Friday, October 21, 2016

Cron Scheduling and Nano Services in Open Source Azure Functions

There are many ways to schedule jobs in Azure.  An interesting and fairly simple one available is to use Azure Functions, a lil' brudder of WebJobs.  For up to 1 million 1 second functions, there is no cost.  You can schedule a job function in Bash, C#, F#, NodeJs, Python, Java, etc.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-bindings-timer/

Example json for a function.  http://www.crontab-generator.org/ for those who have not mastered the art of reading job schedules in Cron, this will run at 3:25am UTC every Monday - Friday.

In this case, your "crontab" or cron table part of the JSON formatted job definition.

{
  "bindings": [
    {
      "schedule": "25 3 * * 1-5",
      "name": "nightlyReports",
      "type": "timerTrigger",
      "direction": "in"
    }
  ],
  "disabled": false
}

This is the function example to log the timer event.

public static void Run(TimerInfo myTimer, TraceWriter log)
{
    log.Info($"C# Timer trigger function executed at: {DateTime.Now}");    
}

If your job is to execute a SQL stored procedure such as an SSIS proc to kick off an ETL package, or archive / groom data.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-scenario-database-table-cleanup/

Another example is an event-based trigger coming from an Event Hub, or Blob Storage based trigger coming from a blob, table, queue, or file drop.

Once a function has been created, you can test or run the function with cURL by copying the Function Url.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-test-a-function/

The code is in GitHub, packaged as the Azure Webjobs SDK Script.
https://github.com/azure/azure-webjobs-sdk-script

Announced at Build 2016, Some facts on Azure Functions from MSFT Playground
https://msftplayground.com/2016/05/facts-azure-functions/

Do you use Azure Web Jobs or the new Functions Preview?
https://blog.kloud.com.au/2016/09/14/azure-functions-or-webjobs/

Functions Reference
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-reference/

Functions with Logic Apps
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-logic-azure-functions/

Continuous Deployment
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/functions-continuous-deployment/


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Machine Learning with R and SQL 2016 / RevoR + Open Source MSFT

Ginger Grant, Data Platform MVP discusses Machine Learning with R and some Custom Reports for SQL 2016 R Services. 

Everything that exists is an object.
Everything that happens is a function call.

-- John Chambers, Advanced R

Microsoft Open R is the enhanced distribution of R, which provides the ability to create your own enterprise MiniCRAN, reproduce results between package version snapshots, parallelism/multithreading, and is portable across Windows, Linux, and OSX.  Enterprise is constantly looking for stability, and https://mran.microsoft.com/faq/#change-repos provides this with fixed snapshots across all OpenR users.

RStudio hopped on the Jupyter Notebook bandwagon a couple months ago.
http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/r_notebooks.html

In 2017, we will have SQL Server 2016 with Microsoft OpenR and R Notebooks, running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux along with Hortonworks HDP...

Getting Started with PHP 7 SQL Server and Azure SQL Database on Linix Ubuntu with Apache

And something completely unrelated, perhaps useful, Yet Another Network Tester, with multithreading and CPU affinity.
https://github.com/Microsoft/ntttcp-for-linux
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/NTttcp-Version-528-Now-f8b12769

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Every Microsoft Github on a single page

Microsoft is heavily leveraging GitHub and dogfooding open source code, with thousands of users registered and as of September, 2016 is the most active organization on GitHub, beating out Facebook.

Jeff Wilcox describes their extensive hooks into GitHub and corporate governance around the tool.
https://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2015/11/azure-on-github/

It is a great use case and set of patterns for Azure, available as an open-source framework for Enterprise GitHub.

Here's the repo activity over the last few years, courtesy of MSFTgits.
https://github.com/msftgits?tab=overview&from=2014-12-01&to=2014-12-31&utf8=%E2%9C%93

And a list of some of their public repos below.  The first package I clicked on randomly was, coincidentally a package I am interested in.

