Alex Will
Chief Technology Officer - ArchitectNow | Microsoft MVP
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Alex started out as a mechanical engineer student until his Sophomore year when Alex took his first computer science class. After the first project of making a terminal chutes and ladders game Alex immediately switched majors. Since switching majors, Alex has never looked back. Alex's favorite part of computer science is the problem solving and the creativeness he gets to apply in algorithms. Alex is now the CTO at ArchitectNow. Alex loves to be active in playing basketball and baseball.
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Bridging the Gap: From Proof of Concept to Enterprise Reality in Azure
This talk offers a strategic exploration into evolving Azure-based proofs of concept into more developed, though not fully enterprise-scale, solutions. This session delves into effectively leveraging Azure's comprehensive suite, including Static Web Apps, App Service, Azure SQL, Blob Storage, along with VNets and Private Endpoints, to craft applications that are both scalable and secure. Attendees will gain insights into seamlessly integrating their web apps, establishing a robust framework that moves beyond the PoC stage. The presentation will also outline key strategies for using Azure’s networking services to protect applications, and find the right balance between the flexibility of PoCs and the security demands of enterprise-level projects. Tailored for developers, architects, and IT specialists, this talk aims to equip professionals with the tools and knowledge needed to transition their cloud applications to an intermediary stage, ready for future expansion and complexity in the Azure ecosystem.
NoSQL Query Smells
This session is designed to introduce developers how to effieciently query their document databases. We will also look at metrics that could be a bad query smell.
We will be using Mongo in this session for our document store. All of these principals still apply to other Document stores.
Maximizing Value in Azure: A Strategic Guide for Architects and Administrators
In this session, we will explore cost optimization strategies for offerings in Azure. As an Azure engineer, ensuring that your organization's cloud resources are utilized efficiently and effectively is crucial. We will discuss various Azure tools, such as the Pricing Calculator, Policies, Cost Management, and Reserved Instances, which can help you make informed decisions and optimize your cloud spend.
Through real-world case studies, attendees will learn how organizations have successfully implemented cost-saving measures in their Azure environments. By the end of the session, participants will have a deeper understanding of Azure cost optimization strategies, enabling them to maximize value and minimize costs for their organizations.
Empower Your Software Development Team: Top 10 Essential Tools for Success
We will explore the top 10 essential tools that every software development team should be used to maximize productivity, efficiency, and collaboration. This session is designed for team leaders and individual contributors, covering a wide range of categories such as remote collaboration, password management, note-taking, email testing, development principles, and more.
We will discuss the pros and cons of each tool, along with practical tips on how to integrate them effectively into your team's workflow. Featuring tools like Miro, 1Password, Mailtrap, 12 Factor Apps, and other industry favorites, attendees will have a comprehensive understanding of the best tools available and how to leverage them for optimal team performance.
Mastering Cloud Security & Monitoring: From Fundamentals to Best Practices
This 4-hour workshop will provide attendees with an in-depth understanding of cloud security and monitoring principles, along with demos using Azure tools and services. Attendees will learn about Azure Active Directory, secure database management, identity, and access management, security management tools, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Application Insights, Zero Trust architecture, and Microsoft Intune. By the end of this session, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to build and maintain secure, well-monitored cloud applications and environments.
Document databases vs. Relational Databases: An honest comparison and things to consider
Many developers still struggle to understand which application scenarios might benefit from utilizing a document database or a relational database. Both of these options are powerful and many vendors have great products ready to build on. Unfortunately not one size fits all and there are definite scenarios where choosing one or the other will give your application architecture a leg up. There are also scenarios where a hybrid of using both a document database and a relational database might be the best choice.
We will discuss the benefits and tradeoffs of each option, how they differ, and give real-world design tips to consider when building on either. We will also discuss the current options available for database platforms in both the relational and document DB space. Many examples of real code and architectures will be given.
Developer Potluck: Useful tools, APIs, services, and other toys every developer should know about
This talk is designed to quickly introduce developers to a wide range of useful tools and services we have found extremely useful in helping us provide better solutions, improving our development process, and generally just making our lives easier.
These tools range from sites that provide useful services for developers, APIs we frequently utilize within our applications to provide more capabilities, SDKs and libraries we commonly leverage, and utilities we find useful.
