No worries, we just execute the query in the ordinary way, via MSSQL management studio. But this wasn't working either, just a spinning executing query.

The web had been able to lock the database.

We tried  sp_who2, to get more information about the lock. Turns out that this doesn't work in sql azure.

After googeling around we found the following two views being able to help:

select * from sys.dmtranlocks where request_lifetime > 1

select * from sys.dmexecconnections order by session_id

Looking at the result it was clear in the elapsed time which session that was holding the lock.

Kill it with the following command:

KILL sessionId

Since we are a small company we soon released the handling servers and installing patches and updates isn't our thing.

We made the move to TFS Azure when it was still in a beta state, but we still thought it was working good enough for us.

As we grew as a company we started to work more and more with agile principles, and Scrum became our main philosophy. Then we needed a system that could handle these requirements. Luckily TFS Azure had grown and now a Scrum work template was available. We where able to move all our backlog items and task, and a nice scrum board online.

This was working good for us with some smaller issues with the burndown chart. This was during the beginning of our development cycles. A lot of new functionality came, and with that some bugs that we kept track of.

Today we have two customers using the product that we build, and along with that comes support.

Now the TFS Azure isn't the software we are looking for to handle the support tickets. We need something that is a facade in front of TFS, that a support organization can work with, that handles SLA, Customers, centralizes all communications, customer satisfactory.

After a good look around I now decided to try  Zendesk

We will start our trial, with 3 support agents tomorrow, and I will get back with my review.

Since I've done a fair bit of migrations of asp.net sites I decided to start with php and the Mysql databases.

I don't like the payment modell for ClearDB, I still think it's too expensive. So I've created a new virtual mashine with Windows server 2012, and installer the windows version of Mysql.

I followed this guide: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/install-mysql/

It's kind of outdates since Mysql installation doesn't look a bit like the guide, but you could still follow the instructions without any problems.

When I was all done, and had imported out databases I tried to connect to the database from one of our websites. This wasn't working!

I first thought about the firewalls, and I had done like the guide instructed to, open an endpoint for Mysql, as well as opened Mysql in Windows server firewall. It was when I had a closer look at the firewall rules I saw that it had only opened the port for Mysql in the Domain, and not public. As soon as I changed this everything worked fine!

Highlighted needs to be set to All or Public in order to work remotely:

[highlight color="black]Summary: 1 Database, and 1 site migrated successfully. [/highlight]

LocalSTS which is shipped via the extension "Identity and access tool" is a fake Access control, this way I can keep trying different scenarios with login. The extension can be found here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/e21bf653-dfe1-4d81-b3d3-795cb104066e

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But today I got an issue with the Local STS, it didn't want to give me any fake tokens. We had recently made a new branch and one guy in the team had no problems with the Local STS.

After a couple of hours, trying to find any difference in our solutions I found one critical difference:

We had to run with IIS Express in order for Local STS to work.

This was working on my colleagues mashine, but since he hadn't checked the checkbox apply server settings to all users, so it was saved to the project file and version controlled, I had different settings.

After two month of holidy / parental leave you go back in the coding world, and trying to start where you left.

To warm up my coding skills I had a look at some Code Kata for .net found here: http://codingkata.net/

I also did some reading up on patterns, which is greatly explained and implemented here: http://dotnetcodr.com/

My next big project is to migrate a local web server to Azure. Right now I'm in the planing stages of figuring out if I should use Azure websites, or cloud services. Either way I will need to setup a virtual mashine running Mysql, as well as leveraging Sql Azure for Mssql.

To be continued on the Azure project.

Screenshot from the app:

Go check it out and download it here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/86788d02-ce1e-4933-b499-cdba6a70f26f

I can tell you quickly how I'm hosting this:
I use Windows Azure websites, with a Mysql db from Clear DB. Since it's limited to only 20 MBs I've added the plugin  http://wordpress.org/plugins/windows-azure-storage/ to store all my content in Azure Storage (Blog storage)

To speed up the process of my Blog I actualy bought a Wordpress theme from Themeforest, http://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226

I will go into more details of my setup later, now I need to dive into Photoshop to make some banners.