R Package for managing a selection of Azure resources. Targeted at Data Scientists who need to control Azure Resources within an R session without needing to bother Administrators.

https://github.com/Microsoft/AzureSMR

GitHub is an awesome place for data mining and analytics.

Azure-Samples/MyDriving
contoso-a/CreateRepo3254671651222201555528AM
contoso-a/Test_GitHubNotifications
contoso-a/Test_ManageRepos_OrgOwner_Contoso-b
contoso-a/Test_repo_PPE
contoso-a/Test_RepoCreation_RepoOwner
contoso-a/Test_RepoTest-
contoso-a/Test_Tokens123
contoso-a/Test-repo1
contoso-a/test-repo-TCD
ContosoDev/simple-repo
ContosoTest/test-repo
contoso-x-production/Test_MaxteamList
contoso-x-production/Test_repo_Firefox_24J
contoso-x-production/Test_Repo_J23_addedcategory
contoso-x-production/Test_Repo_Public_github_Rename
contoso-x-production/Test_Repos1
contoso-x-production/test_team
contoso-x-production/Test_Team_Check_in-Github
contoso-x-production/test-test3
Microsoft/AADConnectConfigDocumenter
Microsoft/AdventureWorksSkiApp
Microsoft/Angara.Chart
Microsoft/Angara.Flow
Microsoft/Angara.Serialization
Microsoft/Angara.Statistics
Microsoft/Angara.Table
Microsoft/api-guidelines
Microsoft/AppDevXbox
Microsoft/ApplicationInsights-Announcements
Microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet-logging
Microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet-server
Microsoft/Appsample-Photosharing
Microsoft/app-store-vsts-extension
Microsoft/aspnet-api-versioning
Microsoft/ATADocs
Microsoft/ATADocs.cs-cz
Microsoft/ATADocs.de-de
Microsoft/ATADocs.es-es
Microsoft/ATADocs.fr-fr
Microsoft/ATADocs.hu-hu
Microsoft/ATADocs.it-it
Microsoft/ATADocs.ja-jp
Microsoft/ATADocs.ko-kr
Microsoft/ATADocs.nl-nl
Microsoft/ATADocs.pl-pl
Microsoft/ATADocs.pt-br
Microsoft/ATADocs.pt-pt
Microsoft/ATADocs.ru-ru
Microsoft/ATADocs.sv-se
Microsoft/ATADocs.tr-tr
Microsoft/ATADocs.zh-cn
Microsoft/ATADocs.zh-tw
Microsoft/Availability-Monitor-for-Kafka
Microsoft/AZRDAV
Microsoft/azure-acs-plugin
Microsoft/azure-media-redactor-visualizer
Microsoft/azure-mobile-apps-with-ionic
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.cs-cz
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.de-de
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.es-es
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.fr-fr
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.hu-hu
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.it-it
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.ja-jp
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.ko-kr
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.nl-nl
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.pl-pl
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.pt-br
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.pt-pt
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.ru-ru
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.sv-se
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.tr-tr
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.zh-cn
Microsoft/Azure-RMSDocs.zh-tw
Microsoft/azure-shortcuts-for-java
Microsoft/AzureSMR
Microsoft/Azure-SQL-DB-auditing-OMS-integration
Microsoft/azure-sql-security-sample
Microsoft/Azure-Toolkit-for-IntelliJ
Microsoft/azure-tools-for-java
Microsoft/AzureUsageAndBillingPortal
Microsoft/azure-vhd-utils
Microsoft/backbone-toolbar
Microsoft/backbone-virtualized-listview
Microsoft/Bing-Maps-V8-TypeScript-Definitions
Microsoft/binskim
Microsoft/bond-comm-cs-example
Microsoft/build2016-vsmobile
