Mick's Breeze Blogs - Biztalk/Sharepoint/...

Azure: Data Center IP Ranges Published

Mick Badran — Mon, 28 May 2012 22:25:50 GMT

Finally we get some info on what IP ranges are used for the Data Centers. Now when you have those conversations with the Network security folks and when they ask "What IP addresses are you hitting?", when they want to open up access for Azure Service Bus.

Here's the 'official' IP Ranges (you just hope it doesn't change on you...it works for 3 days of the week, then the 4th it stops...that was an interesting one to solve)

Windows Azure DataCenter IP Ranges

This appeases my grief in a previous post

Breeze Jobs: .NET Developer who want more out of life.

Mick Badran — Mon, 28 May 2012 08:38:48 GMT

Hi folks,

We’re looking for someone who loves technology and is currently surrounded by .NET technologies.
Contact us if you want to be part of a great team that sinks their teeth into many different projects, concepts and technologies.

The most important thing I look for is your ‘can do’ attitude, the rest we can essentially learn. Come and be part of a team that loves what they do, and do what they love.
(Makes it easier to get up on these colder mornings )

Sydney based.

If you’re interested and want to start the ball rolling - http://breeze.net/who-we-are/jobs.aspx
(I might even get you to leave your CV at home for the interviews )

Talk to you soon,

Mick.

p.s. No agencies please.

MS Script Center

Mick Badran — Mon, 28 May 2012 07:03:50 GMT

Huge assortment of scripts for all the family on many many many different jobs....

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/

Note to self: Why didn't I come across this sooner??

Enjoy,

Mick.

BizTalk 2010: Creating TPM Partners through Code

Mick Badran — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:45:23 GMT

Hi folks, recently I've been asked by several students on how to create Parties, Agreements, Profiles etc. via code in BizTalk 2010.

I played with this along time ago while at Redmond as BizTalk 2010 was in the process of being released.

So I've just rolled up my sleeves and provided a quick demo for you - the demo shows:

How to enumerate and get at each of your TPM Partners.
How to create Partners + Profiles within BizTalk 2010.

Note: I've only tried this on BizTalk 2010 (& needless to say I'm claiming 'works on my machine' :))

What we're talking about in BizTalk
This section here....

Show me the code....
Well the magic is found in this DLL -
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\Developer Tools\Microsoft.BizTalk.B2B.PartnerManagement.dll

- create a VS.NET 2010 app (for this demo I created a console app)
- we make a reference to the above DLL (we also need to reference system.data.entity)
- set a connectionstring to our BizTalk Management DB, mine is BizTalkDB (as I rolled all the BizTalk DBs into one - for dev)
- start enumerating.

C# Looks like this-

staticvoid Main(string[]
args) { //enumerate
all the TPM Profiles in BizTalk var builder =new SqlConnectionStringBuilder("DATA
SOURCE=localhost;Initial Catalog=BizTalkDB;"+"Integrated
Security=SSPI;MultipleActiveResultSets=True"); var tmpCtx = TpmContext.Create(builder);
Console.WriteLine("Connected
to BizTalk Global Parties"); var partners = tmpCtx.Partners;
Console.WriteLine("Number
of Parters:{0}", partners.Count()); Console.WriteLine("------------"); foreach (var
ptr in partners)
{ var profiles = ptr.GetBusinessProfiles();
Console.WriteLine("{0}
Business Profiles:{1}", ptr.Name, profiles.Count); foreach (var
profile in profiles)
{ Console.WriteLine("\tProfile:{0}",
profile.Name); } } tmpCtx.Dispose(); if (bCreateProfile)
{ createProfile("Breeze
Partner #"); } Console.WriteLine("Finished");
Console.ReadLine(); }

Point to Note: in the connection string I set 'MARS=true' just so we can enumerate several collections at once through the one context. When updating or saving new, partners and/or profiles I get errors and can't save through a MARs enabled connection. (love to hear if you have different luck)

Creating a Partner + Profile

//
need to do this through a single threaded connection - no MARSprivatestaticvoid createProfile(string partnerName)
{ partnerName += DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-hhmmss") + (new Random().Next(0,
65535)); Console.WriteLine("Writing
a new Profile for {0}", partnerName); var builder =new SqlConnectionStringBuilder("DATA
SOURCE=localhost;Initial Catalog=BizTalkDB;Integrated Security=SSPI"); var
tmpCtx = TpmContext.Create(builder);
var ptr = tmpCtx.CreatePartner(partnerName);
var pname ="Breeze
Profile-#"+ DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-hhmmss") + (new Random().Next(0,
65535)); var bp = ptr.CreateBusinessProfile(pname);
bp.Description ="Created
from Code"; var pcol =new AS2ProtocolSettings("BreezeProtocolSettings");
bp.AddProtocolSettings(pcol); tmpCtx.SaveChanges(); tmpCtx.Dispose(); }

And that's pretty much all there is to it folks, have a play around with the APIs for yourself - all undocumented of course.

