London Windows Azure User Group

The new London Windows Azure User Group got off to a great start on Tuesday evening. I counted, including the latecomers, 44 people which is not at all bad for a brand new group. There were a few guys from the Azure Bootcamp I ran about 10 days ago but the others were all folks who were interested to find out more about this platform and to commune with other like-minded souls. One guy even travelled from Manchester. For those of you from outside the UK – that’s a 3.5 to 4 hour drive, possibly longer at that time of day…

Andy Cross outlined the aims of the group, its status as a non-profit organisation and the need for people to help make it work and of course more sponsors.

Andy Cross – co-founder of the London Windows Azure User Group

It was then down to business with Richard Conway presenting on the Windows Azure Service Management API.

Richard Conway, co-founder of the London Windows Azure User Group talks about the Service Management API.

With its base in ReST and all the string manipulation, you may have thought it was difficult, but when he showed what the storage classes shield us from with their API… I guess we’re luckier than we realise!

You can download Richard’s slides. I did try to capture him on video, unfortunately the audio quality ranges from excellent (the times when the radio mic was working) to poor (when it stopped and I was forced to use the on-camera mic). I might post it anyway depending on demand, please tell me if you are interested. It will be difficult listening but if you really want to know what he said – well, I’m afraid it’s the only way…

Next, Andy talked about Windows Azure Diagnostics. You can download Andy’s slides too. He covered some of the tricky stuff, like the idea of a fluent API for diagnostics and also the way you need to manage what happens with the diagnostic setup when an instance in Windows Azure is recycled…. Again, I attempted to capture it all on video but this time the audio was even worse. There was none at all! You can see from the couple of photos above, I did manage to retrieve a couple of stills from the video though!

It was a great place to hold a user group: etc.venues in Bonhill street in London. Great food – not what you’d call the usual user-group food, that’s for sure. Plenty of beer for everybody too. I don’t drink but my life was made more exciting by the fizz in the water! Oh and of course the company of a group of developers all excited by Windows Azure!

Next meeting is on the 10th January. You can register at the LWAUG web site. It’d be great to se you there. Come and say hi… I hope to have video problems sorted out by then…

Planky – GBR-257