We recently had the chance to help a major company in Omaha convert from a self-hosted Team Foundation environment to Visual Studio Team Services. This was a big project, since we wanted to include all work items (stories, features, bugs, tasks, etc), shared queries and source code history; as well as a switch from Team Foundation Version Control to the Git protocol. The conversion itself went off without a hitch. Using git was an entirely new approach for seasoned TFS professionals, but they quickly jumped on board when we showed off Pull Requests. Pull Requests are a way to put your own code up for a review. This is done via a merge from one branch to another. I like to think of it as, “I request that the main branch pull in my changes.” The team can then look at all of my code changes, and if the pull request is approved, the merge is allowed. Along the way, comments and discussion can be added to any line of code that was changed. We...

As developers, we love things that make our lives easier. We’d rather spend time developing, than we would maintaining servers and tending to our database and we want to be able to deploy our apps with the click of a button. That’s why we love Azure SQL Database - we can use all of the tools we’re already comfortable with and get the added benefit of Azure’s built-in intelligence services. We’ve used Azure SQL Database on new apps, when starting from scratch, but hadn’t yet migrated an existing client to the platform. The goal was to essentially move an existing database from a dedicated VM with full SQL Server up to the cloud to be fully managed by Azure. But how can you be sure that Azure SQL Database is right for you? THE PROS AND CONS OF MANAGED SQL Azure SQL Database is the intelligent, fully-managed relational cloud database service built for developers. Accelerate app development and make maintenance...

In a well-architected system, an application oftentimes needs to execute tasks outside of a traditional web request. Some examples might include: Updating a search indexRolling-up log tables into aggregate tables, for reportingSending email messagesExecuting tasks dependent on a 3rd-party These tasks might need to run on a schedule, or in response to certain events, or continuously. They may need to touch .NET code, or run SQL queries or procedures, or interact with 3rd-party services. Setting up a “task server”, for the purposes of performing these duties, is common practice. This may not seem like a worthwhile use of money, though, if your tasks are simple. With Azure Webjobs, we can use our existing web server to run these utilities. This has multiple benefits: Familiar API with other Azure web servicesNo extra cost, since we can configure a Webjob to run on our web server’s spare CPUNo extra infrastructure...

You have plenty of experts within your company, already on your payroll. So, why should you hire a consultant? In our experience, there are two different reasons companies look to consultants for help. First, you may be looking for an outside perspective. Decision-making within companies can sometimes result in a mess of politics, as employees can have their individual agendas, preventing the choices from being pragmatic. For example, a network supervisor may recommend purchasing millions of dollars worth of hardware in order to make employee smart cards work with their in-house security system, when all that is required is a bit of custom software. Even if a software manager is able to influence upper management with this idea, it may be difficult for upper management to choose the best approach, as each may have its merits. Thus, an outside contractor can make a recommendation free from politics, and without putting their professional reputation on the line within...