A practical overview of Service Fabric

(Ce billet en aussi disponible en français: Un aperçu pratique de Microsoft Azure Service Fabric)


During the last Global Azure Bootcamp (April 16), the Montreal edition focused on Azure Service Fabric. The schedule for that day was packed with dynamic presentation and hand-on labs. Either because you were unable to be present or just because you want to learn more, it is not too late. The MsDevMtl team is happy to share with you all our documents we used.

Before you start

• To be able to do the Hand on Labs you will need:
• A PC with Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10
• VisualStudio 2015 Update 1 or 2
• Service Fabric SDK v2.0.135 (or more recent)
• A Microsoft Azure subscription. If you don't already have one, here a free trial to get you started aka.ms/azuretrialmtl

The One-day Schedule

As you see the complete edition of the Azure Fabric Learning Path contains much more details and labs. Since we had only one day we decided to cherry picked what we thought was the best to get started, but feel free do more.

• Intro to services and Service Fabric Overview
• Labs 1 & 2
• Application Packaging & deployment
• Diner
• Labs 3 & 4
• MS at scale & High Availability
• Lab 5
• Diagnostics & Health policies
• Lab 6
• Who is using SF, AoA, Testing
• Lab 7 & 8
• Upgrades
• Lab 9
• Conclusion

Where to find everything you need

• Main presentation deck
• Microsoft Azure Fabric Learning Path
• Meetup Details, Q&A

Questions?

All the presentations were done by Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois), Stepahne Laporte (@s_lapointe), myself (@fboucheros), and under the supervision of our fantastic bandmaster Guy Barette (@GuyBarrette). Feel free to ask us questions if you get blocked during your journey.




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Reading Notes #228

Cloud

• But Why Do You Trust Your Data? (Buck Woody) - I consider this post as a really great teaser. After ready his post most chances are you will check the video it recommended... and next give a shot to Azure data Catalog.

Programming

• An update on ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC2 - This post explains why the next release is taking "so long".
  
• PowerShell: Simplify Complex Function Calls (John Kirkham) - I love it! It's time to clean our scripts or at least stop writing more obfuscated ones.
  
• How to host your own NuGet Server and Package Feed - Wow, I didn't know it was that easy to have a private Nuget server...Definitely something to explore more deeply.

Data

• Analyzing your Azure Search traffic (Berni Torres Garayar) - Great post that explains how to improve our services by listening to our client's search requests, leveraging the new Azure Search Analytics and PowerBi.

Miscellaneous

• Give yourself permission to have work-life balance - In a connected world, it's easy not to slow down a moment and raise our head to look around us. Interesting post to read before you win the race to the burnout.
  
• Check out the new MVP Channel 9 page! - Channel9 has a brand-new section where you can see all MVPs video... see it by yourself.

~Frank

Reading Notes #227

Suggestion of the week

• Secure Authentication of Azure Resource Management Deployments (John Kirkham) - Nice tips about security, true all the time but they take all their sense in a context of continuous deployment.

Cloud

• New diagnostics and analytics capabilities in Application Insights (Merav Davidson) - This post is a great tour of the nee features of Applcation Insights.
  
• Planning and creating Azure Search indexes - | Gunnar Peipman - Programming Blog (Gunnar Peipman) - A fantastic tutorial about all the thinking we need to do before creating Azure Search index creation.
  
• DocumentDB goes planet scale with global databases, new pricing and more developer choices (John Macintyre) - Perfect post to be up to date with the latest DocumentDB: availability, prices, new compatibility.
  
• Using SOAP Services with Logic Apps (Jeff Hollan) - Interesting tutorial that gives all the details about how to configure SOAP Services with Azure LogicApp.
  
• Global Azure BootCamp 2016 - The global event is planned for next week, did you reserved your seat?

MVP Award 2016!

Thank you

Since two years now, the first of April is very special for me. Not because of all the April fool, but because that the date you made me a Microsoft Azure MVP.

I'm very proud and happy to be renew this year again. I wanted to take time to thank you all. I will continue to write and talk about my passions!
See you soon...

Up-comming events

• April 16 - Montreal Global Azure Bootcamp (Montreal edition)
• April 27 - Ottawa Ottawa Cloud Tech Kick Off meeting!
• July 4-8 - Montreal DevTeDevTeach Montreal DevConach

Reading Notes #226

Microsoft Build 2016

• Keynote Presentation - Day 1 - The grand opening! All about us: developers.
• Keynote Presentation - Day 2 - The second day opening, with all the details about Azure and Xamarin!
• Build 2016 - So many great presentations, make your own schedule or download them all using the Alex's Script.
• Download All Sessions in SD Quality (Alexandre Brisebois) - With most of the big event comes the Alex's script... very useful!

Cloud

• Using PowerShell to manage API Connections (Kevin Lam _ Microsoft) - Quick tip to do some clean-up in our connections.
  
• Effective ways to delete resources in a resource group on Azure - I love it! Very clever trick to delete all resources in a group but not deleting the group. And so simple.
  
• Brand new Docker Machine for Azure (Ahmet Alp Balkan) - Important notice in this update since it is no backward compatible.
  
• Gartner names Microsoft Azure a leader in aPaaS (Nicole Herskowitz) - Good news, Azure PaaS identified as a leader by Gartner for the third year.

Programming

• Getting to Know #Azure Mobile App Part 2 - Nice post that explains how to setup VSTS and HockeyApp to deploy an Universal application.

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.