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Book Review: Learning Microsoft Azure: A Dash of .NET - Ep. 7
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Feb 23, 2024
Join this live session with Stephen Simon ft. Jonah Andersson for the next episode of A Dash of .NET - live show on February 15, at 09:30 PM (PST). Learning Microsoft Azure helps you and your organization plan to modernize services and move to the cloud from legacy software or a private cloud on-premises, this book is for you. Software developers, solution architects, cloud engineers, and anybody interested in cloud technologies will learn fundamental concepts for cloud computing, migration, transformation, and development using Microsoft Azure. GUEST SPEAKER Jonah Andersson is a Developer, Cloud & DevOps Engineer, book author, and the founder of Azure User Group Sweden. She specializes in Agile System Development, modern application development, and building systems in C# .NET and Cloud technologies on Microsoft Azure. As a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (Microsoft MVP) for Azure and a Microsoft Certified Trainer, she is passionate about sharing my knowledge and expertise in cloud development and Microsoft Azure technologies. She is also an international speaker and an inclusive tech community leader. 📺 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 #AI
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0:00
Hi everyone and welcome back to this episode of a dash of.net
0:07
For someone who has been following this show, you know that in this series of show
0:11
we talk about Azure, which is very closely binded with C-sharp. In today's episode, we get a blend of
0:19
both C-sharp and Azure and we talk about both these topics. We are joined by the rock star, Jonah Anderson
0:26
She lives in Sweden. She's a very good friend of mine. She's a Microsoft MVP, she's a.NET developer
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and she's a complete rock star. If you don't follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn until now
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you should definitely go ahead and connect with her. I just cannot wait to bring her in. Let's do it
0:43
Hi, Jonah, and welcome to the show. Hi, Stephen, Simon. I know my name is confusing
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I call you Simon, I call you Stephen. But I'm so happy to be here in your show
1:02
a dash of.NET, and I truly appreciate being here on this episode. Thank you
1:10
Yeah. Thanks for accepting the invitation, Jonah. For some of those who don't know
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I had the opportunity to meet Jonah for the very first time. Last year in October
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we had a very good time. We had a few drinks here and there. I was so happy to meet finally in person
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She has a really great story on how she got to here, her entire journey
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Jonah, I did give a brief introduction about you. But why don't you tell our audience who you are
1:37
what you do, and more importantly, how you moved from Philippines to where you are now
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and how the journey has been. Yes. That's a great question. It can be like a long book of
1:52
story if I were to tell all my life story to you. But actually, I can do a brief short overview at least
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First of all, it was great meeting you finally at the Experts Live in Europe, in Prague
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It was already like we've been collaborating for a while in the community
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and it was great to see the faces behind the collaboration. That was awesome. For those that
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don't know me or haven't followed me yet, so I'm Jonah Anderson
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I live in Sweden and I work work-wise or career-wise. Currently, I work as a Senior Azure Consultant at Solidify
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It is an IT consulting company in Sweden. Then outside work, I am actually very active in the community
2:48
as a speaker, speaking in conferences and events everywhere. Microsoft MVP for Azure
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I'm also a Microsoft Certified Trainer, so I teach Azure certifications. Then I'm active in my spare time
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especially during weekends, leading Azure User Group Sweden, in which C-Sharp Corner and C-Sharp TV is
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also a collaborative partner in the community. Also, I want to inspire tech stories of women in tech
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so I co-host Extend Women in Tech podcast that I do once a month and do some recording of the podcast here and there
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But to answer back the question, I am originally from the Philippines
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I'm a proud Swedish, at the same time, proud Filipina from the Philippines
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My journey started, it's a long story, but I moved in Sweden 2011, learned the language
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Started my career as an IT consultant, after all my experience also in the Philippines
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Aside from what I do as an IT consultant, as a.NET developer, Azure developer, DevOps engineer
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whatever you call it for Azure consultant role, I am very passionate about the community
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That's how I also met Stephen or Simon. That's a lot that you do for the community
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If someone doesn't follow you, and for those who actually follow you, you can see the amount of community engagement that you do
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I was looking at one of your recent posts where you said that you have been to what 17 or 15 in-person conferences this past year. What was that
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Yes, it was correct. I haven't had a chance to do a recap of the year
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but it was actually that the total of in-person conferences, not counting the online hosting events and podcasting
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I do on Azure User Group Sweden in the podcast. But it was a lot of traveling and I've been to almost 10 new countries this year. Wow
