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Book Review: A Developer's Guide to .NET in Azure: A Dash of .NET - Ep. 4
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Jan 29, 2024
Join this live session with Stephen Simon ft. Anuraj Parameswaran for the next episode of A Dash of .NET - live show on January 18, at 09:30 PM (PST). A Developer's Guide to .NET in Azure helps you embark on a transformative journey through Microsoft Azure that is tailored to .NET developers. This book is a curated compendium that'll enable you to master the creation of resilient, scalable, and highly available applications. GUEST SPEAKER Anuraj Parameswaran is a highly experienced IT professional with over 18 years of expertise in designing and developing enterprise applications. Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer at Socxo Solutions Pvt. Ltd, he plays a pivotal role in shaping the design, architecture, and development of SaaS solutions in the fields of advocacy and digital marketing. Anuraj is not only a fervent technology enthusiast but also an early adopter with a deep passion for architectural innovation. LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/anurajp/ Get the Book from here: https://www.packtpub.com/product/a-developers-guide-to-net-in-azure/9781837633012 📺 CSharp TV - Dev Streaming Destination http://csharp.tv C# Corner - Community of Software and Data Developers https://www.c-sharpcorner.com #azure #CSharpTV #csharpcorner #dotNet
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0:00
Hi everyone and welcome to our DashHelper.net series
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In this series, this is our very first podcast. If you're watching this series
0:08
you know that we've been doing it every alternate week, but the amount of requests we have received from the speakers
0:15
I think we have to do it about two weeks every week
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Having said that, I'm really, really excited for this podcast, because if you are someone who's
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first love is C-Sharp programming language, if not first, then if you've ever had a crush on C-Sharp programming language
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and you want to move into the Cloud ecosystem, then Azure remains your very first choice
0:40
I've got a really nice book that was delivered to me by Linda and the authors, Anurag
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I've gone through this book and today, I'm really excited to bring one of the authors of this book, Anurag
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He is a Microsoft MVP, he's a rock star. You should check his LinkedIn and all and get connected with him
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You can find all his details in the video description. So without any further ado
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let's bring our author of this book and our guest, Anurag. Hi, Anurag and welcome to this podcast
1:10
Hi, hi, hi, Simon. Thank you. So thanks, Anurag, for joining us today
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And I know writing a book is not at all easy, right
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I see. Let me look at how many pages you have. It is of almost 500, right
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I've never written something like this. So let me ask you, I know you're a Microsoft MVP
1:30
which means you are very active in the developers community. You like to contribute back
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So let's start with how you got into this all community, giving back, and what actually inspired you to write this really amazing book
1:45
OK, so let me tell you my career, my career journey. I started in 2004, January
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So I was 20 when I completed. Wow. I was born around that time
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So I started as a VB developer, VB6 developer, VB6 ASP. Then I moved to .NET
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At that time, around 2006, 2007, I worked in a company where we got a SharePoint project
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It was SharePoint 3. So Microsoft introduced SharePoint. And the team was, everyone was ASP.NET developers
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So we don't have a clue what is happening. So we did a lot of experiments with SharePoint
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And when we are searching, we couldn't find any tutorials or anything
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So that's when I started blogging. Through blogging, I come to know about the Microsoft community
3:07
in my native region. So I went to one or two meetings
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I asked some questions. Then the organizers noticed me. And then they asked me to join, volunteer for other events
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So I started volunteering. Basically, why I contribute to the community? Because I learned from the community
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So I wanted to give back. That is the main motivation for me to contribute to the community
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That's very nice of you, giving back. Usually, it happens just the way you said
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You're trying to find something on the internet. You're stuck in a project. You cannot find it
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And then you get so frustrated. And you realize that I'm not the only person who's having this issue
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So you take a next step. You start writing blogs or maybe put it on the internet
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or maybe start helping with your colleagues in the meetings. So yeah, I think this is a story that we all share
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And I'm really happy to hear it from you. Having said that, Anurag, this book, A Developer's Guide
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to .NET in Azure, this may look like a beginner's book. But to be honest, at some point, it is a very pro level
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When you say you have been working in the industry for 20 years, I can read from this book that there's a lot that you have put in
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So let me ask you, what made you write this book? I mean, you could have written a book on C Sharp
4:36
which is evolving at a very fast pace than ever before. Why did you choose to write C Sharp .NET book along with Azure
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Yeah, so again, the same, when we are interacting with the new talent, new freshers
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when we are like in our project, everything is in Azure. So like when we talk or when we are like
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OK, how do you know how Azure works or you know how we are hosting
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They know about virtual machines. That's all cloud is to most of the people
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So I thought, OK, let's because if you look into Azure, we got n number of services
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It's like today, if you say, OK, today I got 200 services in Azure bottom and tomorrow you get 250
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Yeah, and that is the kind of pace technology is improving and cloud and Microsoft is working on
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So on that aspect, if you look into people are very like
