DevOps is speeding towards the IT world like a freight train and the hype around it is deafening. There is no reason to be afraid of this change as it is the natural reaction to the agile movement that revolutionized development just a few years ago. By definition, DevOps is the natural alignment of IT performance to business profitability. The relevance of this has yet to be quantified but it has been suggested that the route to the CEO's chair will come from the IT leaders that successfully make the transition to a DevOps model. If this still seems foreign to you, I recommend reading up on DevOps Blog from IT Revolution, the OpsCode Blog, and check out The Phoenix Project. Despite all the talk around simple monitoring tools, breaking through the walls between Dev and Ops still poses a real challenge. This is because of a misunderstanding around Operations real purp... (more)

Cloudistics “Bronze Sponsor” of @CloudExpo | @Cloudistics #AI #DX #DevOps

SYS-CON Events announced today that Cloudistics, an on-premises cloud computing company, has been named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Cloudistics delivers a complete public cloud experience with composable on-premises infrastructures to medium and large enterprises. Its software-defined technology natively converges network, storage, compute, virtualization, and management into a single platform to drive unprecedented simplicity in the data center. Customers can start with a base infrastructure and scale to multi-site and multi-geo infrastructures with predictable economics and performance. With open and secure virtual networking, elastic storage, application orchestration and SaaS management, Cloudistics is the blueprint for ap... (more)

[slides] IaaS & PaaS | @CloudExpo @YungChou @BlueMetalInc #DevOps #AI

What, Why, and How of IaaS and PaaS The essence of cloud computing is that all consumable IT resources are delivered as services. In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Yung Chou, Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, demonstrated the concepts and implementations of two important cloud computing deliveries: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). He discussed from business and technical viewpoints what exactly they are, why we care, how they are different and in what ways, and the strategies for IT to transition into and take advantages of these emerging service models. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Speaker Bio Yung Chou is a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft. Within the company, he has had opportunities serving customers in the areas of support account management, technical support, technical sales, and evangelism. Prior to Microsoft, he h... (more)

Ongoing #DigitalTransformation | @CloudExpo #Agile #CIO #IoT #AI #ML #DL

Systems of Innovation for Ongoing Digital Transformation Information technology (IT) advances are transforming the way we innovate in business, thereby disrupting the old guard and their predictable status-quo. It’s creating global market turbulence. Industries are converging, and new opportunities and threats are emerging, like never before. So, how are savvy chief information officers (CIOs) leading this transition? Back in 2015, the IBM Institute for Business Value conducted a market study that included the findings from over 1,800 CIO interviews from around the globe. The resulting insights are worthy of revisiting today, as we consider the digital business transformation outlook in 2017. Introduction to the Torchbearer CIO CIOs realize the barriers between formerly distinct industries are collapsing, as organizations in one sector apply their expertise to others ... (more)

[slides] @Azure Immutability | @CloudExpo @JenkinsCI #DevOps #Docker

Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Config as Code vs Immutable Continuous Delivery in the Cloud In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Claude Remillard, Principal Program Manager in Developer Division at Microsoft, contrasted how his team used config as code and immutable patterns for continuous delivery of microservices and apps to the cloud. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here He showed how the immutable patterns help developers do away with most of the complexity of config as code-enabling scenarios such as rollback, zero downtime upgrades with far greater simplicity. He also demoed building immutable pipelines in the cloud using both containers and VMs. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Speaker Bio Claude Remillard is Principal Program Manager in Developer Division responsible for the DevOps and DevTest experience on Azure. He previously was President an... (more)

R Helps With Employee Churn

by Joseph Rickert Pasha Roberts, Chief Scientist at Talent Analytics, is writing a series of articles on Employee Churn for the Predictive Analytics Times that comprise a really instructive and valuable example of using R to do some basic predictive modeling. So far, Pasha has published Employee Churn 201 in which he makes a case for the importance of modeling employee churn, and Employee Churn 202 where he builds a fairly sophisticated interactive model from first principles using only RStudio and basic R functions. And, while the series is not even complete, I think that is is going to be unique because it is working well on multiple levels. In Churn 201, Pasha uses R almost incidentally, to produce the following plot that illustrates the concepts involved in understanding the costs and benefits contributed by a single employee.    At the lowest level, this is a n... (more)

