and several
presentations on Azure’s support for Java, node.js, PHP, MongoDB and Hadoop
served to communicate that the Azure platform is maturing quickly. The new virtual network capabilities also
surprised many attendees, and the much improved portal experience went down
very well.

So, despite some very irritating and disruptive
problems, the event served its purpose well, communicating the breadth and
depth of the newly upgraded Azure platform.
I enjoyed the day very much.

Deploying the Need Facebook canvas app. to Windows Azure Web Sites |Déploiement de l’appli. canvas Facebook dans les Web Sites Windows Azure

by | Jun 22, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

With the new release of Windows Azure Web Sites in June 2012, it is now possible to have free ASP.NET hosting for simple usage. Avec la sortie des sites Web Windows Azure en Juin 2012, il est maintenant possible d’avoir de l’h%u00e9bergement gratuit d’ASP.NET pour une utilisation simple.
This blog post explains how to deploy Need application to Windows Azure Web Sites instead of Cloud Services. Ce billet explique comment d%u00e9ployer l’application Need vers les sites Web Windows Azure plut%u00f4t que dans les “Cloud Services”.
You may find information about that new June 2012 Windows Azure release in Episode 83 of the Cloud Cover Show, or in French in Episode 8 of “Le bulletin Azure”. Vous trouverez des informations sur cette nouvelle version Windows Azure de juin 2012 dans l’Le Bulletin Azure, %u00e9pisode 8, ou en anglais dans l’%u00e9pisode 83 de “The Cloud Cover Show”.

 

In a previous post, I explained what the sample app Need is, and how to deploy it to Windows Azure Cloud Services. Prior to June 7th 2012, Cloud Services were named “hosted services” and it was the unique way to deploy to Windows Azure. Dans un billet pr%u00e9c%u00e9dent, j’ai expliqu%u00e9 ce qu’%u00e9tait l’application Need, et comment la d%u00e9ployer dans les “Cloud Services” Windows Azure. Avant le 7 juin 2012, les “Cloud Services” Windows Azure s’appelaient “hosted services” et %u00e9tait l’unique mode de d%u00e9ploiement Windows Azure.
As Need app. may be deployed many times for small communities inside Facebook, it makes sense to use Windows Azure Web Sites for the following reasons:
– It is free for low usage
– It can scale when usage grows		 Comme l’appli. Need peut %u00eatre d%u00e9ploy%u00e9 un certain nombre de fois pour des petites communaut%u00e9s au sein de Facebook, cela peut avoir du sens d’utiliser des sites Web Windows Azure pour les raisons suivantes:
– c’est gratuit pour un usage faible
– cela peut monter en charge en fonction des besoins
Another interesting thing about Windows Azure Web Sites and Facebook canvas applications is that an SSL certificate is provided. Un autre aspect int%u00e9ressant des sites Web Windows Azure dans le cadre d’applications canvas Facebook est qu’un certificat SSL est fourni.
Currently, Windows Azure Web Sites don’t provide the ability to use your own SSL certificate on your own domain name (you can provide your own domain name in reserved mode). With Facebook canvas applications, this is not an issue as end users won’t use directly the web site’s URL; they will see apps.facebook.com/<app namespace>.
In the following screen shot, user sees https://apps.facebook.com/need-sample/ while the canvas app is at https://need.azurewebsites.net.		 Actuellement, les sites Web Windows Azure ne proposent pas la possibilit%u00e9 d’utiliser son propre certificat SSL sur son propre domaine (on peut tout de m%u00eame utiliser son propre nom de domaine en mode r%u00e9serv%u00e9). Avec les applications canvas Facebook, cela n’est pas un probl%u00e8me du tout puis que les utilisateurs finaux ne vont pas utiliser l’URL du site Web directement; ils vont voir apps.facebook.com/<espace de noms de l’appli>. Dans la copie d’%u00e9cran suivante, l’utilisateur voit https://apps.facebook.com/need-sample/ et l’appli canvas est %u00e0 https://need.azurewebsites.net

 

So, le’t’s publish the App to Windows Azure Web Sites. Publions donc l’appli vers les sites Web Windows Azure.

 

First step is to create a new Web Site with a Windows Azure SQL Database (was SQL Azure). La premi%u00e8re %u00e9tape est de cr%u00e9er un site Web avec une base de donn%u00e9es SQL Windows Azure (pr%u00e9c%u00e9demment SQL Azure).