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since technology is moving very fast, people need to like learn new things very fast
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So but still in college, we are talking about Azure machines, probably
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That's it. So then a team approached me for like writing a book
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So I thought, OK, let's do it in Azure. Yeah, that's good
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And I think it goes very hand in right. Right. If you are a C-Sharp or dot and developer
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and you use Visual Studio or maybe even VS Code now, they have a lot of you get packages and out of the box
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You can easily deploy your resources to Azure. You can even monitor it
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So if you are a C-Sharp dotnet developer, it becomes relatively very easy for you
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And also what I've noticed is that if you are on a dotnet version
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let's say the latest version, the Azure will support it. Whereas if you look at the other cloud computing platform
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there are always a couple of versions behind. It's not like they are bad. It's just that if you are a C-Sharp or dotnet developer
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working on Azure gives you an edge than any other cloud computing platform
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So, yeah, I'm with you. So that really helps. Having said that, Anurag
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this book, as I said, is definitely start for beginners. Then it goes to a very expert level
7:19
But if I had to ask you, what is the target audience of this book
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Right. What would you what would you say then? Yeah, again, we are like mainly we focus on writing
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Our target audience will be developers and architects. Because we are. Yeah, because we are covering
7:43
from. OK, for example, we are introducing Docker. Then we are also introducing Azure Governance Service
7:51
So and database, we are introducing how to create database. Also, we are explaining how to protect the database
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with private endpoints. Azure SQL is a private endpoint. So we are covering like all the like areas
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where a beginner can start. Also, we are introducing Azure Portal. Oh, yeah, I did see that. Yeah
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So how to create resources, everything. We are also explaining, OK, how to deploy using ARM templates
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I personally love ARM templates. Yeah. And we are explaining how you can configure CACD
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how you can configure CACD from your application to Azure App Service, Container Service, AKS, everything
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So there's a lot in this book. Yeah, I've seen it. You talk about serverless, then Kubernetes, Docker, what not
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There's a lot going on. That's why I said it's easy to get started
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But it is not a book that you just go and sit back
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and read it. No, you have to practice it. It will take time. It is not something you can do in just about a month or two
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You'll have to practice. You'll face some challenges. And then only you'll be able
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This book will be useful to you. Having said that, Anduraj, the title of the book
9:18
definitely is Developers Guide to .NET in Azure. But the tagline or I should say the subtitle, it says
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Build quick, scalable cloud native applications and microservices. Right. So how do you justify this
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What what someone reading this for the very first time should be able to make out of it
9:38
Yeah. So why cloud native? Because we are talking about Dapr, Containers
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Azure Kubernetes Service, serverless. So for a developer who is wanted to learn cloud native kind of development
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this is a definite starting point where he can learn about how he can
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like create containers, how he can deploy web apps with Azure Container Service
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App Service, Azure, how to do it, Azure Kubernetes Service. Also like Dapr is a component from like Dapr.io
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So it helps you to build distributed applications very easily. So all those things we are covering in that. So, yeah
10:43
I think I see. I see everything, every whenever you start to explain, right
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I mean, if you go through this book, there's a beginning. There's a beginner's guide for every topic and then gives you a small project
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and then you move on to start explaining it in depth. So it's really nice
10:59
So, you know, the way I was reading this book is I like more of the serverless part
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So I did read the first chapter and then I was like, you know what? I am right now more interested to learn about the serverless
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because that is what Azure functions, my company or the project that I'm currently working on
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So I skipped to that part. So that is what I really like about this book
11:17
that you don't have to actually even go through one after the other. If there's something that you really want to learn at this instance, right
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Let's say tomorrow is like my boss can be like, hey, Simon, I want you to go ahead and learn something around Docker with Docker
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I can just go ahead and and take a look at that chapter and it will give me a heads up
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So this is how I'm reading this book. And I like it
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Yeah, certain chapter, there may be a dependency, like, for example, some place we are saying, OK
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this is the way we are deploying app services. OK, we already deployed
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like Docker containers in in the Docker chapter. We already did the continuous integration
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how to configure CACD on Docker containers on chapter two. Then probably
12:13
in chapter four, we will be discussing app service. So there we may be referring, OK, this is the way we can configure
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CACD for app services. We already learned this one in how to do this in
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containers in previous chapters. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for pointing that out
12:36
I was just being a little impatient to look at the chapter that I like it
