Reading Notes #225

Cloud

• Reduce Cloud Data Costs and Improve System Performance in Azure (Marc Dugas) - Useful post that shares good tips to save more.
  
• Developer's introduction to Azure IoT (Olivier Bloch) - Great post that explains what is IoT and the strengths o the Azure flavor.
  
• Using PowerShell to manage API Connections (Kevin Lam) - Quick tip to do some clean-up in our connections.

Programming

• Conditional Workflows in Postman (ankit) - First post of a promising series, it sets the table listing the tools required to have a dynamic workflow.
  
• Using Web Deploy in Visual Studio Team Services Release Management (Jakob Ehn) - Nice post that demystifies MSBuild deployment on VSTS.
  
• Almost everyone is doing the API economy wrong (Ed Anuff) - Interesting point of view, if you do API, it's a must.

Databases

• Public preview: JSON in Azure SQL Database - Interesting, we will be able to do json query directly in the Sql Database.
  
• Simple and reliable data movement with Azure Data Factory Copy Wizard (Anand Subbaraj) - Since all cloud projects included data migration, any reliable tool is a good news. I'm looking forward to try this one.

Reading Notes #224

Cloud

• An application revolution powered by the cloud (Mark Russinovich) - This post is a great introduction to the air of micro-services. It explains the evolution from the monolithic architecture and introduces some container system.
  
• Azure Active Directory Application (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - This post is a good intro to Azure Active Directory and how it could help us in our cloud applications.
  
• Why Microsoft Azure? - Interesting post that explains major reasons why Microsoft is a lead in cloud computing.
• Load Balancing VMs in Azure Resource Manager (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Another great tutorial from Vincent.
  
• Creating a Node.js Azure Mobile App from OS X or Linux - Excellent tutorial that shows step by step how to build a unique backend easily using Azure mobile services.
  

Programming

• Save money with Application Insights’ web SDK 2.0 (Beckylin Orooji) - Nice new version that gives us more flexibility, but be aware it also included important breaking changes.
  
• Visual Studio Code Jumpstart for Node.js Developers (Dave Johnson) - This post is a nice tutorial that explains about to get started in Node.js by setting up our dev environment from scratch.
  
• Introducing LINQPad.QueryPlanVisualizer (Giorgi) - Great tool.
  

Miscellaneous

• Save money with Application Insights’ web SDK 2.0 (Beckylin Orooji) - Nice new version that gives us more flexibility, but be aware it also included important breaking changes.

Reading Notes #223

Cloud

• Background tasks for your web site using Azure WebJobs (Jon Hilton) - Interesting post that introduces storage queues and webjob to manage background process.
  
• Azure Logic Apps Connectors (Jeff Hollan) - This post is a nice introduction to trigger. These ca be use in Azure Logic Apps but also in Power Apps.
  
• Download Azure Resource Manager Tools for VS Code - Another nice extension for Visual Studio Code (vscode).
  
• Get Last Sync Time for Read-Access Geo-Redundant Azure Storage - This post contains a lot of detail and information about disaster recovery and how to create a nice PowerShell module as a tool to help us.
  
• Accessing v1 APIs and BizTalk APIs from Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Nice post that shares interesting tips about Azure API Apps.
  
• Getting to Know #Azure Mobile App - Nice tutorial that leverage the recently GA Azure Mobile App to build AskAlex: an universal application that looks promising...;)
  
• Exception Handling with Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Great tutorial that shows how to solve a extremely frequent problem... the exception handling.
  
• Using Logic Apps Webhook Triggers (Jeff Hollan) - Fantastic tutorial that shows how to create an HTTP trigger in today's interface/ designer.
  
• Deploying in the Logic Apps Preview Refresh (Jeff Hollan) - Very interesting post for the initiated that explains few pro tips when deploying our Azure Logic App.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 1 Virtual Machines (Rachel Hagerman) - First post in a very promising series. This on sets the table and shows how to use VS to deploy a VM.
  
• Using the Azure Resource Manager: Part 2 Networking Templates (Rachel Hagerman) - This second post in this series gives more details about a very common piece in our deployments the network.

Databases

• Making Entity Framework 7 and Azure Data Sync work together (Gunnar Peipman) - Nice tweak to solve a problem in small database context.

Programming

• Automated Testing with Visual Studio (Lachezar Arabadzhiev) - An episode to watch... Everyone should do tests.

Miscellaneous

• Microservices as an Evolutionary Architecture - Interesting post about an architecture pattern that becomes more popular.