Git Rid of Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDKs with .NET + Git + AppHarbor Deployment Revolution

I’ve been wanting to do a quick write up on the state of cloud apps from my perspective.  What’s my perspective?  Well I’m keeping up with  the SDKs from the big players; AWS and Windows Azure.  I’m also working on several cloud applications and providing consulting for some people and companies when approached related to which stack to go with, how to apply their current stacks (such as Ruby on Rails or .NET) in migrating to a cloud service provider.  Cloud services, or really more accurately utility computing has my personal and professional interest.  Above all, I keep trying to stay informed and know what the best path is for anyone that seeks my advice for moving into hosting & working in the SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS Space.  Feel free to contact me in regards to cloud questions:  adronhall at the famous gmail dot com.  🙂

Now on to the good tidbits that have been released lately.

The latest Microsoft goodies area available.  For the Windows Azure SDK go check out the Microsoft MSDN Site.

For the latest awesome from AWS (Amazon Web Services) SDK check out the AWS .NET Site.

These two SDKs are great for customers who want to build on the bare bones X platform.  Now whatever language & stack one builds in they are tied to that.  Ruby on Rails, .NET, Java, PHP, or whatever.  But getting tied to the stack is kind of like breathing air, one has to live with what air they have.  You can’t exactly get a refund very easily on that.

The Cloud SDKs though for Azure & AWS provide a certain amount of lock in, in addition to the stack lock in you’re using.  One of the easiest ways to prevent this lock in is to use a general deployment method backed by source control on something like Git or Mercurial.  So far though, .NET has been left out the cold.  There has been almost zero support for pushing .NET via Git or Mercurial into a cloud.

Heroku
Heroku

Ruby on Rails however has had support for this since…  well since the idea popped into the minds of the people at Heroku, EngineYard, and the other companies that are pushing this absolutely amazing and powerful technology pairing.

Engine Yard
Engine Yard

Again, for .NET, the problem is it has been left in the dust.  Smoked.  It has left a lot of .NET Developers moving to Ruby on Rails (which isn’t new, this is just one more thing that has pulled more developers away from the .NET stack).

 

Well, that’s changed a bit.  FINALLY someone has gotten the Git + .NET Pairing in the Cloud put together!  FINALLY you can get a cloud application running in a minute or two, instead of the absolutely inane amount of time it takes on Windows Azure (15+ minutes most of the time).  So who has done something about this?

AppHarbor is the first fully deployable solution for the cloud that allows Git + .NET to get going FAST!  I don’t work for these guys at all, so don’t think I’m shilling for them.  I’m just THAT happy that .NET has been pulled out of the dust bins and the community has this option.  I am flippin’ stoked matter of fact.

Currently, because of pricing and ease of deployment, I’ve been solely using AWS.  I can have a .NET MVC app running in AWS in about 5-10 minutes.  Between that speed of setup and the pricing, I pay 2/3 as much as Azure would be and can deploy much fast with a completely traditional .NET deployment.  No special project type needed, no extra configs, just a straight deployment with full control over the server (i.e. I can RDP in with no problem).  Anyway, the list of reasons I went with AWS over Azure really deserve an entire blog entry unto themselves.

AppHarbor
AppHarbor

With AppHarbor though I can step into the realm of doing exactly the same thing a Ruby on Rails Developer would do with Heroku or EngineYard.  Fully PaaS Capable with the scalability and features without needing to port or migrate to an entirely new stack!  I’ll probably keep a number of things running on AWS (such as the pending WordPress Websites I am about to push up to AWS), but will absolutely be starting up some applications to run in AppHarbor.

If you’re a .NET Developer and you’ve been wanting, looking for, and frustrated that the .NET Community didn’t have a Git + Cloud Deployment option for .NET, wait no longer.  Give AppHarbor a look ASAP!

Anyway… off to do a little work on my infrastructure project.  Cheers!