Here's the Console App Solution I use (built for very demo purposes)

TPM API Demo.zip (32 KB)

Enjoy Mick!

Windows Azure–being renamed?

Mick Badran — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:57:37 GMT

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-renames-azure-services – article talks about MS renaming services and essentially dropping the ‘Windows…’ out of it.

My experience has seen this will appeal to the non-MS types that see ‘Windows…’ as something they don’t want to go near.
I personally think it’s a good move as sure it’s Windows but the Azure Platform offers so much more…..

Here’s some of the proposed changes….

Prior Service Name	New Service Name
Windows Azure Compute	Cloud Services
Windows Azure Platform - All Services	All Services
Windows Azure CDN	CDN
Windows Azure Storage	Storage
Windows Azure Traffic Manager	Traffic Manager
Windows Azure Virtual Network	Virtual Network
AppFabric Cache	Cache
AppFabric Service Bus	Service Bus
AppFabric Access Control	Access Control
SQL Azure	SQL Database
SQL Azure Reporting Service	SQL Reporting

Azure: Presentation - Managing Windows Azure Applications

Mick Badran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:51:51 GMT

Folks, this is Scotty's 2nd presentation this week where he shares is love, scripts and years of experience in Managing Azure Applications (Breeze started back in early 2008).

Tune into this free event and to hear & see what Scotty has on offer.

Register

LIVE Meeting: Managing Windows Azure Applications

Event ID: 1032500972

Language(s): English.

Product(s): Microsoft BizTalk Server and Windows Azure.

So you just made your first Windows Azure deployment. Now what? Is it healthy? How many instances do you need? What will my bill be? When do I need to scale up? Was that a DoS attack? Will auto-patching break me? Getting an application into Windows Azure is the first step, now you have to run the application for the next three years. Come to this session and see how to manage and operate your Windows Azure applications.

Register

Azure: 2 live Meeting Presentations this week! Ten Must-Have tools for Windows Azure

Mick Badran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:44:52 GMT

Hi folks,

Scotty (aka Sco the Stig) Scovell is presenting this week on

Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure as part of Microsoft Readiness.

We'd love to see you there - free event

LIVE Meeting: Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

Event ID: 1032500970

Language(s): English.

Product(s): Microsoft BizTalk Server and Windows Azure.

Any platform, by its own nature, creates an ecosystem for third-party tools and helpers. Windows Azure is no different. In this session we look at a variety of the third-party tools available in the Windows Azure ecosystem. Included are tools for both developers and IT professionals. We look at tools that will help manage storage and resources, migration, scaling, diagnostics and software components that will help you build cloud applications.

Registration

.NET: Microsoft’s new .NET language ‘D-flat’ .net

Mick Badran — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:10:48 GMT

Local MS Developer pillar Andrew Coates spilled the beans on this next new language to come out of MS Research.

Db.NET or ‘D flat’ – F#, C# and the Cinderella of the 3 sisters ‘VB.NET’
(Last year I was introduced to F# over a 5 month project and absolutely loved the simplicity and freshness of it – async was simple, tasks, functions and code that would normally take 400 lines in C#, we were able to do in 100 in F#)

It promises:

- speed

- optimisation (I wonder if it’ll be smart enough to run tasks on different CPU cores?)

There is a focus on Orchestration – data Orchestration found here http://thenextlanguage.net/a-focus-on-orchestration/

Where it talks about “An example of the close collaboration between the product team and the company’s research arm is the use of Schenkerian Analysis in the compiler to maximize orchestration between sections of the code.”

