Local software installations

Last week blog, I was talking about free trial version of extra small instance, supplied by Microsoft Azure team. To start the journey, desktop is loaded with Windows 7 OS (Ultimate version) with 32 bit processing mode. Hardware spec contains Intel i3 processor, 4 GB RAM and 500 GB disk drives.

Once the desktop and OS is ready, next question is ‘where did azure get started?’ As far as azure software application development is concerned, Microsoft supports various languages like Java, Python, PHP, .NET, etc. I’ve little knowledge in .NET when compared to others and so installed Visual Studio 2010 IDE (Integrated Development Environment) targeting C# code. Visual Studio 2010 is the first software installation step.

Next major step is to install Tools and SDK. SDK stands for Software Development Kit. To develop Azure application, we need to install Azure SDK, supplied by Microsoft Azure team. Itz freely download able at azure download page. Installation is pretty simple wizard to run thro.

After Azure SDK, we need to install the tools for Visual Studio 2010. Itz also pretty straight forward to install. Logically, thatz it. Set and ready to launch!

Logically; but reality itz a big boom. What happened? I got few interesting error not to allow the installation steps. Why? Few pre requisite were missing. Whatz that?

After VS2010 installation, first enable IIS 7.0 with ASP .NET settings. As the second step, we need to do the proper SDK installation based on the local system either 32 bit SDK (x86) or 64 bit SDK (x64). Third step is to install the hotfixes for VisualStudio (KB983301) and Windows (KB981002) based on the underlying OS bits (x86 or x64). Fourth step is setup the next generation identity framework Windows Identity Framework(WIF), which enables identity and access management solution built on Active Directory (AD). Fifth step is to install ApplicationFabric SDK, which comprises of access control and service bus.

After the above vital 5 steps, Windows Azure tools for Visual Studio installs successfully and the development environment is ready to launch!

Web coding threat

Cloud computing is based on the Internet landscape. The threats within the Internet may be growing, but our ability to write efficient web secured code provides a significant advantage to the end users.

Microsoft pattern and practices talks about improving web application security: Threats and Countermeasures gives you a solid foundation for designing, building, and configuring secure ASP.NET Web applications. Whether you have existing applications or are building new ones, you can apply the guidance to help you make sure that your Web applications are hack-resilient. Itz published at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649874.aspx

It shows you how to review code built using the .NET Framework for potential security vulnerabilities. It shows you the specific review questions to ask and discusses the tools that you should use. In addition to general coding considerations, it contains review questions to help you review your applications for cross-site scripting, SQL injection and buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Code reviews should be a regular part of your development process. Security code reviews focus on identifying insecure coding techniques and vulnerability that could lead to security issues. The review goal is to identify as many potential security vulnerability as possible before the code is deployed. The cost and effort of fixing security flaws at development time is far less than fixing them later in the product deployment cycle.

Cloud Essentials

Few of my blog followers, motivated me to shift the gear from .NET Framework internals to the latest topic. Hmmm.

I had little aspiration to make my hands dirty on Azure platform.Coincidentally, Microsoft launched a new deal for the free Windows Azure Platform Trial till June 30th, 2011. This developer motivating deal comprises the listed benefits.
Compute: 750 hours of an Extra Small Compute Instance, 25 hours of a Small Instance
Storage: 500MB, 10k Storage transactions
Data Transfers: 500MB in / 500MB out
Relational Database: 1G Web Edition SQLAzure database (for 90 days only)
Access Control transactions: 100k
Service Bus connections: 2

Additional drives are thro industry news like Azure has 31K customers. Information week quotes an article that Microsoft's Azure cloud data center outside Chicago was able to execute the required steps in 10.142 seconds. It named Azure as the faster cloud service on comparison of 13 vendors ('http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300184&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News')

With all the above drivers, letz kick start this series. Any cloud component either hardware or software, contains 5 essential characteristics
1. On Demand self service
Without interacting the service provider, the customer should be able to add/delete the required resources on few clicks.
2. Broad Network access
Serviced resources are executed via wire/internet; not as client based usage.
3. Rapid Elasticity
Rapidly scaling is facilitated to meet the customer demand within a verylittle time frame.
4. Resource Pooling
Shared usage at multi tenant policy like car pool
5. Measured service
Metered charges based on the usage by the customer need.

Cloud computing provides 3 service models. They are (a) SaaS(Software as a Service) (b) PaaS (Platform as a Service) (c) IaaS (Infra as a Service). They adhere to the above listed 5 essential characteristics.

On lighter side, home R&D environment is getting launched and ready for Azure (Microsoft Cloud) coding!

CTS Spec

Types expose functionality to your applications and other types. Types are the mechanism by which code written in one programming language can talk to code written in a different programming language.

Because types are at the root of the CLR, Microsoft created a formal specification—the Common Type System (CTS)—that describes how types are defined and how they behave.

The CTS specification states that a type can contain zero or more members.

