The Problem: System Center Orchestrator 2012 exposes a data service that enables to query and execute runbooks. But working directly with the data service is like executing a WCF service by manually composing the SOAP messages. There are no type-safe parameters, no intellisense and you need to type the exact path of the runbook or […]
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IT Insights
Remotely Executing “Real” Exchange 2010 SP2 PowerShell Scripts
You can probably find several blog posts out there about remotely executing simple commands and scripts against Exchange servers, but trying to implement these examples on a “real” functional script, can introduce some annoying problems that nobody seems to mention. This was the case when I tried to develop a web page that was supposed […]
Code in the Cloud with Cloud9 IDE
One of my favourite cloud innovations has been a Cloud IDE. I always found that setting up for development was a chore. I had to sit down, open all my apps, load all my work, and get my windows setup the way I need them. It sounds trivial yet the task is so tedious. It […]
Availability and Performance Monitoring: A Cloud Hosting Primer
It is always surprising to me the lack of attention that is paid to monitoring when customers purchase cloud hosting services. Mostly, I think it is because the business owners and many system administrators don’t really understand the complexities of properly “instrumenting” even a moderately complex application (web or otherwise) and take it for granted. […]
Milliseconds are Money: How Much Performance Matters in the Cloud
In the cloud … faster is better! But how much faster equals how much better? If your site loads even one second faster, will your audience grow? Will you have more sales? If so, by how much? Would you believe it takes only half a second to lose 1/5th of your visitors?