Exam 70-515 Pt 1 Focus on Developing Web Forms Pages

I’m going to be taking the Web Application Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4 in the very near future.  Since I’m going to be scribbling a few notes and studying up, it seemed like I’d publish my studies.  With that, here is round 1.  My intent is to study each focus area and make a blog post about it.  Beware, these could be some rather messy blog entries, I’ll try to keep them somewhat cohesive though. (Note, the base of these notes are from the actual 70-515 curriculum and also Niall Merrigan’s Blog Entry “MCTS Web Applications .NET 4 – 70-515 – Objectives List Part 1” helped a lot!  I’ve of course added my extra 2 cents to most of these.  Cheers!)

Focus Point:  Developing Web Forms Pages

Configure Web Forms Pages

A page directive is a page-specific attribute used by the ASP.NET page parser and compiler.  Some of these attributes I’ve linked and detailed below:

  • Page.AsyncMode Property – Sets a value indicating the page is processed synchronously or asynchronously.  The AsyncMode property is set by the Page parser when code for the page is generated. Use the Async attribute in @ Page directive to set this value.  Asynchronous pages do not work when the AspCompat attribute is set to true or the Transaction attribute is set to a value other than Disabled in the @ Page directive.
  • Page.AsyncTimeout Property – Gets or sets a value indicating the time-out interval used when processing asynchronous tasks.  The asynchronous time-out of the page represents the amount of time that the page will wait to perform asynchronous tasks. In most circumstances, do not set this property in code. Set the page asynchronous time-out interval using the pages element of the Web configuration file or in the @ Page directive. Values set in the page configuration section are overwritten by the page directive.  Define your asynchronous task using the PageAsyncTask class and register a beginning, an ending, and a time-out handler. If the asynchronous task does not complete in the time interval specified, the time-out handler will be invoked.
  • Page.AspCompatMode Property – Sets a value indicating whether the page can be executed on a single-threaded apartment (STA) thread.  This allows the page to call STA components, such as components developed with Visual Basic 6.0. Setting this property to true also allows the page to call COM+ components that require access to the unmanaged ASP built-in objects. These are accessible through the ASP ObjectContext object or the OnStartPage method.  In most circumstances, do not set this property in code. Set the aspcompat attribute to true using the @ Page directive in the .aspx file. When the page is requested, the dynamically generated class sets the property.
  • Page.Buffer Property – Sets a value indicating whether the page output is buffered.  In most circumstances, do not set this property in code. Set the Buffer attribute to true using the @ Page directive in the .aspx file. When the page is requested, the dynamically generated class sets the property.
  • Control.ClientIDMode Property – Gets or sets the algorithm that is used to generate the value of the ClientID property.  The values are AutoID which generates the value by concatenating the ID values of each parent naming container with the ID value of the control, seperated by an underscore character.  The Static value sets the value statically and makes the control the top of the hierarchy of naming containers if it is a container.  Predictable algorithm is used for controls that are data-bound controls and concatenates the ClientID value of the parent with the ID value of the control.  Inherit sets it to the parent control.
  • Page.ClientTarget Property – Gets or sets a value that allows you to override automatic detection of browser capabilities and to specify how a page is rendered for particular browser clients.  If you do not set the ClientTarget property, the HttpBrowserCapabilities object associated with the Page.Request property reflects the browser capabilities associated with the value (alias) that you provide.  uplevel, which specifies
  • CompilationMode Enumeration – Defines constants that specify how ASP.NET should compile .aspx pages and .ascx controls.  Members include; Auto sets ASP.NET to not compile the page if possible, Never states the page will not be dynamically compiled, and Always sets ASP.NET to compile every time.
  • Control.EnableViewState Property – This one has been the disdain of many serious web developers, as the view state becomes a horrifying beast to deal with.  But I digress, it may appear on the test so know about it.  🙂  This property gets or sets a value indicating whether the server control persists its view state, and the view state of any child controls it contains, to the requesting client.
  • Page.EnableViewStateMac Property – Gets or sets a value indicating whether ASP.NET should check message authentication codes (MAC) in the page’s view state when the page is posted back from the client.
  • Page.ErrorPage Property – Gets or sets the error page to which the requesting browser is redirected in the event of an unhandled page exception.
  • Page.MasterPageFile Property – Gets or sets the file name of the master page.
  • Page.MetaDescription – Gets or sets the content of the “description” meta element.
  • Page.MetaKeywords – Gets or set the content of the “keywords” meta element.
  • Page.Theme Property – Gets or sets the name of the page theme.
  • ViewStateEncryptionMode Enumberation – Specifies whether view-state information is encrypted;  Auto sets the encryption by calling the RegisterRequiresViewStateEncryption method, Always sets it to encrypt always and Never does not encrypt even if the control requests it.
  • Control.ViewState Property – Gets or sets the view-state mode of this control.
  • Control.ViewStateMode Property – Gets or sets the view-state mode of this control.
  • Compiler.WarningLevel Property – Gets the compiler warning level.
  • Saving and reading values in View State:  Save Values / Read Values
  • Auto Event Wire Up – i.e. ASP.NET Web Server Control Event Model.
  • PageSection.EnableEventValidation Property – Gets or sets a value that specifies whether event validation is enabled.
  • General configuration settings (ASP.NET) – This topic covers web.config files and setting up configuration sections within this file.  Some of the topics to be familiar with include; connectionStrings, system.web, configSections, appSettings, location, System.Configuation, and System.Web.Configuration.
  • XHTML Standards in Visual Studio and ASP.NET
  • Editing ASP.NET Configuration Files – Case-sensitivity, custom sections, remote configuration files, etc.
  • Making controls easier to access via JavaScript since they’re often cryptic…  Walkthrough:  Making Controls Located in Web User Controls Easier to Access from JavaScript, How to:  Access Controls from JavaScript by ID, and Walklthrough:  Making Data-Bound Controls Easier to Access from JavaScript.