• Field A data variable that is part of the object’s state. Fields are identified by their name and type.
• Method A function that performs an operation on the object, often changing the object’s state. Methods have a name, a signature, and modifiers. The signature specifies the number of parameters (and their sequence), the types of the parameters, whether a value is returned by the method, and if so, the type of the value returned by the method.
• Property To the caller, this member looks like a field. But to the type implementer, it looks like a method (or two). Properties allow an implementer to validate input parameters and object state before accessing the value and/or calculating a value only when necessary. They also allow a user of the type to have simplified syntax. Finally, properties allow you to create read-only or write-only “fields."
• Event An event allows a notification mechanism between an object and other interested objects. For example, a button could offer an event that notifies other objects when the button is clicked.

Publisher Policy

In general, the publisher of an assembly simply sent a new version of the assembly to the administrator, who installed the assembly and manually edited the application’s or machine’s XML configuration files. In general, when a publisher fixes a bug in an assembly, the publisher would like an easy way to package and distribute the new assembly to all of the users. But the publisher also needs a way to tell each user’s CLR to use the new assembly version instead of the old assembly version. Sure, each user could modify his or her application’s or machine’s XML configuration file, but this is terribly inconvenient and error prone. What the publisher needs is a way to create policy information that is installed on the user’s computer when the new assembly is installed.

A publisher policy assembly is a way for a publisher to make a statement about the compatibility of different versions of an assembly. If a new version of an assembly isn't intended to be compatible with an earlier version, the publisher shouldn't create a publisher policy assembly. In general, use a publisher policy assembly when you build a new version of your assembly that fixes a bug. You should test the new version of the assembly for backward compatibility. On the other hand, if you’re adding new features to your assembly, you should consider the assembly to have no relationship to a previous version, and you shouldn't ship a publisher policy assembly. In addition, there’s no need to do any backward compatibility testing with such an assembly.

.NET Culture

Like version numbers, assemblies also have a culture as part of their identity. Cultures are identified via a string that contains a primary and a secondary tag. As the samples, German's

Primary Tag-de and CH as Secondary Tag; for British English itz en GB

In general, if you create an assembly that contains code, you don’t assign a culture to it. This is because code doesn’t usually have any culture-specific assumptions built into it. An assembly that isn’t assigned a culture is referred to as being culture neutral.

Now you can create one or more separate assemblies that contain only culture-specific resources—no code at all. Assemblies that are marked with a culture are called satellite assemblies. For these satellite assemblies, assign a culture that accurately reflects the culture of the resources placed in the assembly. You should create one satellite assembly for each culture you intend to support.

You’ll usually use the AL.exe tool to build a satellite assembly. You won’t use a compiler because the satellite assembly should have no code contained within it. When using AL.exe, you specify the desired culture by using the /c[ulture]:text switch, where text is a string such as “en-US,” representing U.S. English. When you deploy a satellite assembly, you should place it in a subdirectory whose name matches the culture text.

If you prefer, you can specify the culture by using the System.Reflection. AssemblyCultureAttribute custom attribute instead of using AL.exe’s /culture switch as

[assembly:AssemblyCulture("en-US")]

Salute to Master

CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) honoured me by inviting to share the recent technology in IT industry. Itz 2 days South India conference. On Thursday (3rd Feb), I shared the latest technology in Microsoft platform.

Though I used to take sessions to college student community frequently, this is the first time in my life to run an official conference. To be frank, itz kind of bit nervous during the inaugural function. They had 2 industry speakers per day. During the inaugural process, I was one of the celebrity for the lighting (kuthu vilaku) event. After the official introduction, the huge conference stage was only to me. My agenda was to share overview at 11-12:30, 3-4 deep dive and 5-5:30 hands on demo. In between, the other speaker covered.

On attending some interactive, impressive, inspiring sessions in my career, I thought of following the same methodology. Took the packet collar mike, walked inside the crowd, asked few interactive questions, shared reward(jst choc) to them. Sessions reached quite well. My prof Ms TamilSelvi was part of the crowd and enjoyed the transition in her product on last 20 years.

Committee shared a wonderful momento with overwhelming positive feedback and standing applause from the audience. When they shared vote of thanks at EOD (End Of the Day), I requested few mins for me. Exact script was as below:

• Itz immense pleasure for me to get this opportunity. Thanx to everyone in this conf.
• Exactly 2 decades ago, same person don't know how to speak cont in English, how to draft the presentation, how to connect audience. Today's credit goes to all my mentors especially my first one Prof TamilSelvi
• Thanx everyone!

On seeing my prof in 3rd row, she is full of tears (with joy). Jst before leaving conf, I told her that we used to feel proud when our IT products are appreciated by end customers. And today itz your turn, Mam. One of the glourious moments in my life. Salute to true masters!

PS: On Feb 1991 (2nd year of UG), I was selected for my first tech presentation (RISC/CISC) in TCE, Madurai. Felt worried and reluctant. My prof coached/groomed for 2 weeks to host on the stage. Now, itz Feb 2011.