Cloud Search

Search is a mechanism of finding information or large collection of information mostly text or sometime images as well, if you want to search something you type some text probably called unstructured text and you get the refined result down the page- this search mechanism always been an important phase in any application development, whereas it takes time too, Search functionally can be composed of searching text, documents or images or we could say it –"information".

Recently Amazon has released a web based -cloud search service -for anyone to use and it's a bundled search functionality, what you need to do jut little tweaking like upload your data , configure search component, so your user could be entertained once they send search queries, and get the most relevant result as well. So Amazon search service if configured properly – could give full capabilities of finding information without writing code for search complement.

And because this service is given on cloud so you do not need to manage infrastructure for this search service, so amazon cloud search is basically a cloud based service where you do not need to manage its traffic or software packages etc.- just pay for amazon cloud search service and use its management console and configure search component to find relevant result.

You need to configure its search functionality where you set up number of things:
 whether it's  a full text search, or structure data or Boolean search including different fields can be used for search result- and you define these parameter using AWS management console.
Once you completed this process then you just need to upload data as well.

Office for iPad

If you are power user of ipad and use it frequently in your life where you have desperate need to manage word document and excel sheet and power point, there are many applications you can create document and presentation online –but it always take time to use so many applications for managing files online and probably you switch your application too later on- if you are not happy with the application, this ends with time consuming process where if you have anything like professional online application or Microsoft office for ipad so you can create documents and power point presentations online using Microsoft word and create excel sheet and power point documents using cloudon service.

Microsoft has also released different versions of office, but this time it’s  available on cloud via ipad. Just get drop box account if you are not familiar with this drop box service – so we have used it and found it impressive- it is used to manage your files online- you can get an account on dropbox and then done and yes you need iPad too- if you want Microsoft office for ipad- you can try this version of office which is quite impressive to access service just visit or google cloudon. And you will get the best office application for ipad.

What is JQuery

You might have seen various websites having different animation or I should say rich effects and rich user interface – traditionally web designer has been using JavaScript for any dynamic effect and its client side technology that runs on client side, now people has been using different technology that handle events on client side and create animation too you can say advance animation and its application performance become fast. We call it JQuery- if you have question What is JQuery so- it’s  a client side scripting technology, jquery is totally free and it’s an open source model– you can use it in your website without any license fee. You can access DOM(document object model) using JQuery and also can create animation using it.
Very fine thing about this platform is – it supports mobile like you can view its forms and dialog boxes on smartphones as well.

There is another advanced version called jquery UI – you also can use it for advance animation, people are using JQuery UI for interactive or dynamic website.
I would recommend if you want to use JQuery- on your website just visit googlecode site.
And pass reference of jquery JavaScript file in your head tag and probably you are done.
And then use it inside your body tag of your HTML- these are simple hints how you can use JQuery initially and learn it using scripts.This is a very simple example for people  who wants to learn jquery.
If you want to see JQuery example where it’s being used – so JQuery has been used in office 365 online version where you see different dialog box is displaying on your screen and overall performance is quite fast of office online version because of this technology.
 
We hope you learned little about JQuery for beginners if you want to learn JQuery more so please stay connected with our site. 

what is cloud orchestration

Before cloud orchestration you need to understand cloud computing or cloud architectures-Up till now with cloud computing everything is going great in the world, like infrastructure as service and platform as service and software as services , if you have selected infrastructure as services you probably be using any data center on cloud if you want to reduce infrastructure or cut cost – you can get on demand computing and storage using this service, and if you look at vendors which one is the best so there are many, we will outline IaaS from Microsoft – if you go ahead with this model so you definitely get on demand computing and storage to host on cloud.
And if you have selected platform as services which means you are going to get a platform as a services where you can find your online operating system because your application need an operating system too.
PaaS includes windows azure and from different vendor they may be different – there are other vendors just providing PaaS, basically they are providing you an operating system and database services for you to use them on cloud.
Software as a service layer is more like you are running your software on cloud as services – this can include your application to run on cloud – probably consist upon sharepoint online or exchange online or any software that is running on cloud for you.

