The range of Azure services is growing very rapidly.  A couple of the vast list are really quite interesting indeed if your an IT Pro, or an Enterprise Architect.

Azure HDInsight brings an Apache Hadoop solution to Azure, allowing us to connect data sources like SharePoint (yes – a data source!) to gain value from all of that potential Big Data you have stored within it as a cloud-based data platform, and it can pretty much manage data of any type and any size.

Azure Machine Learning (AML) allows you to easily design, test, operationalize and manage predictive analytic solutions in the cloud.  So, take your data from SharePoint and feed to to Azure for consumption by AML, you can do some really amazing prediction with this tool – and it actually works...

ExpressRoute is a service that enables you to create private connections between Azure data centers and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a co-location environment.

A bit like having a dedicated point to point VPN, ExpressRoute connections do not go over the public Internet, and offer more reliability, faster speeds, lower latencies and higher security than typical connections over the Internet.

There are two ways to use the ExpressRoute service to establish a private connection to Azure – via an Exchange Provider or via a Network Service Provider. The associated charges are different for these two cases so pay attention.

Its an alternative to Point to Site, or Site to Site without requiring any additional fire-walling infrastructure and without these needing to be in differ...

I’m speaking in Wolverhampton next week on the importance of Goal Alignment in successful Hybrid projects, specifically for this talk focused on SharePoint 2013 Hybrid.  I’ll be covering how to introduce disruption by challenging convention, handling people and dealing with drive by management,  Perfect timing to accompany this from Mega on the Gartner Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2013.   I like this paper and you should read it.

http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/newsletters/mega/vol1_issue2/gartner.html?goback=.gde_60545_member_5887915225943932928

Some very current messages in this paper, such as “EA practitioners must focus EA efforts first and foremost on delivering business outcomes” and “EA practitioners need to strive to understand the context in which y...

install SharePoint2013 Server 2013 in your native language – in my case English.

Configure SharePoint for building Access Apps (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12514.sharepoint-2013-access-services.aspx)

Create a new Access App, test it as working

Install a language pack (you should have done this first by the way – not after you had started using SharePoint but we do occasionally consume/partner with other companies and face this stuff).

Created a second Access App and you will find it fails to initiate correctly even although the first app works fine still.

So, SharePoint initially creates a web for the Access-App with the initial locale of your native install whihc in this case is “en-US”...

So we are done with ESPC Barcelona, next is the SharePoint roadshow.  If you want my decks from Barcelona you can grab them off OneDrive here.

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=60EC7F3C97773BD4&id=60EC7F3C97773BD4!163

So, its really unusual for me to steal another MVP’s words of wisdom, but I was sat on a beach in Dubai when this posting appeared in my Facebook feed and just though, you know – it deserves a bit more than a simple mention!

You should attend the SharePoint Evolutions Roadshow?

The Evolution Tour brings the conference to you and gives you the option of purchasing one day at a time.  You’re in control of the amount of time and money you invest, and its worth noting that the price of a one day conference pass is significantly lower than that of the average daily cost of a traditional conference.

Evolutions events, arranged by Combined Knowledge (the leading SharePoint training provider I might add and a company I use professionally) are renowned world wide for the quality of the content...

The European SharePoint Conference is less than three weeks away and I’m delighted to be part of such an exceptional line up. The conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain from the 5-8^th May 2014 and is Europe’s largest SharePoint event bringing you great sessions and the latest innovations from Vegas.

Browse through the superb conference programme including 110 sessions, keynotes, and tutorials, including topics covering the latest news from SPC14 including what’s new with SharePoint 2013 SP1 – Office Graph/Oslo – new Office 365 REST APIs – Access Apps – Cloud Business Apps.

I will be conducting two sessions on “Lessons Learned to Avoid the Pitfalls of Failed SharePoint Projects” and “Bring Your Own Device, Or Bring Your Own Disaster”.

“Lessons Learned to Avoid the Pitfal...

I will be delivering three sessions the this unique and new roadshow.  If you are a member of SUGUK you are automatically entitled to 20% off the price using the code below:

You can sign up for SharePoint User Group UK at the following URL :http://www.suguk.org/

What started in the UK has grown to encompass more than 20 countries including Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and North America. Each MVP led event delivers a series of real-world scenarios that demonstrate how to integrate the Cloud OS into the constantly changing landscape of IT Professionals and Developers.

Don’t miss these expert led sessions, see where you should be to move your knowledge forward.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2014/03/27/mvps-host-global-cloud-os-roadshows.aspx

A really good debate sprouted up in Facebook recently, stated by SharePoint guru, pin-up and conference legend Christina Wheeler when she asked the interesting question:

“For customers that are on-premises only what would be reasons to develop SharePoint Apps versus farm solutions?”

Talk about crowd storming! This turned into a fascinating but short brain dump of some world leading SharePoint experts. Just too good a piece of collective guidance to ignore!

Before we get into the responses, what exactly is an App? The official line reads something like “Apps for SharePoint are easy-to-use, lightweight web applications that integrate popular web standards and technologies to extend the capabilities of a SharePoint website.”

Hmm, the campaign for plain English would be enamored with ...