White paper - Azure PaaS Services, IaaS DevTess, and how to open a VSTS:Visual Studio Team Services (aka VSO), and Azure credits on MSDN subscriptions

 

My article on Azure PaaS Services, IaaS DevTess, and how to open a VSTS:Visual Studio Team Services (aka VSO), and Azure credits on MSDN subscriptions

 

Download it here : http://www.slideshare.net/VincentThavonekham/cahier-spcial-visual-studio-2015-octobre-2015

Which Azure VM to choose to provide a formal training with Hands-on Labs ?

 

Dispite I am using MS Azure all the time, I have to think about money when providing a formal training with hands-on Labs, when dealing with 20 trainees willing to have their own Azure VM to play with.

This is a short post to share my wonderings :

For a given size of a VM, would the cost be impacted by the version of the Windows OS ??

So let us consider a A2 Basic VM size, with the 3 following OS version :

1. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1,
2. Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter,
3. Windows Server 2016 CTP3

According to you,

• which one would be the most expensive ?? (the recent version ??).
• Which one is the cheapest ? (the CTP, i.e. Beta version ??)

The answer is : Take whatever you feal like !

For a formal training with Hands-On Labs, I’ll go for :

• A2 Basic VM size (2 cores, 3.5 GB, 4 data disks)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter
• On : During the day (8.30 am to 6.00 pm), for 5 days

(Note : Prices below are in Euros and based on an MSDN subscription)

Which CMS choosing ? and how Azure Marketplace could help ?

 

In the CMS field they are many CMS available (PHP, JAVA, OpenSource, Microsoft, … Open-Source / Commercial…). Many “bad” managers will think they they can re-invent the wheel by asking its non qualified staff to implementing a futur-fiasco CMS, because obviously this Manager is the best of the world, and because he thinks a CMS is a trial topic, his team could handle it is a matter of 1 or 2 months.

• Either you are as lucky as I was to be involved in re-writting a large CMS : many years-man-day, 1 year of detailed specification/PSD/Translations, involving truly 60 people to address what is under the sea-level :

translation, securing contents according to roles, single sign-on, search engin that performs well!!, user experience, payment transactions, Content Caching coding and mocking such as AKAMAI, performance testing, horizontal and vertical scaling ….

• Else, let’s rely on professionals that has already done this work, AND most importantly has released their CMS into production, as we did in due course, with the expected quality.

This Post focuses on the .Net CMS.

If you are working on a .Net environment, you could be choosing various CMS tools, starting from the Microsoft Sharepoint. But, what else could we find ??

Here is a recent, but non-exhaustive, list of CMS (credits and few comparison here on Quora.com).

OPEN SOURCE

• DotNetNuke
• Orchard
• Umbraco
• N2 CMS, Piranha, Kooboo, and others that I won't cover much here.

COMMERCIAL

• Sitecore
• EpiServer
• Kentico
• Ektron

 

They have been compared here:

• Sitecore Vs Umbraco Vs Kentiko Vs Sitefinity Vs Ektron http://fr.slideshare.net/joydipghosh53/syt006-infographics-net-comparison14
• Sitecore Vs Umbraco : http://www.codehousegroup.com/services/cms/umbraco-or-sitecore

Some of them are part of the Microsoft Azure template : you just need to select it, and in a matter of minutes the CMS will be available, such as Sharepoint (with high-availability configured),

• (source: a partial list of CMS that are readily available on Azure : http://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/campaigns/cms/)
  

CONCLUSION

Depending on your needs, you’ll choose one or the other, this short comparison will help you choose the proper one that suites best your needs.

 

APPENDICES : On the Marketplace of Microsoft Azure, here is a complete list of CMS (not only .Net), as per today:

Orchard CMS .NET Foundation

TYPO3 CMS 6.2, dkd Internet Service GmbH

Umbraco CMS, umbraco.org

Better CMS, Devbridge Group

Composite C1 .NET CMS, Composite

CMS Made Simple 1.11.10-3 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware 12.2-0 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

SageFrame, SageFrame

Lemoon, Formpipe Software

Joomla!, Joomla

MonoX, Mono Software

Pligg, AppDirect

concrete5 5.6.3.1-1 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

Brandoo WordPress 3.9 LAMP (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), Brandoo

razorC.net, New Media Group, Inc

MODX 2.2.14pl-0 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

Ametys 3.5.4-0 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

ProcessWire 2.4.0-3 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

SiteCake 1.0.41-1 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

concrete5 5.6.3.1-1 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

XOOPS 2.5.7-0 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

TYPO3 6.2.4-0 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

mojoPortal, Source Tree Solutions, LLC

Ametys 3.5.4-0 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

eZ Publish 2014.05-1 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

Webuzo Joomla 2.5 Stack [CentOS], SoftaculousWebuzo

Joomla! 3.3.3-0 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

Brandoo WordPress 3.7.1 LAMP (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS), Brandoo

TYPO3 6.1.8-0 (Ubuntu 12.10), Bitnami

Joomla! 3.3.1-0-test (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

wordpress, Docker

Kentico 8.1, Kentico8

CiviCRM 4.4.6-0 (Ubuntu 14.04), Bitnami

Mobile Engagement, Microsoft

wordpress + mysql, Docker

Altiar Cloud Enterprise, Altiar

Creating and using the new build Agent for VSO on MS Azure

 

Introduction:

• Lets welcome the new build mechanism that get rid of workflow foundation, and that has a much more “open” state of mind (many people were ambarrassed when I stood up for many years agains WF in build, and “just” use the old style batch. Now, with this new build mechanism, I will do proper and neat job!).
• Time to complete the installation and configuration of an agent (if nothing goes wrong) : 30 min from start to finish
• Time to get this post done and tested : many hours !!
• No more agent that was dedicated to a Team Project Collection. Hello Agent that can build SO MANY type of applications easily without JENKINS (Xamarin, iOS, JS…): See appendices at the very end.