So far the important layers are cleared in understanding, as you are familiar with the types of cloud available – private, bybrid and public cloud and managing all of them for one organization may be a tedious job, and managing different datacenter and managing networks may also be complicated task so there is need of orchestration in cloud so we could manage them easily. Ochestration is the function of arrangement and managing of these services, platform and software on cloud so you can easily manage them is called cloud orchestration.

We hope cloud orchestration is understood by our audience please leave your comments and if you liked it so link back. Stay connected with this site we will come back with more concepts and ideas about cloud orchestration.

Understanding Server Virtualization

How you can reduce number of physical servers in your organization to cut cost - whereas you need more physical server to fulfill your users need. If you need different servers mean -one is for windows server 2003 and  other you may require for windows server 2008– here we are talking about physical server solely, now what is the idea to implement such model- you have only option -you just purchase new hardware and install multiple operating system to make them different server, but we will outline some technology that will probably help you and run multiple server under one host.
Server virtualization is the technology -can help you reduce such cost as defined above and can give you multiple virtual server under one roof, let’s say you have one server and you want to have multiple server side by side, so from this physical server you can make more server- this technology is called server virtualization.

In this model you can virtualize the entire hardware/server or we can say you just virtualize the entire hardware with operating system- you just imagine you are making copy or cloning of your hardware that could run inside your host server we refer it as hardware virtualization.
If you are administrator and wanted to make different masks of your peripherals of computer you can use virtualization technology to make them virtual.
  You just need software to virtualize this entire environment. There are different ways to do server virtualization but we will focus virtual machine model here.

There are different software from different vendors can be used for server virtualization, you can consider Microsoft hyper v Server 2008 r2 and the other is Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 this is also a server virtualization tool that runs on windows server 2003.
We will add one liner again "hyper v is the technology to virtualize server" where you can make multiple server inside your physical server and you can have different operating system their too.
We hope you did understand server virtualization using Microsoft tools - you can share this information with your friends.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012

Organization are thinking to reduce cost in managing IT –how it is possible, how organization can control operation cost and its expenditure . You just imagine a scenario where you are required to manage 1000 computer network with different operating system and its application- simply you have to invest in server , compute, software and licensing of software or server.
And above all of this scenario you have to face a lot of difficulties while managing such a huge IT infrastructure.
In today’s IT business rule of game is changed – just simplify IT – but the question is how we can manage such a huge scenario or we should invest huge amount in IT, organization are seeking ways to reduce all that cost.
Today’s world virtualize environment is the answer to all that issues, virtualization is the technology that allows you to create multiple virtualized environment that can contain your hardware environment, multiple operating system, multiple storage devices environment and multiple network recourses under one host environment - and one more thing – what if you get all that virtual version under one roof to manage them easily- yes- all that component can be available if you work with virtualization technology.
If you are making virtualize environment you are just increasing your os server – you can have multiple os including windows 2008 or you can have multiple exchange and sharepoint for different servers in this virtualize environment.

There are many products in the market to manage virtualization and create virtualize environment but recently Microsoft has released System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 –although System Center is suite of product but virtual machine manager is the product can be used to have multiple operating system in one machine or to create enhanced infrastructure- we used MS VMM because application management is easy there. So system center virtual machine manager 2012 is used for managing services and used for provisioning and managing your virtual and private cloud environment and this Microsoft virtualization is becoming more famous because other vendors has other products but I think there is huge license cost involved in that model whereas Microsoft virtualization supporting other product as well as its own model is comparatively inexpensive.

This illustration is for learning purpose only.

Microsoft system center virtual machine manager 2012 includes number of new and enhanced features- VMM has feature of clustering now where you can have other vmm server stand by when one server is fail so other could play role.
Please leave your comments if you have any question.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

If you are clear with the understanding of virtualization then we will go ahead with virtual desktop  infrastructure and discuss how it’s very important and  this technology includes what.
Virtualizing means virtual not physical very simple to understand - you are doing something with your desktop virtually not physically is -desktop virtualization-, so there are different terms used for virtualization -one is desktop virtualization is the idea of providing desktop with virtual concept and another aspect is desktop virtualization infrastructure- as its name says infrastructure includes hardware, network resources and OS as well, so VDI is the mechanism of creating a computing environment with hardware resources virtually.