Microsoft/Business-platform-solution-templates
Microsoft/c3p
Microsoft/cci
Microsoft/cci
Microsoft/ChakraCore-wiki
Microsoft/checkedc
Microsoft/checkedc-clang
Microsoft/checkedc-llvm
Microsoft/Cloud-App-Security
Microsoft/Cluster-Partition-Rebalancer-For-Kafka
Microsoft/code-push-vsts-extension
Microsoft/Code-Search
Microsoft/Coding4Fun
Microsoft/Cognitive-Common-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Documentation
Microsoft/Cognitive-Emotion-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-Emotion-Python
Microsoft/Cognitive-Emotion-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-EntityLinking-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Face-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-Face-iOS
Microsoft/Cognitive-Face-Python
Microsoft/Cognitive-Face-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-LinguisticAnalysis-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-LUIS-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-LUIS-Node.js
Microsoft/Cognitive-LUIS-Python
Microsoft/Cognitive-LUIS-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Recommendations-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Samples-FootnoteBot
Microsoft/Cognitive-Samples-IntelligentKiosk
Microsoft/Cognitive-Samples-VideoFrameAnalysis
Microsoft/Cognitive-SpeakerRecognition-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-SpeakerRecognition-Python
Microsoft/Cognitive-SpeakerRecognition-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Speech-STT-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-Speech-STT-iOS
Microsoft/Cognitive-Speech-STT-JavaScript
Microsoft/Cognitive-Speech-STT-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Speech-TTS
Microsoft/Cognitive-TextAnalytics-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-Video-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-Vision-Android
Microsoft/Cognitive-Vision-Python
Microsoft/Cognitive-Vision-Windows
Microsoft/Cognitive-WebLM-Windows
Microsoft/CommandLine-Documentation
Microsoft/companion-device-framework
Microsoft/compoundfilereader
Microsoft/cordova-plugin-code-push
Microsoft/cordova-plugin-vs-taco-support
Microsoft/cordova-university
Microsoft/cortana-samples
Microsoft/cppwinrt
Microsoft/CRM-Performance-Toolkit
Microsoft/CSharpClient-for-Kafka
Microsoft/CSP-Explorer
Microsoft/dafny
Microsoft/dapjs
Microsoft/deep-space
Microsoft/deployr-api-docs
Microsoft/deployr-rserve-java-client
Microsoft/DesktopBridgeToUWP-Samples
Microsoft/DirectXMath
Microsoft/DirectXTK12
Microsoft/distributed_skipgram_mixture
Microsoft/distributed_word_embedding
Microsoft/Docker.DotNet
Microsoft/Docker-PowerShell
Microsoft/DockerToolsDocs
Microsoft/dockertools-sampleprojects
Microsoft/dotnet-computevirtualization
Microsoft/dotnet-computevirtualization
Microsoft/dotnet-reliability
Microsoft/driver-utilities
Microsoft/DSC-data-driven-deployment
Microsoft/dumpling
Microsoft/Dynamics-AX-Extensible-Control-Samples
Microsoft/Dynamics-AX-Integration
Microsoft/Dynamics-AX-Scripts
Microsoft/edge-diagnostics-launch
Microsoft/elfie-arriba
Microsoft/EMDocs
Microsoft/EMDocs.cs-cz
Microsoft/EMDocs.de-de
Microsoft/EMDocs.es-es
Microsoft/EMDocs.fr-fr
Microsoft/EMDocs.hu-hu
Microsoft/EMDocs.it-it
Microsoft/EMDocs.ja-jp
Microsoft/EMDocs.ko-kr
Microsoft/EMDocs.nl-nl
Microsoft/EMDocs.pl-pl
Microsoft/EMDocs.pt-br
Microsoft/EMDocs.pt-pt
Microsoft/EMDocs.ru-ru
Microsoft/EMDocs.sv-se
Microsoft/EMDocs.tr-tr
Microsoft/EMDocs.zh-cn
Microsoft/EMDocs.zh-tw
