DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO's chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project. Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real purp... (more)

[slides] IaaS & PaaS | @CloudExpo @YungChou @BlueMetalInc #DevOps #AI

What, Why, and How of IaaS and PaaS The essence of cloud computing is that all consumable IT resources are delivered as services. In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Yung Chou, Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, demonstrated the concepts and implementations of two important cloud computing deliveries: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). He discussed from business and technical viewpoints what exactly they are, why we care, how they are different and in what ways, and the strategies for IT to transition into and take advantages of these emerging service models. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Speaker Bio Yung Chou is a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft. Within the company, he has had opportunities serving customers in the areas of support account management, technical support, technical sales, and evangelism. Prior to Microsoft, he h... (more)

Ongoing #DigitalTransformation | @CloudExpo #Agile #CIO #IoT #AI #ML #DL

Systems of Innovation for Ongoing Digital Transformation Information technology (IT) advances are transforming the way we innovate in business, thereby disrupting the old guard and their predictable status-quo. It’s creating global market turbulence. Industries are converging, and new opportunities and threats are emerging, like never before. So, how are savvy chief information officers (CIOs) leading this transition? Back in 2015, the IBM Institute for Business Value conducted a market study that included the findings from over 1,800 CIO interviews from around the globe. The resulting insights are worthy of revisiting today, as we consider the digital business transformation outlook in 2017. Introduction to the Torchbearer CIO CIOs realize the barriers between formerly distinct industries are collapsing, as organizations in one sector apply their expertise to others ... (more)

C# Exception Handling Best Practices | @DevOpsSummit #APM #Monitoring

C# Exception Handling Best Practices By Matt Watson Welcome to Stackify's guide to C# exception handling. In this article we cover the following topics: Basics about C# Exceptions, including examples Common .NET Exceptions How to Create Your Own Custom C# Exception Types How to Find Hidden .NET Exceptions C# Exception Logging Best Practices What Is an Exception? Exceptions are a type of error that occurs during the execution of an application. Errors are typically problems that are not expected. Whereas, exceptions are expected to happen within application code for various reasons. Applications use exception handling logic to explicitly handle the exceptions when they happen.  Exceptions can occur for a wide variety of reasons. From the infamous NullReferenceException to a database query timeout. The Anatomy of C# Exceptions Exceptions allow an application to transfer... (more)

[slides] @Azure Immutability | @CloudExpo @JenkinsCI #DevOps #Docker

Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Config as Code vs Immutable Continuous Delivery in the Cloud In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Claude Remillard, Principal Program Manager in Developer Division at Microsoft, contrasted how his team used config as code and immutable patterns for continuous delivery of microservices and apps to the cloud. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here He showed how the immutable patterns help developers do away with most of the complexity of config as code-enabling scenarios such as rollback, zero downtime upgrades with far greater simplicity. He also demoed building immutable pipelines in the cloud using both containers and VMs. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Speaker Bio Claude Remillard is Principal Program Manager in Developer Division responsible for the DevOps and DevTest experience on Azure. He previously was President an... (more)

Microsoft's #MachineLearning | @CloudExpo #BigData #IoT #M2M #ML #AI

How Microsoft Is Making Big Impact with Machine Learning During the last two years, Microsoft has upped the ante on Machine Learning and Analytics. From hiring top notch data scientists to acquiring niche startups, Redmond has made the all the right moves to transform Azure into one of the best analytics platforms. These investments have started to pay off for the company. It has been successful in articulating and demonstrating the value of data-driven insights to governments, medical institutions, and public sector organizations. Emerging markets that are turning technology savvy are becoming the hotbed for evaluating the upcoming trends such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. With its strong presence in India, Microsoft is partnering with the state and central government to bring the benefits of technology to the masses. The company is making Cloud,... (more)

Why .NET Deployment Automation Is Vital for Agility

Why .NET Deployment Automation Is Vital for Agility By Ron Gidron Developing and deploying large-scale .NET-based applications can quickly become a time-consuming and error-prone process, as you waste resources and expose yourself to the risk of failure and diminished employee satisfaction. It may seem a trivial task at first, but as .NET development is scaled to hundreds of applications and thousands of servers, its deployment must be automated like any other process if you are to achieve enterprise-wide agility. It's time to take action. Use Cases As your .NET code base and your number of applications grow, .NET deployment automation becomes a bigger challenge and many aspects need to be considered. Here are two examples of what may be required for a .NET deployment automation scenario: Scenario 1 Windows Services Workflow deploys application, creates Windows ser... (more)

The New Microsoft | @CloudExpo @Microsoft #AI #Cloud #MachineLearning

Clearly Satya Nadella has made a huge difference at Microsoft since taking office in 2014. The stock in 2016 hit an all time high since 1999. So investors are happy. Here are the key changes he has made since taking the role as CEO: Skipped Windows 9 and went straight from Windows 8 to Windows 10, a great release. However revenues from Window is declining with the reduction of PC sales. Released Microsoft Office for iPad. Also releasing the Outlook product on iPhone & Android. Embraced Linux by joining the Linux Foundation, previously anathema to Microsoft’s window-centric culture. Spent $2.5B to buy Mojang, the studio behind hit game Minecraft. Introducing Microsoft’s first laptop, The Surface Book. Revealing Microsoft HoloLens, the super-futuristic holographic goggles. New partner program to provide Microsoft products on non-Windows platforms. Hired ex-Qualcomm e... (more)

IoT Is the New #BigData | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

My favorite writer, Gil Press, sums it up with, “It’s Official: The Internet Of Things Takes Over Big Data As The Most Hyped Technology” where he talks about how Gartner released its latest Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, and how big data has moved down the “trough of disillusionment,” replaced by the Internet of Things at the top of the hype cycle. The term Internet of Things was coined by the British technologist Kevin Ashton in 1999, to describe a system where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors. Today, the huge amounts of data we are producing and the advances in mobile technologies are bringing the idea of Internet connected devices into our homes and daily lives. Definitions of IoT Has Expanded Internet of Things was a popular concept dating far back to articles like  Scientific American in 2004. RFID and sensor techno... (more)

The #IoT and DNS | @ThingsExpo #BigData #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

JANUARY 8, 2014 02:00 PM EST When we talk about the impact of BYOD and BYOA and the Internet of Things, we often focus on the impact on data center architectures. That's because there will be an increasing need for authentication, for access control, for security, for application delivery as the number of potential endpoints (clients, devices, things) increases. That means scale in the data center. What we gloss over, what we skip, is that before any of these "things" ever makes a request to access an application it had to execute a DNS query. Every. Single. Thing. Maybe that's because we assume DNS can handle the load. So far it's done well. You rarely, if ever, hear of disruptions or outages due directly to the execution of DNS. Oh, there has been some issues with misconfiguration of DNS and of exploitation of DNS (hijacking, illicit use in reflection attacks, et... (more)

Thinking About Enterprise Mobility, Digital Transformation and Doctrine

Last week I was in Europe speaking and teaching enterprise mobility and digital transformation strategies.  I worked with several large multinational companies where I heard the same questions asked, "How do we convince our executives that we must change, and invest in change?  How do we establish a culture of innovation, capable of winning in a world of digital transformation?"  The change they were referring to had to do with the convergence of the physical world with the digital and its impact on markets.  These changes are introducing new ways of selling, marketing, manufacturing and moving products in a digital world that is rapidly being transformed as a result of innovations in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies.  We are seeing entire industries and marketplaces turned upside down as a result of these innovations.  How can companies deal with ... (more)