Implement Master Pages and Themes

Implement Globalization

Handle Page Life Cycle Events

Implement Caching

There are a few more topics for this section of the test, I’ll follow up with the remainder of those notes, and move on to the next topic section.  Enjoy…

Amazon Web Services ~5 Minute .NET Quick Start

This is the beginning of a series of blog posts I’m putting together on building out a website on Amazon’s Web Services.  This is a quick start on where to find the .NET SDK, what templates are installed in Visual Studio 2010, and what you get when starting a new Web Application Project with the AWS .NET SDK.

Links mentioned in the video:

Test Driven Development Built Name Generator Part 3

Part 1, Part 2.

Now it is time finally for the random name generation.  I’ve gotten everything into place, so it’s just a matter of grabbing the names and randomizing among them.  Just as a check, after Part 2 was finished I had a total of 98,572 rows of data, or simply 98,572 names.

Many times I would not write actual unit tests against the database as it breaks isolation.  This time though, I’m making an exception.  First I added a reference to Generator.Core, System.Data, and System.Data.Entity.  I then created a new unit test class called DatabaseTests and added the following test to get things rolling.  Keep in mind, since these tests break isolation, I don’t write them in the red light green light idea of TDD.  My assumption is that they only prove the database is setup, running, the connection string is correct, and other minor configuration based and server based components.  In addition, yes, these are somewhat silly tests, such as the RetrieveFirstName() test has a bit of redundancy to it, but the point is to have an automated test to assure that the data has been moved into the database and is returning appropriately.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
[TestClass]
public class DatabaseTests
{
[TestMethod]
public void RetrieveFirstFemaleName()
{
var entities = new GeneratorEntities();
var returnName = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Female First Names"
select name).FirstOrDefault();
Assert.IsNotNull(returnName);
Assert.IsTrue(returnName.Name != string.Empty);
}

[TestMethod]
public void RetrieveLastName()
{
var entities = new GeneratorEntities();
var returnName = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Last Names"
select name).FirstOrDefault();
Assert.IsNotNull(returnName);
Assert.IsTrue(returnName.Name != string.Empty);
}

[TestMethod]
public void RetrieveFirstMaleName()
{
var entities = new GeneratorEntities();
var returnName = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Male First Names"
select name).FirstOrDefault();
Assert.IsNotNull(returnName);
Assert.IsTrue(returnName.Name != string.Empty);
}

[TestMethod]
public void RetrieveFirstName()
{
var entities = new GeneratorEntities();
var returnName = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Female First Names" || name.Type == "Male First Names"
select name).FirstOrDefault();
Assert.IsNotNull(returnName);
Assert.IsTrue(returnName.Name != string.Empty && returnName.Type == "Female First Names" ||
returnName.Type == "Male First Names");
}
}
[/sourcecode]

The next step now was to refactor the existing tests to prove the assembly of the name data transfer objects that would hold the first name and last name derived from the returned entity objects.