Microsoft/EventHubData
Microsoft/extension-manifest-editor
Microsoft/fast-binary-indexed-tree-js
Microsoft/FERPlus
Microsoft/FetchClimate
Microsoft/FMLab
Microsoft/fonts
Microsoft/Font-Validator
Microsoft/formula
Microsoft/fsharplu
Microsoft/GalaxyExplorer
Microsoft/generator-docker
Microsoft/Get-ExchangeBuildNumber
Microsoft/GetVSTSBuildUsage
Microsoft/ghinsights
Microsoft/google-play-vsts-extension
Microsoft/GraphEngine
Microsoft/graphics-driver-samples
Microsoft/GraphView
Microsoft/GSL
Microsoft/gulp-core-build
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-karma
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-mocha
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-sass
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-serve
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-typescript
Microsoft/gulp-core-build-webpack
Microsoft/HashCalculator
Microsoft/hdfs-mount
Microsoft/HealthClinic.biz
Microsoft/hermes
Microsoft/HolographicAcademy
Microsoft/HoloLensCompanionKit
Microsoft/HoloLensCompanionKit
Microsoft/HoloLensCompanionKit
Microsoft/HoloToolkit
Microsoft/HoloToolkit-Unity
Microsoft/http-post-message
Microsoft/hummingbird
Microsoft/idevice-app-launcher
Microsoft/Imagine_bee-control
Microsoft/Imagine_binary-break-in
Microsoft/Imagine_bing-maps-api
Microsoft/Imagine_block-knock
Microsoft/Imagine_diamond-miner
Microsoft/Imagine_fudge-roll
Microsoft/Imagine_halo-5-api
Microsoft/Imagine_planetary-pool
Microsoft/Imagine_rocket-launch-sim
Microsoft/Imagine_solar-system-viewer
Microsoft/Imagine_stealthbot
Microsoft/Imagine_street-racing
Microsoft/Imagine_sylvan-sprinter
Microsoft/Instance-Adapter-for-Microsoft-Dynamics-CRM
Microsoft/IntuneDocs
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.cs-cz
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.de-de
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.es-es
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.fr-fr
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.hu-hu
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.it-it
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.ja-jp
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.ko-kr
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.nl-nl
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.pl-pl
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.pt-br
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.pt-pt
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.ru-ru
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.sv-se
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.tr-tr
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.zh-cn
Microsoft/IntuneDocs.zh-tw
Microsoft/ionic2-typescript-blank
Microsoft/ionic2-typescript-sidemenu
Microsoft/ionic2-typescript-tabs
Microsoft/ionic-azure-conference-app
Microsoft/ionic-typescript-blank
Microsoft/ionic-typescript-sidemenu
Microsoft/ionic-typescript-tabs
Microsoft/iot-samples-ted
Microsoft/ivy
Microsoft/JSanity
Microsoft/kafka-proxy-ws
Microsoft/kindscript-microbit-skeleton
Microsoft/knockout-validation
Microsoft/lagscope
Microsoft/language-server-protocol
Microsoft/lightLDA
Microsoft/linkcheckermd
Microsoft/loader-load-themed-styles
Microsoft/loader-raw-script
Microsoft/loader-set-webpack-public-path
Microsoft/load-themed-styles
Microsoft/logstash-output-application-insights
Microsoft/Loop-Sample-Drives-Android
Microsoft/mala
Microsoft/malmo
Microsoft/mattercenter
Microsoft/mcBV
Microsoft/Mesh-processing-library
Microsoft/microbit-chrome
