Cesar de la Torre
Principal Program Manager at the Azure team.
Latest posts
Creating a Windows 8 Release Preview Master VHD
You can install Windows 8 into a .VHD following a similar process (like this post I wrote) than when you install it on a raw hard drive, but if you want to have a clean master .vhd which is not related to any specific installation and machine name, and you want to re-use this master .vhd in many machines over time, then the following procedure is much better. Requirements - Windows AIK for Windows 7 (To get the imagex.exe tool) - AIK supplement for Windows 7 SP1 - Windows 8 .iso file or DVD We need the Windows AIK and complement only to get the imagex.exe. So, if you don’t have it, just install Windows AIK ...
Entity Framework Code First DbContext and SQL Azure Connection Fault Handling
I’ve been working migrating an App to Windows Azure and SQL Azure. This app is using Entity Framework 4.3 Code First and DbContext. One important point is related to the SQL Azure Conection Fault Handling. If you don’t know about this topic, you can read this explanatory info: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1541.sql-azure-connection-management-en-us.aspx Then, regarding a workaround when using Entity Framework 4.0 (based on ObjectContext), I wrote this post a few months ago: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cesardelatorre/archive/2010/12/20/handling-sql-azure-connections-iss...
Domain Driven Design (DDD) & Visual Studio 11 Beta ALM, great fit!
Domain Driven Design (DDD) is especially suitable for creating long-term LOB Apps, but usually, DDD is presented as a very patterns & architecture related subject (topics like Bounded-Contexts, Domain-Models, patterns like Repository, Aggregate, Value-Object, etc.), like we actually did in our ‘DDD Patterns Guidance with .NET’, but those are not, in fact, the most important topics when really applying DDD. Domain Driven Design is much more than Architecture and Design Patterns. It implies a specific way of working for development teams and their relationship with Domain Experts, a good identificat...
Installing Windows 8 Release Preview on a .VHD file from a bootable USB-Pen
** May 31st 2012 – UPDATE TO WINDOWS 8 RELEASE PREVIEW ** There are quite a few steps to do, so I’ll write it down for my records. Specifically, I have installed the Windows 8 Release Preview on a on a Samsung Slate Series 7 Tablet, but on a .VHD with native Boot: For more info about .VHD with Native Boot, see (Updated: May 31, 2012 Applies To: Windows 8): http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh825689.aspx Requirements: - You’ll need a USB keyboard plugged into your tablet. - A USB-Pen with at least 8 Gb. A.- INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM STEP #1 Backup your data on your Series 7. STEP ...
CQRS BUS and Windows Azure technologies
CQRS has several internal patterns and objects types like Commands, CommandHandlers, Events, EventHandlers, and a few others. In the following diagram I show a basic diagram positioning those topics: I am not going to explain CQRS philosophy here, as you can read about it in many posts from Greg Young, Udi Dahan, Martin Fowler, etc. The only thing I want to highlight before going further is that CQRS is not a top-level architecture. On the other hand, it should be used only for certain scenarios/contexts, certain areas within a complex application: Only for selected BOUNDED-CONTEXTS (in DDD lingo). The point...
Scoping CQRS and Event-Sourcing Guidance Project
I am collaborating with the patterns & practices team. We are considering doing a guidance project on implementing systems using the Command & Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) approach. This is not going to be a framework or reusable components. We are positioning this project as a learning journey and envision providing an experience report that describes building a sample app (reference implementation) to showcase various CQRS and Event Sourcing (ES) concepts & techniques. We will include explanations of various trade-offs and architectural decisions made along the way. Of course, we will pub...
Panda Security releases a free Beta version of Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0, in the Cloud, on Windows Azure!!
I publish this information because I’ve been collaborating with them on migrating their backend anti-virus system to the Microsoft PaaS cloud which is Windows Azure. They have got many benefits on doing this, like elasticity, rapid scalability, and one of the most important things, they have reduced their costs and TCO a lot!. It is a great Product for any kind of company (small or large) who would like to manage all their anti-virus in a consistent, monitorized and global way. You can try this BETA version of Panda Cloud Office Protection 6.0 downloading it from here: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers...
We completed the Microsoft Architects Forum: Enterprise & ISVs Applications on Windows Azure (Barcelona Dec. 13th & Madrid Dec. 15th)
It was a nice event exposing Windows Azure scenarios very oriented to ISVs, subjects like Multi-Tenancy, Security, Java apps on Windows Azure, etc. Additionally we had three companies (Panda-Security, Softeng and Grupo Teldat) talking about their real experience in their projects when migrating their products to Windows Azure, talking about optimizations, performance and scalability best practices. Here I post the PRESENTATIONs we talked about (in Spanish): https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=C537C2AF47F728A0&id=C537C2AF47F728A0%211027 And a few pictures of both occurrences of the event Architects Forum in ...
Architects Forum: Enterprise & ISVs Applications on Windows Azure (Barcelona Dec. 13th & Madrid Dec. 15th)
In December we’re going to deliver this free assistance event focusing on enterprise applications and architectures on Windows Azure, subjects like MULTi-TENANCY on windows Azure, and showing optimizations, scalability and load testing made by real Windows Azure customers like PANDA-SECURITY and SOFTENG. This is the Agenda (SPANISH). You can register to the events in the following pages: 1.- Architects Forum: Enterprise Applications on Windows Azure (Barcelona Dec. 13th 2011) https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032498149&Culture=es-ES 2.- Architects Forum: Enterprise Ap...