Microsoft's #MachineLearning | @CloudExpo #BigData #IoT #M2M #ML #AI

How Microsoft Is Making Big Impact with Machine Learning During the last two years, Microsoft has upped the ante on Machine Learning and Analytics. From hiring top notch data scientists to acquiring niche startups, Redmond has made the all the right moves to transform Azure into one of the best analytics platforms. These investments have started to pay off for the company. It has been successful in articulating and demonstrating the value of data-driven insights to governments, medical institutions, and public sector organizations. Emerging markets that are turning technology savvy are becoming the hotbed for evaluating the upcoming trends such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. With its strong presence in India, Microsoft is partnering with the state and central government to bring the benefits of technology to the masses. The company is making Cloud,... (more)

C# Exception Handling Best Practices | @DevOpsSummit #APM #Monitoring

C# Exception Handling Best Practices By Matt Watson Welcome to Stackify's guide to C# exception handling. In this article we cover the following topics: Basics about C# Exceptions, including examples Common .NET Exceptions How to Create Your Own Custom C# Exception Types How to Find Hidden .NET Exceptions C# Exception Logging Best Practices What Is an Exception? Exceptions are a type of error that occurs during the execution of an application. Errors are typically problems that are not expected. Whereas, exceptions are expected to happen within application code for various reasons. Applications use exception handling logic to explicitly handle the exceptions when they happen.  Exceptions can occur for a wide variety of reasons. From the infamous NullReferenceException to a database query timeout. The Anatomy of C# Exceptions Exceptions allow an application to transfer... (more)

The New Microsoft | @CloudExpo @Microsoft #AI #Cloud #MachineLearning

Clearly Satya Nadella has made a huge difference at Microsoft since taking office in 2014. The stock in 2016 hit an all time high since 1999. So investors are happy. Here are the key changes he has made since taking the role as CEO: Skipped Windows 9 and went straight from Windows 8 to Windows 10, a great release. However revenues from Window is declining with the reduction of PC sales. Released Microsoft Office for iPad. Also releasing the Outlook product on iPhone & Android. Embraced Linux by joining the Linux Foundation, previously anathema to Microsoft’s window-centric culture. Spent $2.5B to buy Mojang, the studio behind hit game Minecraft. Introducing Microsoft’s first laptop, The Surface Book. Revealing Microsoft HoloLens, the super-futuristic holographic goggles. New partner program to provide Microsoft products on non-Windows platforms. Hired ex-Qualcomm e... (more)

Learn SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services

Report Builder 2.0 user interface description Read Part 2 of this article here: http://jayaramkrishnaswamy.sys-con.com/node/1227111 Report Builder is a report authoring tool and the basic procedure for authoring a report consists of the following steps: Report planning Connecting to a source of data Extracting a dataset from source Designing the report and data binding Previewing the report Although deploying the report is not included in the above, Report Builder can deploy the report as well. It is not always necessary to deploy a completed report, as any part of a report definition file can be deployed. This makes modifying a report on the server very flexible.   In the following sections, the various parts of the Report Builder interface will be described starting at the very top and going to the bottom of the interface The menu for file operations Report Bui... (more)

Microsoft Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Expo 2010 April 19-21 Javits Center

Microsoft Session at Cloud Expo SYS-CON Events announced today that Microsoft has been named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 5th International (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Register Today and Save $800 ! Explore Sponsorship Opportunities ! Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Microsoft cloud services mean freedom for businesses. The freedom to access the technology you want, where and when you want it. The freedom to take advantage of the latest technology as a capital expense, or an operational one. The freedom to focus on running your business - not running IT systems. Microsoft cloud services are Microsoft by extension: Giving you the ability to m... (more)