Then you can go to the newly created web site administration in the portal to download a publish settings file: Puis on peut aller vers l’administration du nouveau site Web ainsi cr%u00e9%u00e9 pour t%u00e9l%u00e9charger le fichier des param%u00e8tres de publication:

store the file on your local disk enregistrer le fichier sur le disque local
From Visual Studio, right click on the Web Site project (the Azure Cloud Service deployment project is useless for Azure Web Sites) and choose Publish. Depuis Visual Studio, cliquer droit sur le projet Web (le projet de d%u00e9ploiement Windows Azure vers les “cloud services” est inutile pour le d%u00e9ploiement vers les sites Web Windows Azure) et choisir “Publish”.

Import the file you just downloaded  
set the connection string for NeedContext from the drop down box: choisir la cha%u00eene de connexion pour NeedContext depuis le liste combin%u00e9e d%u00e9roulante:
Then publish on next page. Start Preview button will optionally show the files that needs to be updated when publishing for the n-th time. Puis publier sur la page d’apr%u00e8s. Le bouton “Start Preview” montre optionellement les fichiers qui ont besoin d’%u00eatre remplac%u00e9s %u00e0 destination quand on publie pour la n-i%u00e8me fois.
This will show the Web Site in the browser. An error like this shows up in Windows Azure Web Sites: Cela va montrer le site Web dans le navigateur. Une erreur telle que celle-ci appara%u00eet avec les Sites Web Windows Azure:

Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime, Version=1.7.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

This is because the Need application uses Windows Azure API that are not deployed by default in Azure Web Sites. They are deployed by default in Windows Azure Cloud Services so Visual Studio adds the reference with the copy local option set to false. Cela vient du fait que l’appli Need utilise les API Windows Azure qui ne sont pas d%u00e9ploy%u00e9es par d%u00e9faut dans les sites Web Windows Azure. Elles sont d%u00e9ploy%u00e9s par d%u00e9faut dans les “Cloud Services” Windows Azure et Visual Studio ajoute donc la r%u00e9f%u00e9rence avec l’option “copy local” %u00e0 “false”.
The copy local option, when set to true, includes the DLL to the deployment destination . So let’s set it to true for the two assemblies we need. L’option “copy local”, quand mise %u00e0 “true”, inclut les DLL dans la destination du d%u00e9ploiement.Positionnons donc cette valeur %u00e0 “true” pour les deux assemblys dont nous avons besoin.
Then you just have to deploy again to Windows Azure Web Sites and you’ll have the site running. Puis il suffit de red%u00e9ployer vers les sites Web Windows Azure et le site fonctionnera.
Another important step is to change the parameters of the App in Facebook so that the canvas is at <yourapp>.azurewebsites.net: Une %u00e9tape importante est de changer les param%u00e8tres de l’appli Facebook de fa%u00e7on %u00e0 ce que l’appli Canvas soit %u00e0 <votreappli>.azurewebsites.net

 

An instance of the app is deployed on a Windows Azure Web Site and you can try it. Just connect with you Facebook account and go to the following URL: Une instance de l’appli est d%u00e9ploy%u00e9e sur un site Web Windows Azure et vous pouvez l’essayer. Connectez-vous simplement %u00e0 Facebook avec votre compte et allez %u00e0 l’URL suivante:

https://apps.facebook.com/need-sample/

Once you’ve accepted the App, the App must accept you. As it is deployed in demo mode, you just have to enter the demo invitation code which is the following: Une fois que vous avez accept%u00e9 l’appli, l’appli doit vous accepter. Comme elle est d%u00e9ploy%u00e9e en mode d%u00e9mo, vous avez juste %u00e0 entrer le code d’invitation qui est le suivant:

data-may-be-deleted

 

Benjamin

Blog Post by: Benjamin GUINEBERTIERE

FAST Search 2010: Multi-Valued Crawled Property Only Returns Single Values In Search Results

by | Jun 22, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Overview
In a recent client solution we were utilizing a multi-valued Managed Metadata field to classify documents in a organizational taxonomy.  Our search and navigation relied on being able to retrieve documents by supplying any one of the possibly multiple values stored in the Managed Metadata field. 
We determined however, that even though many documents had […]
Blog Post by: Michael Gerety

Solution: FAST Search Crawls Stop Working Unexpectedly

by | Jun 22, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Problem Description
Crawls in our Fast Search content all of the sudden started “hanging”, and reporting reporting 0 successful crawls, with some errors. 

