Windows Azure Development Cookbook

For the last week or so, I’ve been reading the Windows Azure Development Cookbook written by a fellow Azure MVP, Neil Mackenzie. I was actually rather pleased when Packt asked if I would be willing to review the book as I’d been meaning to pick up a copy and read through it but hadn’t yet.

I should admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the front matter or explanation of the book and just dove right in. I mention this only because it was a bit jolting due to the fact that (as could easily be gleaned from the title) this is a cookbook. This means that there is not a lot of un-necessary ensemble, but rather a collection of highly focused technical nuggets. While this structure became obvious rather quickly, I decided to continue on and read it straight through just to see what I learned.

I appreciated the fact that the book was devoid of a large section of text dedicated to the now-worn-out question of “what is cloud computing”. Nor was there any prologue describing Windows Azure to be found. Instead, the assumption (I presume) is that if you’ve picked up the book, you likely know the answer to both of those questions (within reason) and simply need help getting past some of nuances of the platform. If this describes you, this book is for you.

Light on fluff, heavy on details, this is a solid book that deals with a number of real-world issues using the Azure platform. This book works great as a reference tool: have a problem, look it up in the index or table of contents, read the recipe, put it back on the shelf.

One of the things that impressed me about the book was Neil’s work to point the reader to external resources. There were a number of places where there is something along the lines of “for a more detailed explanation of topic X, visit person Y’s website at http://….” [and, in case you are wondering, this comment was not influenced by Neil’s excellent external references on blob storage interactions… at least not much] Further, I thought that the pointing of the reader to external tools and libraries that were not necessarily required to solve the stated problem but add significant value to the actual solution was great (such as the library for handling connection failures when working with SQL Azure and AppFabric). It is attention to detail such as this that gives the reader confidence that the author wasn’t just pounding out tasks to meet a deadline but rather was sharing solutions that he had used to solve real-world problems.

Taking a more critical view of the book, I’d mention just a few things. The first is that there are a number of key points that begin with “Note:” or something similar that have key tips that are very important to the success of the recipe however (at least in the eBook version I have) they are easily lost in the rest of the text. This is likely due to the format/structure of the book and the intention is for you to read one recipe end-to-end and be done rather than reading start to finish as I did, but I would encourage the reader to be sure to read the entire recipe text and not just copy/paste the code. Neil often uses the code to teach concepts and if you just copy the code you will miss this instruction.

My second criticism is that there are a number of places in the text where the author says something along the lines of “xyz is related to this. See the Using XYZ recipe for details”. While not possible in the print copy, it would have been great in the eBook version for these to be hyperlinks to the referenced section

Being that it is a first edition, there are also a few places where there are minor errors such as task numbers not lining up exactly with the numbers used in the related “how it works” section, but in such cases it was rather easy to intuit what was being referred to and didn’t detract from the book.

All told, it is a good book and I’d quickly recommend it as a reference tool for Azure developers.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was sent a copy of the book and asked to read it and post a review.

Windows Azure Handbook: v1

Earlier this year, a fellow Windows Azure MVP, David Pallmann wrote the first book in series on Windows Azure. For whatever reason, I started reading the book with a great deal of skepticism (fast moving technology, books are outdated long before they reach press, etc.) but was pleasantly surprised with the strong business relevance of this book.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most any consultant working in the Azure field (and other cloud fields as well) should take the time to read this book. There are a number of worksheets and thought processes that David walks through that illustrate a maturity (i.e. lack of hype) to the cloud engagement process.

Of particular interest to me were the later chapters that moved a bit away from the technology specifics and more on the reasoning behind why one would consider a move to the cloud, what should be considered, how to identify good/bad cloud application candidates, how to plan an effective pilot, etc.

Moving Applications To The Cloud with Windows Azure

I just finished reading a book from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group called Moving Applications to the Cloud on the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform. I’ve had the book for a few months, and my when I first received it, I read the first chapter or two, decided it wasn’t worth the read, and set it aside.

Lately, however, I picked it up again – finished the book, and am glad I did. Don’t get be wrong, it didn’t magically morph into a superb spectacle of literary greatness, but I did find that as I read further, the authors moved further from the very basics of the Windows Azure platform and the content became increasingly interesting.

If you are new (or relatively so) to the Windows Azure platform and contemplating the moving of existing applications to the cloud, this is a worthwhile discussion of a fictitious scenario that did just that. The scenario is slightly on the cheesy side, but realistic enough to help you think through issues you may be facing in your business.

If you are well experienced with the platform, you will likely find this a bit dry – especially the first portions. You’ll also likely be distracted or bothered by the not-so-covert marketing that takes place. That said, the book covers some more complex topics such as multiple tasks/threads sharing the same physical worker role, various optimization topics, and more. In the end, I’m glad I read it and feel that I learned some things from the book.

My last thought has nothing to do specifically with the book, but rather a growing frustration of mine with the Windows Azure platform – the design of the table storage platform. Upon reading books such as this I’m reminded (they stress it *many* times) how important your partition key/row key strategy is, and how literally hosed you are if you get it wrong. This compares with my recent experiences with Amazon’s SimpleDB product, and the delta couldn’t be more striking. Both platforms solve essentially the same problem, but in the case of SDB, it is effortless (at least by comparison). I don’t have to think of partition keys, or be overly concerned with how the underlying storage platform works… I just put data in it. Additionally, *every* column is indexed and performs reasonably under queries. I can’t shake the feeling that the Azure team is missing it here – there has to be a way to get a well-designed, horizontally scaling table structure without placing such a design burden on the users.

Book Review: Host Your Web Site In The Cloud

Over the holiday break I spent some time getting ready for the cloud computing precompiler at CodeMash and as part of that effort I read Jeff Barr’s Host Your Web Site In The Cloud, Amazon Web Services Made Easy. This book is one of the few physical paper books I’ve gotten recently, and is unique to me in that it is the only book I have that is signed by the author.

That aside, I’d like to recommend this book to anyone who is looking at Amazon Web Services, or would consider themselves a beginner with AWS. I found the writing style to be very easy to read and, while I’m not a PHP developer, the code samples and walkthroughs were clear and simple to follow.

AWS is a fast moving target, and even though Jeff is on the team, I’m certain it was difficult to get a book to market that wasn’t completely outdated by the time it hit the shelves, but I think he does a good job of addressing the basics, providing a foundation on which you can build your knowledge, and even slips in a few notes regarding late breaking updates (as of press time) such as EC2 instances being bootable from EBS.

In my mind, this book is similar to the Windows Azure Training Kit in that it gives you most everything you need to get your feed wet, get rolling with the technology, and provides you with the framework by which you can add to your skills.