Why VDI?
Managing IT infrastructure and operation in any organization is a tedious job, whenever organization have new employee in then he needs a provision of desktop and application etc, if you consider a scenario where you have to manage more than 1000 desktop without virtualization then what you would do, means very simple desktop virtualization helps you maximize your hardware resources utilization by just VDI model.

On the other hand - everyone wants their application access on diversified devices like mobile, laptop and access application from anywhere, so one point which is quite prominent here – you can easily access your desktop if you are using VDI technology. Where you will be having your windows and the entire desktop for you to start work from anywhere. There should be mechanism of managing desktop easily and in a centralized place to face desktop challenges like we have in the form of new employee.

Another aspect of using VDI is – once you work with application and there are number of application setting you need to do -so imagine without desktop virtualization you are spending time on configuring all those data and setting on different desktop for your new employee. Even when the same employee accessing application from other network or pc then he needs that same application setting there if he wants to access application from there, one of the example of application setting is environment variable – you need to set these variable when you access your application from other PC’s or devices. Another example is user’s profile which can be stored in centralized data center. Once your application and data is stored in centralized data center so you can take backup easily.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology can give you secure and centrally managed desktop environment – it’s just simplifying delivery of desktop with application and providing complete os, application and users setting and data in virtual machine which resides in data base center.
So far Microsoft and vm ware has provided various tools for desktop virtualization and citrix also representing few tools for virtualization.

Microsoft technology for VDI:
Hyper v is used for creating multiple os on hosted server machine where you can create multiple desktops for other users whenever it is required. Microsoft System center, App V, Remote desktop services Windows 2008 R2 are tools for creating and managing virtual environment and infrastructure.

HP is also providing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology other vendor includes Citrix, VMware and IBM.

Oracle Cloud Databse

If you are quite familiar with oracle and been maintaining oracle-based application and its database you may be thinking of exporting your oracle's database on cloud – here we have little overview- how you could go a head with this thinking. Your oracle application may be running fine and but if you have decided to migrate your database from oracle to somewhere on cloud you need to consider such technique to follow.

Technically we call it platform migration- because you are migrating your database- based on oracle from oracle developer to web based cloud computing environment, let me add few words about oracle developer it’s a java based tools and free for all, additionally- if you come up with the idea which cloud is better so can go ahead with Amazon RDS service to manage your relational database on cloud and can follow the procedure below with this hope that will be a perfect for migrating database from desktop oracle client/oracle server to cloud environment.
There are many ways to export data from oracle database and dump it on cloud computing environment, in which you can use Oracle Import/Export utility, and it’s ideal to use this tool if you have small database and limitation of data types, on the other hand you can use oracle developer to import /export database from oracle.
Oracle developer tool is ideal for small databases from oracle desktop to cloud environment.
Whereas another option is sql loader will help you to do the same task means to import/export data from oracle, this process will export data from oracle into a flat file and then so on you can create a control file where you write DDL statement in it.
If you have decided to run your database on cloud from oracle server/ oracle client so you can now think of selecting any other services that are compatible to run oracle database on cloud, we have done little research and seen oracle itself offering Oracle cloud but quite expensive model they have- you also can do the same thing and we have seen Amazon RDS is quite impressive for all small business people to migrate their databases from oracle server/client to cloud environment.

Little overview of Amazon RDS:
A services designed by Amazon to operate, access and manage oracle databases on cloud environment, it’s a services to scale up you relational databases on oracle engine, this is ideal for any organization using oracle developer database desktop /server environment to move your database from single user interface and move your database from client.

You need to get amazon RDS web service and register on amazon site for this service if you are happy with management console workspace of aws then you can go ahead.
You need to create database instance on cloud environment using your own oracle developer client tool or you can do such kind of activity from amazon management console.
Now you have fantastic interface with you that is oracle developer and you are connected with your database instances on cloud environment side by side. In first step you will create database and its table in cloud computing environment using oracle developer client tool or you can use it from amazon management console workspace. You will create database instance and then dump data into it but we would recommend just creating a snapshot instance is quite safe step and then go ahead with data import option.
As an option you can use import/export utility or sql loader option for data import/export.

