Month: March 2017

Interactive Catalog of Azure Services

Just a quick note to share with you this pretty awesome resource that I discovered recently.

This is a very handy interactive catalog of all the main Azure services, grouped logically into areas like Compute, Networking, Web & Mobile, Data & Storage, and so on.

Interactive Azure Platform Overview
You can search by keyword or just browse through, but each service gets its own little snippet along with a collection of useful links to the service overview, pricing information and any technical limits to be aware of!

Azure Mobile Apps snippet expanded

So, what are you waiting for? Check out the Interactive Azure Platform Overview!

Enjoy,
MJ

Azure Technical References

When it comes to learning, not all resources are created equal.

If you’re like me and you’re on a permanent journey of leveling-up on technologies and skills, then you know that finding the right resources along the way is paramount.

Now, when it comes to learning a vast technology like Microsoft Azure, I find that there’s plenty of material out there at levels 100-300, but finding level 400 resources isn’t as simple.

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How well do you know X?

In today’s world of cloud technology, change is coming at a breakneck pace. It’s both very exciting and quite daunting.

So, when you’re facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge, what do you do? Well, you plan and strategize your approach of course!

Take Azure for example, it already has 90+ services with new ones coming out on a regular basis! Learning most of these services, or even keeping up with them is a daunting challenge indeed.

Well, I recently learned of a good mental framework for assessing how well you know something, and I think it’s a great way to tame the learning approach.

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Azure Learning Paths

With each new day, there seems to be yet another Azure service to explore and master. If you try to keep up with the breadth of all Azure services and their associated features, you are bound to feel overwhelmed.

So, how do you deal with such feelings?

Well, there’s a saying for that:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, of course!

It’s really that simple — you just have to pick one service at a time and learn it!

I was pointed to a fantastic resource recently that does an excellent job of laying out a learning path for a lot of Azure services.

Using a flow-chart of sorts, your journey to learning Azure Batch, as an example, can look this elegant:

Azure Batch - Learning Path

 

So, what are you waiting for? Check out Azure Learning Paths!

Enjoy!
MJ

Open your mind to mindmaps!

Many of my colleagues have noticed over the years that I’m a fan of mindmaps in general, and a huge fan of mindmapping software in particular.

I can’t remember when I first heard of mindmaps, but it was several years ago, and I remember thinking that it’s a neat tool for organizing your thoughts. I was introduced at first to the paper form, and while artistic and fancy looking, I did foresee potential scalability and usability issues with the medium (as a software architect, I can’t not think of these things).

However, it was only 2 to 3 years ago that I saw an ex-colleague of mine using mindmapping software to capture meeting notes from a group session that was particularly all-over-the-place.

I was very enticed by what I saw.

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