Microsoft/Microsoft-Cloud-Services-for-Android
Microsoft/microsoft-pdb
Microsoft/microsoft-r-content
Microsoft/microsoft-r-open
Microsoft/MIMDocs
Microsoft/MIMDocs.cs-cz
Microsoft/MIMDocs.de-de
Microsoft/MIMDocs.es-es
Microsoft/MIMDocs.fr-fr
Microsoft/MIMDocs.hu-hu
Microsoft/MIMDocs.it-it
Microsoft/MIMDocs.ja-jp
Microsoft/MIMDocs.ko-kr
Microsoft/MIMDocs.nl-nl
Microsoft/MIMDocs.pl-pl
Microsoft/MIMDocs.pt-br
Microsoft/MIMDocs.pt-pt
Microsoft/MIMDocs.ru-ru
Microsoft/MIMDocs.sv-se
Microsoft/MIMDocs.tr-tr
Microsoft/MIMDocs.zh-cn
Microsoft/MIMDocs.zh-tw
Microsoft/MIMPowerShellConnectors
Microsoft/MIMWAL
Microsoft/Mobius
Microsoft/monaco-css
Microsoft/monaco-editor
Microsoft/monaco-editor-samples
Microsoft/monaco-html
Microsoft/monaco-json
Microsoft/monaco-languages
Microsoft/monaco-typescript
Microsoft/msdn-content
Microsoft/MSITARM
Microsoft/MSITARM1
Microsoft/MsUEFI-Test
Microsoft/MTMBuddy
Microsoft/multiverso
Microsoft/node-fast-plist
Microsoft/node-jsonc-parser
Microsoft/node-library-build
Microsoft/node-request-light
Microsoft/ntttcp-for-linux
Microsoft/ODBC-Specification
Microsoft/Office365APIEditor
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_de-de
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_es-es
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_fr-fr
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_ja-jp
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_pt-br
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_ru-ru
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_zh-cn
Microsoft/Office-js-docs_zh-tw
Microsoft/openscraping-lib-csharp
Microsoft/OTP4LTE-U
Microsoft/pagination-control
Microsoft/Partner-app-development
Microsoft/Partner-Center-Explorer
Microsoft/pgtester
Microsoft/Phoenix
Microsoft/PhyloD
Microsoft/pict
Microsoft/PowerBI-Angular
Microsoft/PowerBI-Cli
Microsoft/PowerBI-CSharp
Microsoft/PowerBI-Ember
Microsoft/PowerBI-extensibility-text-utility
Microsoft/PowerBI-JavaScript
Microsoft/PowerBI-JQuery
Microsoft/powerbi-models
Microsoft/PowerBI-Node
Microsoft/PowerBI-React
Microsoft/powerbi-router
Microsoft/Power-BI-Solution-Template
Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals
Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals-bankingForTheBlind
Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals-sampleBarChart
Microsoft/PowerBI-visuals-tools
Microsoft/process-customization-scripts
Microsoft/projection-grid
Microsoft/ProjectOxford-Apps-MimickerAlarm
Microsoft/ProjectOxford-ClientSDK
Microsoft/prose
Microsoft/ProtocolTestFramework
Microsoft/pxt
Microsoft/pxt-arduino
Microsoft/pxt-arduino-core
Microsoft/pxt-calliope
Microsoft/pxt-i2c-fram
Microsoft/pxt-max6675
Microsoft/pxt-microbit
Microsoft/pxt-microbit-core
Microsoft/pxt-microbit-cppsample
Microsoft/pxt-monaco-typescript
Microsoft/pxt-neopixel
Microsoft/pxt-rpi
Microsoft/pxt-sample
Microsoft/pxt-sonar
Microsoft/pxt-windowsiot
Microsoft/Pyjion
Microsoft/qCards
Microsoft/Range-V3-VS2015
Microsoft/remotebuild
Microsoft/Reporting-Services
Microsoft/RESX-Unused-Finder
Microsoft/RetryOperationHelper
Microsoft/Rosyln-Analyzer-ToStringWithoutOverride
Microsoft/RServer-for-HDInsight-example-CriteoDataSet
Microsoft/RTVS-docs
Microsoft/sails-hook-federalist-ms
Microsoft/sarif-sdk
Microsoft/satcheljs
Microsoft/satcheljs-react-devtools
Microsoft/satcheljs-snapshots
Microsoft/satcheljs-stitch
Microsoft/satcheljs-todomvc
Microsoft/satcheljs-trace
Microsoft/SDLAnalyze
Microsoft/SDN
Microsoft/Selawik
Microsoft/sesopen
Microsoft/SimpleStubs
