Windows Azure v.Next–Azure Websites, Linux on Azure, Persistent VM and much more …

Building Cloud applications has never been easier! Ever! The recent news announced at MEET Windows Azure event just proved it! The most exciting, the most anticipating, the most wanted release of Windows Azure is now here! Check out the samples, get the tools and dive in the clouds!

Azure Websites

Did you want to run your Drupal site in Windows Azure? Or maybe your Joomla project, or the new Umbraco 5, don’t forget your small WordPress site. Now you can either built it from scratch, or just deploy it. How to deploy? Do you like Git, or FTP ? Whatever you like, whatever you are confortable with – Windows Azure Websites is the platform to run your site, be it small or large scale enterprise site! Here is just a screenshot showing you the sample gallery, where you can chose how to start your site, if you haven’t yet:

You say that Joomla runs on PHP and MySQL! You are correct, Windows Azure supports PHP for quite some time, actually (almost) since the beginning, but it is easier now. What about MySQL? Well have you heard of ClearDB? A company that have been providing database-as-a-service for MySQL based applications. Globally distributed, fault tolerant database as a service. They have been partnering with Microsoft to provide MySQL-as-a-service within the Windows Azure data centers. Well, ironically enough their site is down for the time I write this blog post. But, trust me, since the MySQL is running in Windows Azure, it will not be down .
Oh, you have noticed – the Windows Azure Portal – reimagined! The whole portal now runs on HTML5 with METRO style interface. I have to admit that I like it much better than the old Silverlight based portal!

Persistent VM

It is not a replacement for Windows Azure VM Role, which still is stateless. It is a whole new feature, named Persistent VM. Having said that – it means, that all change you made to your VM after you deploy it to Windows Azure, will be reliably persisted across VM reboots, healings, recycling. How cool is that? Not only that, now with the Persistent VM feature, you would get a SLA for just 1 instance! What could you use that Persistent VM for? Just imagine – SQL Server, SharePoint, Linux …

Linux

What else you could do with Windows Azure now? You can, for example  run your Linux based VM! Yes, Linux on Azure! How cool is that, ah? Currently there are 4 distros you can chose from:

• OpenSUSE 12.1
• CentOS-6.2
• Ubuntu 12.04
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2

But I am sure more will come soon!

Virtual Network

Connecting your own infrastructure to the cloud has never been easier. Windows Azure Virtual Network lets you configure network topology, including configuration of IP addresses, routing tables and security policies. It uses IPSEC protocol to provide a secure connection between your corporate VPN gateway and Windows Azure.
If I were you, I would go through the new Windows Azure Fact Sheet, go for the free trial to check out the Websites, and maybe even try the Linux VMs!
As a side note, something that is really on my head for quite a few years – finally we, in Bulgaria, will officially have Windows Azure!

Display PHP error messages on IIS 7.0 / 7.5

Have you ever tried running PHP on IIS with FastCGI? Yes, it runs, and it does it smoothly. However regardless of php.ini settings for “display_errors” and “error_reporting”, starting with IIS 7.0, you will most probably see only “Internal Server Error 500.XX” for any error generated by PHP (even if it is just a warning or even notice). And yes, the hard workaround is to turn on Failed Request Tracing on the site, and examine FRT log files. Which I’m sure you don’t want!

The solution is here: http://serverfault.com/questions/69839/show-php-error-message-on-iis-7

The reason:

With IIS7, it doesn't pass the errors through by default. It's "existingResponse" that needs to be set.

The solution (run this line with elevated command prompt):

c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set config "{sitename}" -section:system.webServer/httpErrors /existingResponse:"PassThrough" /commit:apphost

and do not forget to replace {sitename} with the real site name.

Flash player under Windows Server 2008

OK,
I decided to move to the Server OS because of many reasons. I hope that I will not regret soon.
What's going on ?
Have you ever heart of Adobe Acrobat Connect (AAC) ? It is an Adobe online software designed to bring presentations and desktops to the web (a descendant of Breeze). It is Flash based (Flex may be, at least you need a flash player on the browser to participate).
So, I had to participate an online presentation hosted on AAC, and I was surprised to see the following window:You can hardly see, but in short: It says: "Adobe Acrobat Connect requires Flash Player 8.0.0.0 or newer".
The funny thing is that all that message is displayed inside a flash player, and I made this screen-shot to show you that I actually have Adobe Flash Player 10 installed.
But wait it becomes funnier. When I clicked the "GetFlash Player" button (Also a flash button!) I went to a page that showed out the next interesting screen:
Which says: Sorry, your platform is not supported.

Funny, ah ?
But I could not participated that connect meeting.

Hyper-V lives in US! (Part 2)

Earlier today I described a problem that is known to MS and has no solution yet.
In short - you can install (mean really install a working version) Hyper-V under Windows Server 2008, only if you set all locale settings to EN-US / USA Location. Every other attempt will lead to a broken installation.
I also promised that after this installation I will revert back to desired location settings to check if everything is going on well.
And the answer is ....
YES!
After installing the Hyper-V Role under EN-US Locale / USA Location forced to all system accounts also, you can safely revert back to the desired locale settings and the Hyper-V will continue working.

Tough one!

Live writer on Server OS ? Help !

Have you ever tried the Windows Live Writer ?
It is really nice and handy application that helps you with posts. I used to make my posts with it. But after the upgrade to Windows Server 2008 guess what ?

---------------------------
Windows Live Installer
---------------------------
Sorry, Windows Live programs cannot be installed on Windows Server, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or Windows operating systems earlier than Windows XP Service Pack 2.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

Why ???
So, please, if anybody has a solution to this behavior, please help!

P.S. No, I don not think that it is a solution to use a virtual machine with Windows XP just to use Live Writer. No way!

HEELP ! :)

Hyper-V lives in US ! AKA Virtual Machine Management Service entered stopped state.

Imagine you decided to upgrade to Windows 2008 Server and want to try it's new sexy Hyper-V hypervisor. Imagine also that you appear not to live in America (USA) and you set your locale settings to something different than EN-US.
Guess what!
You will never make Hyper-V running! You end up with:

Virtual Machine Management Service (vmms) failed to start.

or

Virtual Machine Management Service entered stopped state.

Period.
No additional info.
No related entries in the event log.
OK. Now what ?
You will go for:

My CPU DOES support Virtualization (double checking with manufacturer web site and BIOS settings).
I aslo made sure that the No Execution bit or DEP is set to enable from the BIOS.
I also went for latest updates from windows update.
What am I doing wrong ?

Well. The point is that you are not doing wrong. but Microsoft is doing wrong. You will google the problem, and may you will find this thread, or that post. And you will realize that you now must (you must not reinstall the Server OS!):

1. Remove (uninstall) the Hyper-V role.
2. Set locale settings to EN-US
3. Set location to USA
4. Force locale settings to be applied to all system accounts
5. Restart
6. Install the Hyper-V role
7. Restart
8. Go and create your virtual machines

Come on! Do we really need to do this ? And what if I change back the locale settings? Well I still do not know what will happen if I do this, but I am going to check in the next couple of hours or days. So stay tuned for updates!

P.S. And NO, this is not because I am with pre-release beta of HyperV. My Version is: 6.0.6001.18125 !

Cheers!