Hybrid Cloud Computing

You can combine two cells in Excel and make it one cell, like that you can combine two technologies into one, it’s a mixture of tow element – a hybrid cloud computing environment is mixture of two or more cloud models that are independent but linked together where at least one private cloud and other could be public cloud to form a partnership with each other.

Hybrid Cloud Computing:

is a model in which organizations provide and manage resources in-house and other resources are manages externally or as out- sourced.
In the light of above definition of hybrid cloud -you can be on safe side while selecting better cloud model for your organization.

There are many services available by public cloud providers and you ideally can consume them and have another private cloud environment to store data where you can manage your hybrid cloud. That is why we call it hybrid cloud.

If your organization using storage or backup services from public cloud environment then you can store your data in private cloud environment. Another example could be managing emails on public cloud – many cloud providers like Microsoft too – offering storing and managing your emails on public cloud and you can archive them on your private cloud environment to form a hybrid cloud.
You can consider consuming public cloud services and store your application’s data on private cloud to form a hybrid cloud.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Example

You can consider sharepoint on public cloud and some workload in private cloud environment and it’s data to form a hybrid cloud environment.
You can consider consuming some services on public cloud and maintain cluster servers nods on private cloud to make it a hybrid cloud.

Conclusion of Hybrid Cloud Computing:

 Hybrid Cloud Computing environment gives you full control over your data and application and you have fewer dependencies over public cloud environment. By implementing this strategy you are securing your data on cloud environment. You are just combing resources and accessibility on cloud environment.
Please let us know your comments.

Cloud Computing Concerns

We are addressing the cloud computing concerns so you could decide about the better cloud provider-
If you have taken a decisive step towards your application and data to be resided as outsource entity on server on-line we call it the cloud then review some aspects before selecting the cloud vendor how that vendor is handling your data, you need to make sure some aspects as given below for selecting better cloud vendor
one thing is important to know whether your cloud computing provider is allowing you to the data movement from one cloud to another, it all depends on which type of services you want to take from other cloud vendor. So this is very important to know if your existing provider can allow you to move your data to other cloud provider so specific service can be consumed.

Encryption of structured and non-structured data:
Another aspect is how encryption is done to move data, whether vendor enables unstructured or structured encryption or not, and in storage encryption is enabled or not.
Data can leak out on cloud, you need to consider what tools are available at your cloud vendor side and you also can explore tools for data leakage and how to be secure.

Cloud Infrastructure:
You need to consider the infrastructure of cloud is it secure or not, this may happen you are paying for dedicated server and your server is being shared among other customers, not only server – network resources or backup devices are being shared among others or not- you need to make sure if you are paying for dedicated cloud resources then they should be dedicated to your organization.
You need to consider on physical security of cloud provider, for example you have taken some space on cloud and checking email using exchange online, now you need to make sure what security software are there for your data to be secure etc.
You may require data for your internal processes you need to make sure is that compliance enough to satisfy your own regularity requirement.

Conclusion:
In our views one point is having weight among all those point –that is privacy of data – and you need to know how the personal information will be used they are not using such data for marketing purposes, another aspect before selecting cloud provider is- make sure for how long cloud vendor has been in the market, better ask for some customers already using that service.
Please let us know your inputs.