Microsoft/SkypeBotsWithMedia
Microsoft/SLAyer
Microsoft/sqlite-tracer
Microsoft/SQL-Server-R-Services-Samples
Microsoft/sql-server-samples
Microsoft/sqlskim
Microsoft/Static-Module-Verifier
Microsoft/staticstaging
Microsoft/StopGuessing
Microsoft/taco-cli
Microsoft/taco-plugin-devicesync
Microsoft/taco-team-build
Microsoft/team-explorer-everywhere
Microsoft/techcasestudies
Microsoft/thrifty
Microsoft/TouchDevelop-backend
Microsoft/TPM-2.0-Parser
Microsoft/TpmRCDecoder
Microsoft/TSS.MSR
Microsoft/TVHelpers
Microsoft/Typedoc-Webpack-Plugin
Microsoft/unityplugins
Microsoft/UWPCommunityToolkit-docs
Microsoft/UWPQuickStart
Microsoft/vcc
Microsoft/vcpkg
Microsoft/VCSamples
Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation
Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation
Microsoft/Visual-Audience-Polling
Microsoft/VisualFileInfo
Microsoft/VisualStudioUninstaller
Microsoft/vscode-chrome-debug
Microsoft/vscode-chrome-debug-core
Microsoft/vscode-chrome-debug-core
Microsoft/vscode-comment
Microsoft/vscode-cordova
Microsoft/vscode-cpptools
Microsoft/vscode-css-languageservice
Microsoft/vscode-docker
Microsoft/vscode-docs
Microsoft/vscode-editorconfig
Microsoft/vscode-eslint
Microsoft/vscode-extension-samples
Microsoft/vscode-extension-vscode
Microsoft/vscode-generator-code
Microsoft/vscode-go
Microsoft/vscode-htmlhint
Microsoft/vscode-html-languageservice
Microsoft/vscode-htmltagwrap
Microsoft/vscode-jshint
Microsoft/vscode-json-languageservice
Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node
Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node-example
Microsoft/vscode-LaTeX
Microsoft/vscode-MDTools
Microsoft/vscode-nls
Microsoft/vscode-nls-dev
Microsoft/vscode-node-debug2
Microsoft/vscode-react-native
Microsoft/vscode-samples
Microsoft/vscode-spell-check
Microsoft/vscode-textmate
Microsoft/vscode-themes
Microsoft/vscode-tslint
Microsoft/vscode-uri
Microsoft/vscode-wordcount
Microsoft/vscom
Microsoft/vs-diag-samples
Microsoft/VSLinux
Microsoft/VS-Macros
Microsoft/vso-httpclient-java
Microsoft/vso-intellij
Microsoft/VS-PPT
Microsoft/VSSDK-Extensibility-Templates
Microsoft/vsts-agent-cookbook
Microsoft/vsts-authentication-library-for-java
Microsoft/vsts-bamboo-build-integration-sample
Microsoft/vsts-cloudfoundry
Microsoft/vsts-cordova-tasks
Microsoft/vsts-dockerfiles
Microsoft/vsts-extension-color-control
Microsoft/vsts-extension-integer-control
Microsoft/vsts-extension-toggle-control
Microsoft/vsts-jenkins-build-integration-sample
Microsoft/vsts-nexus
Microsoft/vsts-react-native-tasks
Microsoft/vsts-restapi-samplecode
Microsoft/vsts-urbancode-deploy
Microsoft/vsts-veracode
Microsoft/vsts-vscode
Microsoft/Wagr-Sample-Intune-iOS-App
Microsoft/web-build-tools
Microsoft/web-library-build
Microsoft/WhoisParsers
Microsoft/window-post-message-proxy
Microsoft/Windows-appsample-coloringbook
Microsoft/Windows-appsample-familynotes
Microsoft/Windows-appsample-lunch-scheduler
Microsoft/Windows-appsample-marble-maze
Microsoft/Windows-classic-samples
Microsoft/windows-dev-center-vsts-extension
Microsoft/WindowsDevicePortalWrapper
Microsoft/windows-driver-docs
Microsoft/windows-itpro-docs
Microsoft/WindowsProtocolTestSuites
Microsoft/Windows-Social-Samples
Microsoft/Windows-Time-Calibration-Tools
Microsoft/WinObjC-Samples
Microsoft/wopi-validator-cli-python
Microsoft/WPFDXInterop
Microsoft/ws2016lab
Microsoft/XamarinAzure_ShoppingDemoApp
Microsoft/Xbox-ATG-Samples
Microsoft/XLIFF2-Object-Model
Microsoft/XmlNotepad
Microsoft/Yams

