Explore some of the Windows Azure resources that provide you with services

Editorial Staff Note: This article is written by Benari, a team project manager at Windows Azure Web site.

Our site http://www.windowsazure.com contains a lot of information and is constantly adding and updating content, but you may sometimes want to look for other forms of information. For example, it might be easier to get information through a book if you often travel by plane or are unable to stay online for other reasons. In other cases, you feel like you want to find a more interactive source of information than the article. Today we will explore some of the Azure resources available for you.

Many people's preferred sources of information are blogs, for example, what you are reading now is a blog post. There are several teams in Azure that feed on blogs and many bloggers, both inside and outside of Microsoft. For example, Scott Guthrie, a company vice president at Microsoft Server and tools business, opened a popular blog that he often talked about Azure in his blog. On the right-hand side of the Windowsazure blog page, he and several other bloggers, such as Clemens vasters, David Gristwood, Nick Harris, Nathan Totten, and so on, are listed on the right.

If you prefer Twitter's short, fast updates, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that we also @WindowsAzure push messages through Twitter, and many of our team members do the same. For example, the Twitter @nirmsk of Nir Mashkowski, Scott Hanselman's Twitter @shanselman, and of course, Scott Guthrie's tweet @scottgu.

Sometimes you may want to find someone to answer your questions directly. If you are using an Azure service that is eligible for support, this is usually your first choice, and if not, you can find the answer in our support forum; If your question belongs to a new topic not previously on the forum, you can publish a new topic. Another popular forum that often talks about Azure is the forum for Stack Overflow. In addition, UserVoice provides a direct channel to communicate with the Azure product team within Microsoft, allowing you to make your own comments or requests, which we will review.

Of course, books are another good source of information. With so many other sources of information, one might be puzzled by the money to buy books. However, in addition to the offline situation, many people still prefer reading books because books are inherently synchronized. You can read from page 1th until you finish, and online content makes it difficult to determine where to start and what order to read to get more information. In recent years, books on Windows Azure have been published a lot.

The best getting Started book on cloud computing may be the Cloud Computing Bible (ISBN 978-0470903568) of Barrie Sosinsky. Although not specifically for Azure, it explores the real meaning of cloud technology, the evolution of cloud technology over time, and operations in the cloud. After mastering the basics, you can consider reading the Windows Azure Platform (Author: Tejaswi Redkar and Tony Guidici, both of whom are employees of Microsoft), which explores Azure technology in more depth and detail.

If you are a developer, you may want to read books specifically discussing Azure development, such as Windows Azure programming patterns for start-ups (author: Riccardo Becker), Microsoft Windows Azure Development Cookbook (author: Neil Mackenzie) or moving applications to the Cloud on Windows Azure (author: Dominic Betts, Alex Homer, Alejandro Jezierski, Masashi Narumoto and Hanzhong Zhang).

Some books even discuss specific Azure services directly, focusing on the various aspects of azure services. For example, Tejaswi Redkar and James Chambers have published books on the Azure Web site (waws). Redkar's book is a total of 342 pages, detailed and comprehensive, while Chambers's book is more concise, is a quick browse some basic tasks of good choice. Windows Azure Hybrid Cloud (author: Danny Garber, Jamal Malik, and Adam Fazio) is another more specific book that describes how to combine the advantages of two kinds of clouds with a private cloud/public cloud theme.

Some people think that seeing is believing, and if you think so, class lecturers may be the right choice. Microsoft and our partners offer a number of such courses, although it is much more cumbersome to take part in the classroom (since it may take time to find a course that matches your location and schedule at work), but classroom instruction is indeed the ideal choice for both information and hands-on experience. For more information about courses and lesson sheets, visit here (a tool to search for upcoming courses on the right side of the page). Also, don't forget to check out Channel9,microsoft for videos that discuss various Microsoft products and technologies, including a number of Azure-related content. Many of these videos are from the actual demo on the TechEd of the Microsoft Annual conference, which means that the content will be more in-depth and extensive.

Windows Azure is now in hot demand, with almost every content publisher providing content associated with it. For example, Lynda.com, one of the most famous self-study video makers, has released more than 170 videos on the subject, more than 10 hours long, and Pluralsight has collected a number of related videos. Of course, the cheaper option is YouTube and Vimeo, each of which collects thousands of related videos ... But it's not easy to get good video.

In short, Azure business is extensive, offering a variety of products and services, while also providing a variety of learning channels. Regardless of which source of information you choose, we and our partners are always here to help you. However, if the problem is too complex, please visit our Facebook page and chat with us online, we will help you out!