msdn – Composite Thrashing Code

The first thing needed is a Windows Azure Account, which is simply a Live ID. The easiest way to setup one of these is to navigate to http://www.live.com and click on the Sign Up button. If you have an existing account that you use to login it should display on this page also.

After creating or logging in with an existing account let’s take a look at the various web properties Microsoft has dedicated to Windows Azure.

This site is the quintessential Microsoft Windows Azure Marketing Site, geared toward decision makers in management and CTO or CIOs. There are links to many other web properties that Microsoft has setup from this page. It’s a great starting point to find management and executive selling points such as white papers, case studies, co-marketing, and more.

The MSDN Site is the central developer resource Microsoft provides online. The site recently underwent a massive redesign of almost every element.

MSDN Developers site is a requirement to bookmark. This has the shortest navigation to all the sites and services you’ll need for Windows Azure Development. There is even a login link to the Site #4 below. In addition there are several key sections of this site; blogs, news, and more information.

The Windows Azure Portal site is where we’ll be setting up the roles, storage, and other cloud computing mechanisms that we’ll be writing code against. Now that each of these sites is reviewed, let’s move forward.

The Windows Azure Portal Site will prompt you to sign up for a cloud services plan.

Click on next and you will be brought to a page related to which plans you can choose from. Depending on what specific focus you have for either development, dedicated services hosting, or otherwise you can choose from the multiple plans they have. I won’t go into them here, as Microsoft regularly changes the plans for specials and based on market demand and current costs.

After choosing which plan you will be redirected to the billing site, https://mocp.microsoftonline.com/, to setup a line of credit, confirm the type of Windows Azure Subscription you want to start with, and other information as needed. Once this is setup, you most likely won’t need to look at this site again except to verify billing information, change billing information, or confirm cloud usage.

Now that there is an account available, we’ll need to install the latest development tools for coding solutions for the cloud. This first example will be using Visual Studio 2010 with the Windows Azure SDK. If you don’t have Visual Studio 2010 installed yet, go ahead and install that. Open up Visual Studio 2010 next. We will use Visual Studio 2010 project templates to find out the latest Windows Azure SDK and download it.
To download the latest Windows Azure SDK navigate to the MSDN Windows Azure Developers Site and click on the Downloads option at the top of the site.

Once you have downloaded and installed the latest Windows Azure SDK we will download and install the Windows Azure AppFabric also. Scroll down midway on the MSDN Windows Azure Download page and the Windows Azure AppFabric SDK should be available for download. On the Windows Azure AppFabric SDK download page there should be a *.chm help file, two different AppFabric SDK Examples files one for VB and one for C#, and two installation packages one for 64-bit and one for 32-bit. Download and install the one for your particular system. I’d suggest downloading the samples also and giving each a good review.

In What You Need and Want With Windows Azure Part II I will cover how to setup the Windows Azure Microsoft Management Console. So stay tuned, that is coming tomorrow.

Yesterday I wrote a somewhat critical blog entry to Microsoft regarding their completely unintelligible use of domains, subdomains, and messaging around products. I’m not sure who exactly is responsible, but I hope they read it. I didn’t mean it as a personal attack or anything, just simply as a “please get yourself in line and respect what you do” type of message.

So that leads me to this open letter. This open letter is primarily about giving props for a job well done on the site redesign of MSDN. First off though I want to mention one thing.

Tip #1 – The URL is still a bit funky with the .aspx and en-us in it. Clean that thing up. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx should look more like http://msdn.microsoft.com/ and that’s it. NOTHING else. At least get rid of the “default.aspx” page hanging around there. Almost every major framework stack; PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc has removed the index.htm and at least left clean RESTful URIs. It is a beautiful thing, make yours beautiful too.

Ok, now for the props!

Dear MSDN Team,

I wanted to write this open letter and commend the team on the redesign of the MSDN Site. First let’s take a look at the MSDN Site.

MSDN Site Home Page

At the very top of the page two things I like immediately. Some UX Folks might not, but I dig the UX design around the UI for the four links; desktop, web, cloud, and phone. The simple nature, basic styles of the blocks, and the hover over effect creates a very immediate communication of what each is focused around. I read blog entry by Pete Brown about the MSDN and these blocks, which Microsoft’s Team dubbed “Hubs”. There is a FAQ also available on the redesign.

The other point I’d like to draw attention to is that someone put the news on the upper part of the page. Here I caught the “Visual Studio Lightswitch” News bit. Of course, one could say it’s just a big add, but it really is more about MSDN news bits. But I digress, I like that the upper section has that instead of digging around for it.

The sections below that have various links, that often don’t show up on the initial page display. Scrolling down to search through this information is acceptable though, as it is something one would dig through and have intent around something very specific.

desktop

desktop

The desktop section of the site is setup following the new guidelines around simplification of data presentation. This is something that has been sorely needed on MSDN for years. Not sure if one remembers the nasty nested to the Nth degree treeview on the left hand side. I don’t know where it went, but I’m really happy it is gone. Now the layout is simple and to the point, with the key points of information being laid out in multiple steps.

web

The web section, again follows this new redesign model of user experience.

web

cloud

The cloud section again follows this new redesign…

cloud

phone

This too follows the redesign. Simple, clean, and straight forward presentation of information.

phone

I also like how the messaging around the primary platforms is clear. It almost doesn’t’ seem like marketing is involved, which in my opinion is the best type of marketing. When marketing kind of acts as the librarian that is helping you to find that key piece of information. It’s very cool, it’s almost kind of cool in a way.

To summarize, I’m impressed. MSDN Team, you guys have done a great job. Props!

A Frequent Business User and Customer,
Adron @ Composite Code