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Microsoft's foray into the land of *nix is 20 years in the making

Announced at the Build 2016 Conference in March.  We are back in the days of one of my specialties, command line OSes and command scripts.  Bash comes to Windows.  Ubuntu runs on Windows.

This isn't really that new, is it?  Utilities and SDK for Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications (USDKSUNIX-B?) is the unfortunate name of GNU utilities on Windows, formerly known as SFU 1.0, released in 1999.  Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications?   So much for catchy names like Tinkerpop, Flume, Kafka, Storm, Solr, Spark, Hive, Pig, YARN, or Mahout.  And oh yes, Java.  Hasn't Java had portability across platforms for awhile?  

The efficiency and performance of Ubuntu on Windows is really what is impressive here.

Why is this happening? Did Microsoft give up on Powershell?  Is Powershell coming to Linux?  Is Windows 11 going to run on SPARCstations?  I am so confused...

For those making the transition, a helpful MS-DOS - Bash help sheet, courtesy of Red Hat.
awk, ed, sed, grep, top, locate, tail, head, cat, vim, perl, ssh... 

Apparently 60% of Azure is now running Linux.  At least 15% of the world's power is being consumed by data centers.  A UNIVAC consumed around 67 kilowatts.  The world consumed around 105,000 Terawatts in 2012.  Power is a huge driver in terms of cost and efficiency is super important when a server is running 8,760 hours / 365 days a year.  Using a minimalist operating system (or none at all?) could help with additional savings.

It is the year two thousand and sixteen, the 21st century.  Shouldn't we be celebrating our separation from monitors, mice and keyboards with augmented, virtual reality, neural impulse actuators, heads-up displays and immersive operating systems that feed us information via telepathy?

Apparently there is some delay, though it's not caused by Microsoft.  Hololens is shipping now.  Oculus, not so much.

I bought an OCZ NIA brain mouse a few years ago. It has been collecting dust ever since I decided I had better things to do than to train my brain to play pong.  My eyes hurt from blinking to shoot in Unreal Tournament, turning my face away from the screen to look around was a bit counter intuitive, and the grounding strap required to keep signals level didn't add to the experience.  Plus I still needed my mouse and keyboard.

It is still impressive to me that we have the technology today (and 8 years ago!) to read brain waves for under $100.  And we now have the technology to write them using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), for the low low price of $39.95!

And to think that Nikola Tesla used to squish his toes together 100 times a night to stimulate his brain cells, when a 9-volt battery and a wet sponge could have done the same trick.

So what's next? SQL 2016 on Linux?
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/07/announcing-sql-server-on-linux/

Free SQL Licenses for Oracle customers?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/server-cloud/sql-license-migration.aspx

In 1998, Cygwin 2.0 introduced the Windows world to GNU tools.
http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/gnu-on-windows.html

In 2016, oh my zsh comes to Windows...
https://twitter.com/ohmyzsh

Tomorrow, I'm installing this!
sudo yum install byobu -y --enablerepo=epel-testing

Convergence was the buzzword a few years ago.  This year's buzzword should be... convergence?

Well, back to reading copies of Computerworld magazine from 1997 for new product ideas...  did you hear PC market leader Compaq is pushing their new Windows NT models as a Unix alternative?