Cloud Computing and Virtualizing

Cloud computing is becoming more famous now a days- If you have decided to work with virtual private cloud model then you need to consider how you can increase control or customization from those dedicated resources. You can build your private cloud with hyper v and system center- there are number of other elements that will play different role.
And technically virtualization will reduce cost because you just improving your server utilization by adding virtual machine inside this environment. We will try to discuss its feature so you could be able to understand how private cloud can be built using it.
Hyper v allows you to create a virtual server computing environment using windows 2008 server technology – why I used this virtualized environment because I want to improve the efficiency of my resources by utilizing of my hardware resources.
For example – this virtualized hyper v environment will help you reduce cost of operating and maintaining physical server- another thing which is obvious it increases your test efficiency along with the development activities by just reducing the amount of time- it takes normally with physical server.
Once you setup your hyper v environment that supports up to 24 virtual processor if you run some hotfix from Microsoft with that. On the other hand logical processor can be one or multiple to manage environment.
Memory can be configured up to 1TB on physical machine whereas virtual machine with windows 2008 and DC edition can be configured with up to 24 GB of virtual machines.
We just have covered little about how private cloud can be build using hyper v- there are a lot of things you need to consider before configuring your private cloud data center.

SQL Azure Reporting Services

You can develop and deploy report online with sql azure reporting services –it can give you business intelligence - Just imagine a scenario where you are working with your application and getting reports but everything is on cloud, idea is very simple and been implemented and used by Azure reporting services, SQL Azure reporting is basically cloud based reporting mechanism build on sql server reporting services and Microsoft azure technologies. This cloud based reporting or you can call it cloud reporting services basically  easy for provisioning, cutting cost, highly available and reduced administration and management for reporting server – whereas traditionally everybody is managing report server for all reports to be available and working.
If you have confusion with SQL Server reporting services on which sql azure reporting is based, sql server reporting services- is basically a tool-set that allows anyone once installed on physical machine to create and manage and maintain reports after installation whereas sql azure reporting service is cloud based hosted serves for anyone to use it anywhere online in a cloud environment where Microsoft data-center is hosted where you do not need to focus on anything but on your main objective.

understand sql azure reporting by example

You need to sign up/subscribe for sql azure reporting services.
You will be having business intelligence design studio for designing report online
Or you will be having report builder where you will be authoring report to azure reporting online.
You will store all report data in sql azure online
You can manage report online sql azure report portal where you render these report into different formats xls, pdf etc.
Your authentication model will not be windows based but it will be online username/password but the thing is story does not end here please read further.

SQL Azure Reporting deep dive:

Windows azure environment contains a container for your number of services provisioned and vm according to your need if you have at least free azure account for a month.

Sql reporting is cloud service corresponding to sql server reporting service on azure cloud,

You will get much more for business intelligence as stack in azure container, you also can host SSAS on windows azure as part of you app.

And you have choice to author your customize report on windows azure container or azure environment for your enterprise to access it.

Now you have free azure account for at least one month where you have azure sql server reporting instance already provisioned, and windows azure will give you load balance environment on azure to give you report access any time you can also scale up and scale out this azure environment as per your need and according to your pocket too.

From windows azure dashboard you will select sql reporting link from your left navigation area and can create new sql reporting service to work with sql reporting and then you will have reporting service url to setup the actual report.

Once you have created sql reporting instance in your azure container then you have another dashboard from where you can configure users who can access your report on azure- you also can create item there which is called data source means which DB you want to access in that report.

It will prompt you for sql server credential and done, now you can use it to author report SSRS on azure container I hope this is helping for you to go further to design report I still believe you are not scared of so far.

You can browse your report builder as you do it traditionally but this time in your virtual environment, and write query to access sales numbers from xyz table(assuming a table name here) and define dataset as you do it in report designer. Now your dataset can talk with sql server reporting services and SQL DB behind the scene.

Once you save this report in your azure environment or reporting server in azure environment as .rdl file but you would see this report as item in your dashboard area in your azure environment.

Anyone can browse this report online via thin browser once you have granted permission who can access this report- hope this entire work can be done in azure container things become handy when you sign up for one month free azure access. ( see snap below as to what azure container will look like).

Though after one month free trial will expire-  it might cost you more but I haven’t tried something like publishing or authoring .rdl file somewhere else and accessing it from azure container might be nightmare for anyone because  of credential etc might be difficult part.

this illustration is for learning how you can get microsoft azure services where reporting services will be configured

If you are scared till now to understand this let me tell you this is basic stuff configuring sql azure reporting capabilities on azure and accessing it from azure container anyways stay connected to learn more stuff about azure and sql azure reporting on this site.