The first thing I did was break out the actual name objects into their respective files.  I did this using ReSharper, because it’s super insanely simple with ReSharper.  After that I put the class files in the project that has the model.  Next I fixed the namespaces to Generator.Core.Model.  The class files after these changes looked like the code below.

IFullName.c

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
namespace Generator.Core.Model
{
public interface IFullName
{
string FirstName { get; set; }
string LastName { get; set; }
}
}
[/sourcecode]

FullName.cs

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
namespace Generator.Core.Model
{
public class FullName : IFullName
{
public FullName()
{
FirstName = string.Empty;
LastName = string.Empty;
}

#region IFullName Members

public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }

#endregion
}
}
[/sourcecode]

NameFactory.cs

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
namespace Generator.Core.Model
{
public class NameFactory
{
public static IFullName Build()
{
return new FullName {FirstName = "TestFirst", LastName = "TestLast"};
}
}
}
[/sourcecode]

Now that we have these files moved out to the project where all the munging will happen, I’m going to start the actual refactor of the tests.  What I’ve come up with for the test refactor is as follows.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
using Generator.Core.Model;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace Factory.Tests
{
[TestClass]
public class FactoryNameBuilder
{
[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameObjectInstantiatesWithNames()
{
var name = new FullName();
Assert.IsTrue(name.FirstName.Length == 0);
Assert.IsTrue(name.LastName.Length == 0);
}

[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameObjectReturnsFromFactory()
{
var factory = new NameFactory();
IFullName name = factory.Build();
Assert.IsTrue(name.FirstName.Length > 0);
Assert.IsTrue(name.LastName.Length > 0);
}

[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameIsRandom()
{
var factory = new NameFactory();
IFullName nameOne = factory.Build();
IFullName nameTwo = factory.Build();

Assert.AreNotEqual(nameOne.FirstName, nameTwo.FirstName);
Assert.AreNotEqual(nameOne.LastName, nameTwo.LastName);
}
}
}
[/sourcecode]

In the factory I removed the fake return and fleshed out the appropriate build method.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

namespace Generator.Core.Model
{
public class NameFactory
{
public IFullName Build()
{
Random rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond);

GeneratorEntities entities = new GeneratorEntities();

List FirstNames = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Female First Names" || name.Type == "Male First Names"
select name).ToList();
List LastNames = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Last Names"
select name).ToList();

FullName fullName = new FullName();
fullName.FirstName = FirstNames[rand.Next(0, FirstNames.Count)].Name;
fullName.LastName = LastNames[rand.Next(0, LastNames.Count)].Name;

return fullName;
}
}
}
[/sourcecode]

Run the tests now and you have a random name gold mine.  However, I wanted a bit more than that.  With another test added…

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
[TestMethod]
public void VerifyMultipleNameReturn()
{
var factory = new NameFactory();
List<IFullName> list = factory.Build(1000);

for (int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++)
{
int compareUp = i + 1;
if (compareUp == list.Count)
{
compareUp = 0;
}
Assert.AreNotEqual(list[compareUp].FirstName + list[compareUp].LastName, list[i].FirstName + list[i].LastName);
}
}
[/sourcecode]

…then the extra Build method.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
public List<IFullName> Build(int numberOfNames)
{
var rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
var entities = new GeneratorEntities();

List<Names> FirstNames = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Female First Names" || name.Type == "Male First Names"
select name).ToList();
List<Names> LastNames = (from name in entities.Names
where name.Type == "Last Names"
select name).ToList();

var names = new List<IFullName>();

for (int i = 0; i < numberOfNames; i++)
{
var fullName = new FullName();
fullName.FirstName = FirstNames[rand.Next(0, FirstNames.Count)].Name;
fullName.LastName = LastNames[rand.Next(0, LastNames.Count)].Name;
names.Add(fullName);
}

return names;
}
[/sourcecode]

and now I have a strong verification that I get solid randoms for 1000 name pairs.  I bumped it up to 2000 too just for fun, and didn’t hit duplicates until I put it up to 200,000.