We were seeing no errors to speak of in the event logs or in the ULS logs on either SharePoint server, and the FAST Server was reporting no errors.
Expired Self Signed Certificate for […]
Blog Post by: Michael Gerety

New Extended Australian Visa needed for Americans

by | Jun 20, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

After spending almost 2 weeks in the US and watching a bit of American TV, I have decided that Australia should extend and new longer term visitor visa to Americans between now and the 6th of November. The grounds for the new visa should be cruel and unusual punishment, based on the fact that they will have do endure a proliferation of SPA (senseless political advertising) between now and the presidential election on the 6th of November.

So all Australian show compassion for your American friends and relatives that have to endure SPA in the coming months.

Note to current Australian Liberal and National Party politician, quit acting like the election was called when labour won the election, note they were able to form government, you weren’t.

More …

BizTalk Community series: Introducing Randy Aldrich Paulo

by | Jun 20, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

BizTalk community is very much alive. Around the world sessions are given to the community by BizTalk Server MVP’s and members of the BizTalk community. The BizTalk events site will give you a good overview of events taking place around the globe. Besides the events there is a lot more activity going round in the community. Forums, TechNet Wiki, blogs and the publication of books.

One of the members that is active in the community is Randy. I sent him an email a few weeks ago with a couple of questions and he responded. So here is another story of a BizTalk community member I like to bring to the foreground: Randy Aldrich Paulo.

Randy Aldrich I. Paulo is 28 years old and from the Philippines. Last couple of years he is living in the Netherlands (Leiden) with his wife and two wonderful children ages 3 (son) and 8 (daughter).

Randy currently works as a BizTalk Consultant for a company in Sassenheim and aside from BizTalk development,he also works on ETL solutions using (SSIS) and multi-tiered .NET development (WCF/ASP.Net). His diversified experience and knowledge gives him an edge when it comes to deciding the right combination of technology to solve a specific problem.

Randy is a MCPD (web) and has a MCTS in BizTalk 2006/2010 and WCF 4.0. He maintains a blog, which contains posts focused on the previously mentioned technologies. From time to time he updates them based on his experiences to help developers and server administrators alike.

Randy started his career working as open source Web Developer using PHP and mySql. Later on he made a switch to ASP Classic and COM+. In retrospective:

“I think this is one of the good decision that I have ever taken. And also during that time I was introduced to BizTalk 2000. At first I thought what a horrible application that from time to time I couldn’t explain why it works when it shouldn’t work and why it works when it shouldn’t, and since I was only allowed to use Microsoft products at that time (volume licensing) that’s why I was stuck with it. I still remember building my own AIC and register it as a COM+ and the schemas and maps are just lying somewhere in the network.When Microsoft release BizTalk Server 2004 that’s where things get slightly organized and from there onwards I love building integration solutions with it. Most of the time I do BizTalk development & administration and I am aiming to be BizTalk architect in the near future.”

Since Randy has worked with earlier versions of BizTalk he was able to see how BizTalk evolved and matured as a product. He is happy with how the product is now, yet he is partly sad because in the future they’re planning to rename the product (BizTalk). Some of the buzz around it worries him.

Randy feels BizTalk is a strong brand and I agree with that. A brand that overtime has gained the trust of many companies and organizations. It is a reliable middleware application server. Randy is hoping that Microsoft would at least retain the BizTalk name. 

“It is like a brand that comes to mind whenever you speak of integration in a Microsoft context.”

Rest assure that with the latest developments and announcements during Tech-Ed North America, BizTalk will be amongst us for quite some time.

In his spare time Randy likes to watch movies, TV-series and playing competitive online games like StarCraft II. He also from time to time browses the MSDN forums providing answers if he can (Randy’s MSDN Profile). In the Philippines, as it might sounds weird (since they’re not as tall as the Dutch) the number #1 sport is basketball. So when Randy was growing up he became a huge fan of Michael Jordan and played lots of basketball. He also likes watching soccer games especially when the Dutch team is playing.

Last but not least a final quote from Randy:

“Aside from mastering BizTalk, one should’ve at least a theoretical knowledge of different Microsoft Technologies as there’s no one solution for a real complex problems/scenarios. And you can’t just use BizTalk for everything.”

I would like to thank Randy for his time and contributions to the community.

Executing a command during a BTDF Deployment or Undeployment

by | Jun 20, 2012 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Recently I came across the need to execute a command and script after a Biztalk deployment using the BizTalk Deployment Framework (BTDF). In order to accomplish this BTDF allows the use of two specific deployment ’Targets’ in the btdfproj file. Each one will allow the execution of custom deployment or undeployment steps. The ’CustomDeployTarget’ tag […]
Blog Post by: kmorillo