Developer Support
Advocacy and Innovation
Latest posts
Passive is good!
Here’s a quick read from Premier Developer consultant Marius Rochon’s blog. In it, Marius gives some great reasons to leverage passive authentication protocols in your applications rather than writing your own code to handle credentials. Some time back I wrote about avoiding handling of credentials (creation/maintenance/verification of user names, passwords, pins, etc.) in your own application code, but rather delegating that functionality to a specialized, external identity provider (IdP; http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mrochon/archive/2014/12/02/should-an-application-handle-user-credentials.aspx). This aversi...
How Microsoft does DevOps
In this blog post, Application Development Manager, Justin Wendlandt, shares a bit about DevOps strategy, why it’s important, and common areas Premier Developer can help your teams. One of the core focuses at every enterprise or technology organization is how to deliver more business value to their sponsors. It may be phrased differently depending on who you ask. Some statements I hear are, “we need to do more with less”, “release features more often” or my favorite, “build software faster”. In today’s cloud-first, mobile-first world technology companies are stuck between features that their b...
Watch the BUILD 2016 Live Stream
Microsoft continues to focus on enabling developers to do amazing work as businesses and industries transform in support of the shift to a cloud-first, mobile-first world. At Build 2016 we will present the latest tools and technologies and how they can help today's developers be their most creative and productive. As always, Build is filled with strong technical sessions as well as opportunities to meet and learn from others in the industry. Watch the LIVE STREAM on Channel 9, starting March 30 @ 8:30am PST.
Workflow Manager 1.0 Refresh Disaster Recovery (further) Explained
Premier Developer Consultant Brian Gregor recently took some time on his blog to document his experiences implementing disaster recovery for Workflow Manager. The following is an excerpt from his post, get the full story over at Brian’s blog Nose to the GrindStone: With the release of SharePoint 2013, Microsoft released a new platform for workflows called Workflow Manager (WFM). As of this writing the current version is 1.0 Cumulative Update 3. Unfortunately disaster recovery (DR) for this product is not as straight forward as just setting up database replication. Following are a list of resources I...
Strategic Partnerships in an Agile World
Bryan Towne, Sr. Application Development Manager, discusses the advantages of strategic partnership in this fast moving technical landscape. You should expect more. Here’s why. What is a strategic partner? In the course of my professional career I have had interactions with customers of all types. Some were small, independent software vendors (ISVs) and some were large enterprise customers. At times, these environments were mature in process and strategy. Other times, the environments felt like an exercise in firefighting and damage mitigation. In all cases, what set each apart in terms of success wa...
Developer’s Guide to Automated Install of ADFS On Windows Server 2016 (TP4)
In a recent article on his blog, Premier Developer Consultant Razi Rais outlines the steps required to set up a developer environment instance of Active Directory Federation Services on the current Technical Preview (TP4) of Windows Server 2016. Here’s a snippet of Razi’s article, be sure to follow the link to his blog for the full solution, including code samples: Recently I’ve run into situations where I have to build a developer environment that needs Active Directory Federation Services [ADFS] running on Windows Server 2016 [currently in technical preview 4, hence w2k16-tp4,]. I am int...
Microsoft Embracing Open Source
Senior ADM, Brian Keyes spotlights the momentum of Microsoft embracing Open Source software and recommends you to take a moment to peruse the official Microsoft GitHub collection of repositories. As of today there are 21 pages of repositories. Roughly 400 projects. Included are the source code for the Edge JavaScript engine, the source code for the amazing TypeScript, as well as the source for VS Code. Check out the full article here. Premier Support for Developers provides strategic technology guidance, critical support coverage, and a range of essential services to help teams optimize developm...
Changing user password in Azure AD using GraphAPI
Recently, Premier Developer Consultant Marius Rochon posted this article on his blog regarding changing passwords in Azure AD that may be helpful to those of you facing this specific scenario in your applications: If this is something you are facing, read the rest of Marius’ article here for the solution, including a code sample: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mrochon/archive/2016/02/12/changing-user-password-in-azure-ad-using-graphapi.aspx
US Workshops, Webcasts, and Tech Talks – February 2016 Update
Premier Support for Developers provides access to a wide range of advisory and training options that include most popular developer technologies. Options range from onsite, instructor-led workshops to remote training, and even access to a distinguished team of Developer Consultants for specialized advisory needs. Content frequently includes proven practices established through the support of Microsoft’s largest customers. Teams struggle to keep up with the latest technology trends, so training and knowledge transfer are important investments to build the expertise required for optimal application and...