 

Pre-requisites :

1. Presentation of the agent: http://nakedalm.com/configure-a-build-vnext-agent-on-vso/
   official MSDN: https://msdn.microsoft.com/Library/vs/alm/Build/agents/windows
2. Have a VSO or a TFS ready
3. Have a Build server ready. For instance, use a VM or an OnPrem server. Then, go to : https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs (or any other link / drive) to install TFS 2015 (RC 2 in this example). Note: It is a matter of 5 min to download using the Azure infrastructure

  

 

 

Create an Agent Pool

For instance call it VISEOBuildPool (this name is going to be called later below).

Installing the Agent on your server

1. In your TFS/VSO browser, go the the gear icon (top right) to manage the Default Collection.
2. In the “Build” Tab, you will find an Agent to be downloaded as a Zip file :

This Zip file used to contain many files in the Beta version, but only contains one Powershell script ‘ConfigureAgent.ps1’ ; it calls in turn many other files

By default, you cannot run the script on a Windows Server (Technical Preview) machine.
Here is the error message:

• PS C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Downloads\agent> .\ConfigureAgent.ps1
  .\ConfigureAgent.ps1 : File C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Downloads\agent\ConfigureAgent.ps1 cannot be loaded. The
  file C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Downloads\agent\ConfigureAgent.ps1 is not digitally signed. You cannot run this
  script on the current system. For more information about running scripts and setting execution policy, see
  about_Execution_Policies at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170.
  At line:1 char:1
  + .\ConfigureAgent.ps1
  + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      + CategoryInfo          : SecurityError: (:) [], PSSecurityException
      + FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnauthorizedAccess

 

Indeed, for security reasons your will have to explicitly tell that

• PS C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Desktop\Install\agent> Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
  Execution Policy Change
  The execution policy helps protect you from scripts that you do not trust. Changing the execution policy might expose
  you to the security risks described in the about_Execution_Policies help topic at
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170. Do you want to change the execution policy?
  [Y] Yes  [N] No  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): y

 

Now you will be able to run the installation

• 

 

Answer few questions from a new batch pop-up command prompt:

• Enter the name for this agent (default is Agent-VISBT-TF15BUILD) SuperVISEOAgentOnAzure
• Enter the URL for the Team Foundation Server (default is ) https://viseo-bt-int.visualstudio.com
• Configure this agent against which agent pool? (default pool name is 'default') VISEOBuildPool
• Enter the path of the work folder for this agent (default is 'C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Desktop\Install\agent\_work') C:\TFSBuild\AgentWorkFolder
  Would you like to install the agent as a Windows Service (Y/N) (default is N) Y
• Enter the name of the user account to use for the service (default is NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE)
  
  A web browser will popup, and enter your credentials to access VSO, if everthing goes fine (i.e. no cookies problems, “no high level security”, not an Admin of the VM where you cannot open the Microsoft Edge Brower to configure it,… see trouble shooting at the end…).
  Then wait few seconds the time your server is contacting VSO with your credentials, and configures the necessary agent.
                                
• CONGRATULATION !! You should have a nice result such as:

 

CHECK THAT EVERYTHING IS WORKING FINE

• Go to your Agent Pool admin page https://viseo-bt-int.visualstudio.com/_admin/_AgentPool#poolId=3&_a=agents
• Check that the agent is up and running (at the beginning, it is shown as RED, then after 5 min becomes GREEN)

 

(see in the appendices at the end, all the system capabilities that are present by default)

if not present, add on the top of the SYSTEM CAPABILITIES the 3 following USER CAPABILITIES to be able to build and run the unit tests.

• Now your build definition becomes available:

 

 

NOW LETS RUN A BUILD !

Here is the result of the Build:

 

Now, thanks to the new “VISEOBuildPool” we created above, your project is protected against code that does not build, or does not pass the Unit Test, or does go through quality checks.

TROUBLE SHOOTING

PROBLEM		RESOLUTION
Enter the name for this agent (default is Agent-VISBT-TF15BUILD) SuperVISEOAgentOnAzure Enter the URL for the Team Foundation Server (default is ) https://viseo-bt.visualstudio.com Configure this agent against which agent pool? (default pool name is 'default') VISEOBuildPool Enter the path of the work folder for this agent (default is 'C:\Users\AzurePSellerDvDotNet\Desktop\Install\agent\_work') C:\TFSBuild\AgentWorkFolder Would you like to install the agent as a Windows Service (Y/N) (default is N) Y Enter the name of the user account to use for the service (default is NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE) SP324098: Your browser could not complete the operation.		Decrease the security level of your browser to ‘low’
The popup Microsoft Edge is showing up     Server connect operation has beed canceled by user A task was canceled.		It is the Microsoft Edge  that is now part of the OS (Windows server or Win10). And as a VM admin, I cannot run it to allos the Cookies. Rather, choose IE or Chrome as default brower.
Issues No agent could be found with the following capabilities: msbuild, visualstudio, vstest		- Either your Agent machine does not have the required executables - or it is not defined in the “system capabilities” (see appendices”).
How to reconfigure an existing Agent on a server ?		Simply re-execute the Powershell.

 

APPENDIX 1 : SYSTEM CAPABILITIES THAT ARE PRESENT BY DEFAULT

(sorry, it’s an image because, it is Javascript generated, I cannot easily copy/past)