On Saturday May 8, 2010 there will be a Firestarter event focused on learning about Microsoft's Windows Azure Cloud Platform. This FREE, ALL-DAY, HANDS-ON event will be held at the Microsoft NERD building in Cambridge, Massachusetts (which is near the Kendall Square stop on the Red Line train, and since this is a Saturday event, free on-street parking will likely be available).

The schedule below is a draft of the content for the day. While we are still tweaking the specifics, rest assured the focus of the event is covering the most important Azure topics through a combination of informative talks and hands-on coding sessions.

We have some outstanding speakers lined up (including a keynote speaker we will announce soon).

WHAT ABOUT THIS BEING "HANDS ON" - What does that mean for me?

While we expect that many attendees will bring their own laptop (pre-configured for Azure development), it is also possible to pair up with another attendee if you don't have your own gear. We will help you find someone to pair up with if you don't have someone already.

SCHEDULE (DRAFT - SPECIFICS WILL CHANGE OVER NEXT FEW WEEKS)

1. 8:00-8:55 AM -- Registration, Breakfast, Last minute laptop fix-ups
2. 8:55-9:00 -- Welcome, Overview of Day
3. 9:00 - Keynote by David Aiken (from Microsoft Azure team)
4. 10:30 - Talk by Bill Wilder on Azure Tools, Roles, and Queues
5. 11:00 - Break
6. 11:10 - Lab #1 - build first application - roles, queues - deploy
7. 12:45 - Lunch
8. 1:15 - Talk by Ben Day on Azure Storage + Lab
9. 2:45 - Break
10. 3:00 - Talk by Andy Novick on SQL Azure + Lab
11. 4:30 - Break
12. 4:45  - (We are finalizing this segment - choosing among several options in next couple of days)
13. 6:00 Closing
14. 6:15 Done
15. Evening... go out for a local beer?

Follow updates to the schedule + topics at http://bostonazure.org/firestarter.

TOPICS (DRAFT - SPECIFICS WILL CHANGE OVER NEXT FEW WEEKS)

1. Overview: What's the big deal with Cloud Computing? What's Windows Azure? ...
2. Programming Model: Roles, Queues, Storage options, Dev Fabric, App Fabric, Tools, ...
3. Azure Tables, Blobs, SQL Azure, ...
4. Local Development Experience, Deployment to Cloud, ...
5. Important cloud Design Patterns, ...

Hope to see you there!

BOSTON AZURE USER GROUP

Though separate from the Firestarter, you may also wish to know about the Boston Azure - a cloud user group that meets monthly at NERD. You can sign up for Boston Azure user group announcements to stay in touch. See also the Boston Azure Calendar of Upcoming Events.

Assistance from members of Boston Azure made this Firestarter possible.

CREDITS

[credit: Firestarter logo built based on http://shaedsofgrey.deviantart.com/art/fire-45734782?moodonly=1 under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.]