Our goal with this talk is to quickly demonstrate a large number of useful tools, utilities, and APIs and leave attendees with the resources they need to find out more. Some of these tools are free/open source and others are commercial, but we find them all extremely useful and can’t wait to share how we use them.
We will discuss:
Developer utilities (all the way down to our favorite command prompts)
3rd party APIs
Productivity Software
IDEs and plugins
Useful NPM and NuGet packages
Designing and Architecting Cloud-Native Apps in Microsoft Azure
During this all day workshop we will demonstrate how to plan for and manage the full lifecycle of a modern application using the latest Microsoft Azure resources and tooling. We will start with a high level overview of a wide variety of architectural and Cloud-based considerations and we will then work our way down through a complete setup of a basic application all the way from a clean Azure DevOps and GIT repo setup, through bootstrapping an empty UI in Angular and a robust API using .NET Core/C#. We will demonstrate how to fully automate the deployment and development lifecycle of these application components up to Azure. We will ultimately take the same Azure configuration and convert it to a full “infrastructure as code” setup using Terraform.
We will also discuss how to efficiently and cost-effectively make use of Azure resources by demonstrating various best practices for choosing the right components and proactively monitoring utilization and costs of your applications.
If you want an example of a very robust and “real world” Cloud-based architecture targeted to Microsoft Azure then this 8 hour workshop will be something you do not want to miss.
Agenda:
Architectures in Azure
Framework choices from .NET Core to NodeJS to Mobile
GIT Best Practices for Branching and Versioning
Database Options and Implications
Azure DevOps Pipelines
Azure Planning and Pricing
Containerization
Ongoing Monitoring and Support
Demystifying Azure Pricing
The in’s and out’s of understanding the complexities of Azure pricing can get a bit complicated. During this talk presenters, Alex Will and Kevin Grossnicklaus will discuss strategies around planning for and paying for Azure consumption and other Microsoft services such as Office 365 and Dynamics 365. As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, we set up and manage Azure and Microsoft 365 environments for customers all over the US. In doing so we’ve tried many different approaches to creating and updating environments to better utilize the dollars spent by our customers while providing robust cloud solutions. We’re sharing the best practices we’ve learned and adapted to create the ideal end result: predictable pricing with the best experience possible. This includes not only making smart initial decisions on configuring new environments but also in managing and reporting on ongoing costs to make better use of the resources you are ultimately paying for.
Some high-level topics we will cover include:
Basic overview of how Azure and other Microsoft services are priced and how billing is generally accomplished
Tips and tricks on estimating and implementing Azure applications with regards to pricing
Reserved pricing vs consumption-based pricing
Discussion of pricing around specific resource and service types
Managing your billing and tracking towards a monthly budget
Cost savings options and other advanced topics
As time allows we will gladly answer and many questions as we can from attendees.
Cloud-Native Apps in Azure: Architecture, Implementation, Deployment, and Monitoring
Technology has changed so rapidly and dramatically, its shifted the business model from under us all. The need for massive upfront investment for on-premise infrastructure will soon become a footnote of our past. It is now ever important to be aware of how software we haven’t even built yet will age, even how to retire it. Modern infrastructure isn’t just cloud based or about using the newest languages and frameworks, but rather how that code is architected, managed, deployed and monitored is key to embracing the cultural shift of adopting technology as operational procedures instead of capital intensive assets.
We will demonstrate how to manage the full lifecycle of a modern application using Microsoft Azure tooling. We will start with how we are going to build, deliver, and monitor the app. You will learn about Infstracture As Code, Docker, Microservices, Azure Monitoring, Azure DevOps.
Agenda:
* Architectures in Azure
* .NET Core and NodeJS
* MongoDB and SQL
* Docker
* Infrastructure as Code
* Azure DevOps Pipelines
* Azure App Services
* Azure Container Registry
* API Gateways
* Azure Monitoring
Building Resilient Cloud Applications: Exploring Modern Cloud Design Patterns
Discover the power of modern cloud design patterns in this immersive 4-hour workshop. Participants will dive into event-driven design, data-centric architecture, serverless computing, low code/no code solutions, and microservices architecture, exploring their benefits and use cases. The workshop will also cover demos of these patterns using Azure services like Event Grid, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Power Apps, and Azure Kubernetes Service. By the end of this session, attendees will be well-equipped to create robust, scalable, and maintainable cloud applications using the latest design patterns and best practices.
Alex Will
Chief Technology Officer - ArchitectNow | Microsoft MVP
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