Free Windows Azure in-person training (UK)

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There is still time to book on to the free Windows Azure half-day bootcamp running on 4th May at the Microsoft Campus in Reading, England. You can select either morning or afternoon.

If you’ve never played with Windows Azure, never written an app, never looked at the architecture or tried to understand SQL Azure and you want a quick and efficient way to get yourself up to speed with the basics so you can go on to bigger and better things – this is the perfect way to spend half a day.

It’ll be a fairly pacey half-day with hands-on labs included.

You’ll build a simple Windows Azure application which will involve multiple compute-instances in a web role, multiple compute-instances in a worker role, Windows Azure storage and SQL Azure. You’ll deploy it to the cloud and you can then go on to modify it at your leisure once you’ve left the bootcamp.

I talked about it in a previous post. But here are the registration details:

Windows Azure Half-Day Bootcamps

If you are a UK developer looking to take advantage of cloud computing, but you haven’t yet taken the plunge, this free half-day of training is the quickest way to get up-to-speed with Microsoft’s offering; Windows Azure. We’ll take you from knowing nothing about the cloud to actually having written some code, deployed it to the cloud service and made a simple application available on the public Internet. You’ll get all the information you need to get up to speed with Windows Azure in a packaged and compressed form, ready for your consumption, without having to trawl through books, blogs and articles on your own. There will be experienced people available to guide you through each exercise. Once you have the basics in place, you’ll be off and running.

To get your applications running, you’ll need an Azure subscription, so we’ll issue you with a special free pass that will entitle you to 4 compute instances, 3 GB of storage, 2 * 1GB Web Edition databases and more. You’ll be able to do some quite elaborate learning and testing even after you’ve left the training course. You do not need a credit card to activate this free pass.

Pre-requisites:

· A wireless-enabled laptop with either Visual Web Developer Express or Visual Studio 2010 installed along with the Windows Azure SDK and Tools version 1.4 (including the SDK pre-requisites):

· NET Framework 3.5 SP1

· IIS 7.0 (with ASP.NET, WCF HTTP Activation, Static Content, IIS Management Console and optionally CGI)

· Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 R2 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005

· Bring the power supply, you will be using the laptop all day.

· A basic knowledge of programming concepts and familiarity with Visual Studio

· A basic knowledge of web-programming and how Internet applications work

· An understanding of the Microsoft web-stack (Windows Server, IIS, basic security etc.)

When you walk away from this bootcamp, you can either de-activate the Azure application before you leave, or leave it running so that when you get home you can continue with your Windows Azure coding adventures. In any case you will walk away with the code you’ve written on your laptop and an ability to modify it, test it locally on your laptop and deploy it to your free Windows Azure subscription any time you choose.

4 hours; half a day:

  1. Registration and Coffee
  2. Windows Azure Introduction – architecture, roles, storage.
  3. First Lab: Hello World Windows Azure Web Role and deploying to your free Windows Azure subscription
  4. Second Lab: Using Windows Azure Storage
  5. Third Lab: Worker Role and how to use Windows Azure Storage to communicate between roles.
  6. Break, phone calls, coffee…
  7. Introduction to SQL Azure
  8. Lab: Using SQL Azure with a Windows Azure application
  9. Review and wrap-up

To register go to one of these URLs:

Event: UK Tech Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032481491 – 4th May 2011, AM)
Location: Thames Valley Park, Reading, UK

Event: UK Tech.Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032481495 – 4th May 2011, PM )
Location: Thames Valley Park, Reading, UK

Event: UK Tech Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032481492 – 12th May 2011, AM )
Location: Thames Valley Park, Reading, UK

Event: UK Tech.Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032481496 – 12th May 2011, PM )
Location: Thames Valley Park, Reading, UK

Event: UK Tech.Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032481635 – 27th May 2011, AM )
Location: Cardinal Place, London, UK

Event: UK Tech.Days 2011 - Windows Azure Bootcamp (1032482519 – 27th May 2011, PM )
Location: Cardinal Place, London, UK

Planky – GBR-257