Microsoft Azure Cloud Computing Workshop

Introduction

This workshop is part of the Microsoft Azure for Research programme - http://www.azure4research.com

You can apply for Azure Awards every two months, comprising 180,000 compute hours and 20TB storage for 12 months - see http://research.microsoft.com/en-US/projects/azure/awards.aspx

Microsoft Azure is a general, open, and flexible global cloud platform supporting any language, tool, or framework - including Linux, Java, Python, and other non-Microsoft technologies. It is ideally suited to researchers’ needs across disciplines. The workshop is intended specifically for active scientists who can code, who will soon code, or are interested in coding in a modern computing context. Attendees will be able to access Microsoft Azure on their own laptop during the training and for evaluation purposes for up to three months after the event. The attendee’s laptop does not need to have the Windows operating system installed—Microsoft Azure is accessed via your Internet browser.

This workshop will allow you to:

• Gain an understanding of cloud computing and why and when you would use it in scientific or other research
• Acquire hands-on experience in the major design patterns for successful cloud applications, including virtual machines, web sites, cloud storage, big data, streaming data, and visualisation
• Develop the skills to run your own application/services on Microsoft Azure

Workshop Preparation

Microsoft Azure is mainly accessed through a modern HTML5 web browser, and through REST APIs from any operating system (Linux, Mac and Windows 7+).

Before the workshop please:

• Download the full course material, including walkthroughs and source code:
  • http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/UM/redmond/projects/azure/Azure-training-course-0.72.zip

If you have time, also please install the following software,

Software on Linux and Mac: =

• Mac: use remote desktop client from the App Store. (version 8+)
• Linux: Remmina http://remmina.sourceforge.net/ or FreeRDP http://www.freerdp.com/
• Python and Windows Azure Python SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/python/common-tasks/install-python/
• Windows Azure Cross Platform Command Line Interface - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/install-and-configure-cli/
• Git, ssh and other normal useful Unix tools.

Software on Windows:

• Putty (ssh client) on Windows:
  • Install putty package http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty-0.63-installer.exe

Storage tools on Windows:

• Azure Storage Explorer 5 Preview or better http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/
• AzCopy http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2013/09/07/azcopy-transfer-data-with-re-startable-mode-and-sas-token.aspx
• FTP client such as FileZilla https://filezilla-project.org/ or WinSCP http://winscp.net/eng/download.php
• Azure explorer http://www.cerebrata.com/labs/azure-explorer [Optional]
• Azure Management Studio [Optional] http://www.cerebrata.com/products/overview. Email msr@cerebrata.com for a free full license. ($199 retail) [optional]