Oooh I thought – let’s check out what this is Schenkerian Analysis and a quick check of Wikipedia reveals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis

“Schenkerian analysis is a method of musical analysis of tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker. The goal of a Schenkerian analysis is to interpret the underlying structure of a tonal work. The theory's basic tenets can be viewed as a way of defining tonality in music. A Schenkerian analysis of a passage of music shows hierarchical relationships among its pitches, and draws conclusions about the structure of the passage from this hierarchy. The analysis is demonstrated through reductions of the music, using a specialized symbolic form of musical notation that Schenker devised to demonstrate various prolongational techniques. The concept of tonal prolongation, in which certain pitches determine the goal of other, subordinate pitches, is a cornerstone of the pitch hierarchy that Schenkerian analysis involves itself with.”

So tones, pitches and music is where this algorithm has its roots…I can see how you could take this analysis when applied to the frequency of music and apply it to the frequency of code items; data being hit etc.

I’ll crack open this VS.2011 extension and see what transpires…

Grab the TOOLS here - http://thenextlanguage.net/tools/

Azure: April Australia gets local Azure

Mick Badran — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:39:28 GMT

Should be an interesting month this April - http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/337290/australia_gets_azure_cloud_april/

Let’s see what the pricing will be… be great to handle alot of those data sovereignty issues.

It’s like waiting for Santa all over again

General: I’ve moved from Win8 Developer Preview to Win8 Customer Preview

Mick Badran — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:42:48 GMT

Pretty quick and Win8 is looking pretty slick.

It found all my drivers and in about 15 mins I was up and running.

Let’s see how we go over the next couple of weeks

VTSP Summit: Feature decision making with Hybrid IT Solutions

Mick Badran — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:40:35 GMT

I’m finally back home after a great trip to Seattle and to see some fellow VTSPs from all over the globe. Very switched on bunch.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to present and with Scotty at the demo controls, we steered a pretty good session.

Thanks to ‘all y-all’ whom was in the session and I hope you got as much out of it as I did.

Grab the Public Version of the slide Deck – HERE.

So as promised on the advice of John Brockmeyer here’s some current limitations of the Azure ‘Integration’ Services.

HTML: How to Scroll the HTML Title of a Page

Mick Badran — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:12:07 GMT

Easy but effective

Azure: Useful bits and Pieces

Mick Badran — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:45:08 GMT

Folks I’ve decided to list some useful links and tips that I’ve come across as part of our work we do. This list will grow and expand as time goes on.

Design/Pre Work

Azure Naming conventions for Services, Containers, Blobs, Metadata, Naming and Registry
Hosted Service Names are < 63 chars (previously there was a bug with service names over 24 chars and not being able to rdp, not sure if this is fixed)
Azure Icons for use in Visio and the like - http://davidpallmann.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/windows-azure-design-patterns-part-1.html (thanks David)
SSL Connections terminate at the webroles

Admin/Subscriptions

Currently each Role size has a minimum of 1.6GHz CPU
Environment variables available in Windows Azure (well done Toddy)
Hard limit of 20 storage accounts per subscriptions max – most will show smaller e.g. 5 or 8
Troubleshooting Best Practice for Developing Windows Azure Applications WhitePaper
Encrypting Connection Strings - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/archive/2010/09/07/10058942.aspx

Roles

Role Architecture – great explanation
Detecting whether you’re running in STAGING or PROD – it’s all in the deployment id.
Worker Role - WaWorkerHost.exe – is the Windows Azure Worker Process

Azure Storage

HTTP Headers to use on Blob Services - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dd179371.aspx
HTTP Commands on Blob Services - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dd135731.aspx

SQL Azure

Cloud Numerics – allows analytics to be performed in Azure using extended .NET libraries - here.
Cloud Numerics Blog

Azure Service Bus

Creating new service identities – SBAzTool in Windows Azure Service Bus v1.5 SDK
Service Bus is implemented on top of SQL Azure.

WCF

Turn on WCF Tracing – Azure World

Monitoring

External Party - http://www.paraleap.com/AzureWatch

BizTalk 2010: Install once and SysPrep for the team

Mick Badran — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:09:47 GMT

While currently setting up a BizTalk 2010 developer machine, I’ve got to do a couple of others to do also for the team.

I figured ‘we surely can copy/clone this’ – here’s a handy link for SysPrep and we use files from the BizTalk SDK to work the magic.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee358636.aspx

Looking forward to it.

Enjoy.

Azure: New OS v1.17 released last week

Mick Badran — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:06:12 GMT

Folks, here’s a great page showing which Azure OS and SDK applies to what version.

One to keep handy – get prepared for a v1.7 SDK release

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ee924680.aspx