Test Driven Development Built Name Generator Part 1

Part 2, Part 3.

This is going to be a multi-part series on building a straight forward database driven name generator.  I’ve tried the random name generator thing and it generally isn’t so great.  I’d tried in the past this idea with the database table of census names and it works great.  So this is part 1.  I’ll post these entries consecutively over the next few days so stay tuned.

First I started a new clean solution and added a test project.  I figured I wasn’t even going to add the actual assembly project yet, just jump right in and start writing a test, get red, and go to the next step.

I added a test file and wrote the following test.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameObjectInstantiatesWithNames()
{
FullName fullName = new FullName();
Assert.IsTrue(fullName.FirstName.Length == 0);
Assert.IsTrue(fullName.LastName.Length == 0);
}
[/sourcecode]

After that I used ReSharper Alt+Enter Shortcut plus a little additional keying in myself to flesh out the skeletal class and get a green light.  I ended up with the class below.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
public class FullName
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
[/sourcecode]

Next I wanted to enforce a contract so I could create a factory to build my FullName objects with.  With that change the interface and class I had now looked like this.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
public interface IFullName
{
string FirstName { get; set; }
string LastName { get; set; }
}

public class FullName : IFullName
{
public FullName()
{
FirstName = string.Empty;
LastName = string.Empty;
}

public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
[/sourcecode]

That gave me a green light on my first test.  After that I built a test for the factory that could build the names.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameObjectReturnsFromFactory()
{
IFullName name = NameFactory.Build();
Assert.IsTrue(name.FirstName.Length > 0);
Assert.IsTrue(name.LastName.Length > 0);
}
[/sourcecode]

I then took the NameFactory object and fleshed it out so I could build, run the test, and get green lighted.  Below is the NameFactory Class.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
public class NameFactory
{
public static IFullName Build()
{
return new FullName { FirstName = "TestFirst", LastName = "TestLast" };
}
}
[/sourcecode]

So now I have a green light on the name factory.  But even though I have a green light, it doesn’t exactly do what it needs to do, which is get some good unique and random names.  Next step, write a test for getting back some random names.

[sourcecode language=”csharp”]
[TestMethod]
public void VerifyFullNameIsRandom()
{
IFullName nameOne = NameFactory.Build();
IFullName nameTwo = NameFactory.Build();

Assert.AreNotEqual(nameOne.FirstName, nameTwo.FirstName);
Assert.AreNotEqual(nameOne.LastName, nameTwo.LastName);
}
[/sourcecode]

After creating this test, I have to dive a little deeper.  First I grabbed the census names for first and last names off of the Internet.  After that I added two projects to my overall Visual Studio Solution.  One is a database project and one is Windows App to use to manipulate the text file data and get it into our database.

Next I created the Generator Database a table to store the names that are stored in the files.

The SQL create script is shown below.

[sourcecode language=”sql”]
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[Names]’) AND type in (N’U’))
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Names](
[NameId] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
[Name] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
[Type] [smallint] NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Names] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[NameId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
END
[/sourcecode]

I also added an extended property to outline how I intended to use the “Type” column.

[sourcecode language=”sql”]
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM ::fn_listextendedproperty(N’MS_Description’ , N’SCHEMA’,N’dbo’, N’TABLE’,N’Names’, N’COLUMN’,N’Type’))
EXEC sys.sp_addextendedproperty @name=N’MS_Description’, @value=N’1 = Male, 2 = Female, 3 = Last Name’ , @level0type=N’SCHEMA’,@level0name=N’dbo’, @level1type=N’TABLE’,@level1name=N’Names’, @level2type=N’COLUMN’,@level2name=N’Type’
[/sourcecode]

My intention is for the “Type” column to have a 1 for the male first name, a 2 for a female first name, and a 3 for the last name.

I’ve covered creating the initial tests and objects to use.  Also the database table that is needed and the create scripts have been provided.  Next steps are to build a quick app to get the names imported into the database table.  Stay tuned and that will be posted tomorrow.