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    Meet the Azure team at PDC09

    David Gristwood goes roving with his video camera at the PDC to meet some of the Azure team who are responsible for building Azure and deciding the features make it into the product set. This is a great chance to hear some of the team talk about their areas of focus across Azure, including:

     

    -          The Azure developer experience

    -          What the Azure fabric controller is and how it works

    -          What the new Codename “Dallas” project is about

    -          The newly announced Appfabric and how it relates to .NET Services

    -          The role of the newly released Windows Identity Foundation

     

    And last, but by no means least, take a tour round one of the new Azure storage containers that was on display at the show.

     

    (There is a bit of background noise in some of the interviews, but that’s the buzz from all the folk attending the PDC, but we hope it doesn’t detract from the video interviews).

    Entity Framework 4: Part 1 - Simple Model First

    This is part 1 of a series of short introductory screencasts to the new features of ADO.NET Entity Framework 4, which is part of .NET 4 and Visual Studo 2010. It was created using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.

    In this 10 minute screencast I explore the new Model First capability of Entity Framework. Model First allows you to create your Entity Data Model from scratch, focusing on defining the conceptual model from which we can then generate a database schema and mapping.

    It is based on the demos I delivered during my Entity Framework session at TechEd Europe in November (DEV305).

    Links:

    How Azure is being used in the real world - Azure Deep Dives

    Microsoft runs occasional Azure Deep Dive events, with a small numbers of customers and partners, to help accelerate their progress building real world solutions on the Azure Platform, and providing feedback to the product team. This video looks behind the scenes at one of these 5 day Azure Deep Dives, meets the Microsoft folk mentoring the sessions, and the customers and partners building their solutions.

     

    Check out the video to see:

    - The features in the Azure Platform that early adopters are finding most compelling

    - The emerging architectural patterns being used, such as the use of queues for durable messaging

    - Discussion of recently released features for Windows Azure, and some hints for new features being announced at the PDC

    - Real customer and partner solutions that are being built on the Azure Platform.

    Talking Architects - Angela Yochem

    "Architects need to be partners of the business" is what Angela Yochem, an Executive IT Architect with a large multinational organisation, believes is key in delivering value to the enterprise.

    MSDN Flash Podcast 011 – Steve Marx on Windows Azure

    Also known as “that’s where I left my shoe” (you will need to listen to understand that)

    This is a bonus edition of the podcast recorded on the 6th of October in London with Steve Marx, Technical Strategist working on Windows Azure.

    It starts slow and a little quiet, it needed a few edits (deletes!) as we battled with “what is still not public” but picks up to be a pretty useful look at the improvements we have made to Windows Azure over the last few months with a specific focus on storage.

    Topics covered include:

    • Entity Group Transactions
    • StorageClient library
    • Queues
    • Blobs and Shared Access Signatures/Blob Container Access Policies
    • Communication between nodes without queues
    • Logging

    Show Links:

    Follow me or my team on twitter.

    Products

    MSDN Product family news

    Now all the latest information is at your fingertips, with the touch of a button. MSDN Developer Centres pull together content and resources for specific products and technologies.

    Select from the dropdown below to see the latest news and views on your chosen product.

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