Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Geeks Guide₂ Cloud Computing with the Windows Azure Platform is written for aspiring Windows Azure programmers by Roger Jennings, author of over 30 books on Microsoft technologies. It offers an excellent overview of cloud computing and provides a structured tutorial format that guides you through Jennings’ approach for programming Windows Azure Storage Services and web, worker, and .NET Services applications.

The book has been split into four parts with two to five chapters. It kicks off with Introducing the Windows Azure Platform, four chapters devoted to generic cloud computing topics, the Windows Azure infrastructure, and Azure Storage Services. This leads nicely into part two, Taking Advantage of Cloud Services in the Enterprise, where Jennings begins to examine the various issues that .NET developers and IT managers face when adopting Azure Cloud Services. This section consists of four chapters and includes topics such as security, privacy, regulatory compliance, and backup and recovery.

We start to get our hands dirty in part three as we begin tackling advanced Azure Service techniques. Over three chapters Jennings introduces programming .NET Services members – Access Control Services (ACS), .NET Services Bus (BS) and Workflow services (WF) – with the Microsoft .NET Services SDK. All the source code used in this section and throughout the book is available for free download at the Wrox website.

Cloud Computing with the Windows Azure Platform actually concludes after part three as part four, Working with SQL Azure Services, which features the final two chapters, is available online only for free at www.wrox.com. Simply put, the SQL Azure Database Community Technology Preview came too late for Jennings to include his final chapter in print. While this is unfortunate, it is however quite simple to access these chapters and as long as you can tolerate printed out sheets, it shouldn’t cause too much of a problem.

You can grab Cloud Computing with the Windows Azure Platform right now for £16.19, saving 40 per cent on the RRP, at Register Books.

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