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You we are actually thanks to again, thanks to they are actually giving a reference
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So, yeah, you can just go to that. This particular chapter, this page, you will be able to see, OK
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go there and you'll be able to see. Yeah, that's nice. That's nice
13:01
Having said that, Anurag, is there any real world case projects that you have made
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covered in this book? I know you have definitely taught step by step, but is there any project
13:13
someone will end up making after a chapter, maybe a certain chapters? No, actually, we initially thought to write like that
13:22
But what happened if we do like that? We may not be able to cover all the things on that
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For example, if I say I am building a web application. OK. Otherwise I had to say, OK, this is the way I can deploy a web application
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like app containers. This is the way we can deploy the same application app service
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So instead of avoiding that kind of we are creating independent projects
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So for each chapter, there is an associated project. Since it's targeting most of the like first developer beginners
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it is not a very big project. It's very small projects. It's good, right
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And if you start something and then you complete it instead of you going through an entire book and completing only one project and you don't get it through
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then you feel very sad about it. Oh, I couldn't complete it. But if you break it down, write one chapter, a small project
14:31
that you can complete and then you feel good about it. So I think that is also one nice way to read a book and finish it
14:40
And Anurag, I know we are only 15 minutes in and we only have about 10 or odd minutes left
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Let me ask you this. For an inspiring .NET developers who are interested in exploring cloud native development
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what will be some of your two to three tips that you will give from this book
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That this is something that you really need to learn if I want to be a cloud native developer. Right
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What are some of the two, three tips that you'll get from this book? Learn
15:08
First of all, I will say that 12 Factor, there is a website, 12 Factor
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So it is a like very base book for cloud native. 12 Factor app.net, I guess
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I can give you the exact link. I don't know. Someone else put it somewhere
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So it's in the book. So that is your first. In that, we will learn, OK, for a cloud native application, whatever things you need to focus
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For example, if one of the example is, OK, you should be monitoring your application
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That is a mandatory thing. Or your configuration should be in a centralized location
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So all those things, for example, in Azure, you can put it in like Azure app configuration
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There is a service for that. And your seeker should be, should not be part of your code
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It should be again in a centralized location. Azure keyword. So 12 Factor app, that is the very base thing for cloud native
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And then Dapr, all those things you need to learn these frameworks
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It is nothing, it is not tied to Microsoft or .NET or Azure
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But it is, you can get bindings of .NET or SQL Server or Cosmos DB, everything in this
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OK. Then learn foundations. And yeah, that's all is important. Yeah, that is a very like mandatory
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Yeah. If you are not strong in your foundations, you can't learn anything
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Yeah, you're right. You're right. Foundation is always important, which we always tend to skip
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And that is what people get asked in the interviews. OK. So I'll ask you one final question, or maybe this is my second final question
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Anurag, is now definitely we have this book, right? I encourage everyone to go ahead and get a copy of this book
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We'll put a link in the description so that you can also find it from there
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Anurag, apart from this book, is there any supporting material that we get from this book
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For instance, a GitHub repository or maybe some of your blogs or anything like that, that one gets through this book
17:49
Yeah, all the source codes are available on GitHub. Again, I can give you the link
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Then you can check out my blog. It's anurag.dev slash blog. OK
18:08
Then occasionally I will post on LinkedIn. Yeah. As Simon mentioned. Follow me on LinkedIn
18:18
Yeah, that's good. That's good. You know, I always feel good to have a GitHub repo where I can just go ahead and, you know, pick up the latest for the updates for every chapter and that you have been building
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So that really helps me just to compare and what I did wrong and what was right to be done
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So I think that is very good to have. If you're keeping with this book, apart from your blogs and LinkedIn, I'll put your details down in the description box
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Having said that, Anurag, I think we're almost end, it's almost like 19 minutes
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Otherwise, we won't show up on the entire podcast. What is your final thing you want to add before we wrap up this podcast
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Like, thank you for Simon and Linda for arranging it. And again, thank you for Simon for inviting me to this podcast and do buy our book
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Yeah, do it. Yeah, this is the book. All right, everyone. Thank you so much, Anurag
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Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. I know the effort and time that you put in this book is a lot more that you actually expect to get it back
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Right. So we know that your commitment to the community is way beyond that what you get back from this book
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So thank you so much. Thanks to everyone. Thanks. Thanks, Linda. And thank you all who have watched and have a copy of this book from the link below
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And we will see you soon. Bye bye. Thank you
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