5:00
That includes Prague. As a speaker or international speaker, you get to have this privilege and opportunity to meet
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the community from different parts of the world. That's truly inspiring. Aside from that, I also switched jobs this last year
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I quit my previous consulting job and then I switched to Solidify
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which is a better environment or a better workplace for me. They also have three other MVPs there
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You can imagine a company with four MVPs, developer technology. You're a gang now
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Yeah, you feel like you belong to something with awesome people that really values community and knowledge sharing
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I'm really enjoying my time at Solidify. I've only been here like six months
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Yeah, I can see, Jona, you have built a very good connection in the community
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Everyone knows you, right? And having said that, when I say everyone knows you
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everyone also knows that you have recently published a new book, and that is Learning Microsoft Azure
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I'm so excited. Why don't you tell us? Yeah, there it is. Okay
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There it is. Yay! Oh, it's so glancy right now. It's like, Riley, they really make fancy covers
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I love it. With the animals. So the book is called Learning Microsoft Azure
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Cloud Computing and Development Fundamentals, and it is written by me with contributions from the community
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and then forward by our friends in tech also that probably you know as well
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Thomas Maurer and Magnus Mortensen from Sweden, and afterward by Maxim Salnikov
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He works for Microsoft Norway. So it's a book, and your copy is underway
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Oh, I cannot, you know, I really cannot wait. Once I get it, I'm going to put it away here
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and my entire life you will have it just the way you have that Cloud Summit award over there, right
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And make sure that I have that book every time. So Jona, this book is around learning Microsoft Azure
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and if you think Microsoft Azure is humongous, right? If you miss out for a month, then I would say, I mean, you have lost in touch, right
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So there's a lot that goes in Microsoft Azure. So let me ask you, what really inspired you to write a book
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and that too on Microsoft Azure and not any kind of niche? Like there are people who write book on just one SQL servers
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like just on serverless, right? Why did you choose to write a book that was on Azure generally
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Yeah, great question. The reason why I wrote this book was actually due to my cloud migration experience
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So remember I told you I've been working as a consultant for a while since I moved to Sweden
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I believe I'm on eighth or ninth year as an IT consultant
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And one of my previous consulting projects, not in this company, I was involved in a cloud migration project
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which was to migrate a .NET legacy application to Azure or to the cloud
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because of like unsupported or outdated web servers or virtual machines. But to make the long story short without digging into details
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which I sometimes speak on the conferences, is that that cloud migration journey that I had
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which I led as a developer, as an architect, or someone that maintained the system
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I had some challenges there in a way that we tried everything
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from lift and shift, refactoring the code, re-architecting and building the system as new
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which actually succeeded in the end, did not make it to production
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Not because I'm a bad developer, not because I did succeed. And it's because of the users or the IT organization that's supposed to drive it into production
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were not really confident about the benefits of the project. They kind of like regretted that
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First, they want to move and then later on when it succeeded, didn't want to
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And the reasons for that, they were not so confident about the cloud, what Azure can could do
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And they were concerned about security, about data on the cloud at that time
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And they weren't willing to add resources, financial resources, when you put something new in production, everyone needs to get on boarded with it, right
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There should be a team in different sites. So to make it short, that cloud migration project that ran almost a year in my consulting career
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had actually enlightened me and inspired me to share what I learned and motivated me that
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hey, there are organizations and projects out there that are being blocked to move to the cloud
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their .NET applications, their on-prem applications, because they don't know what to do
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They don't know where to start. So I had an idea. I didn't book, I wrote the book before
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I just Googled O'Reilly because I love reading their books. I sent an email to contact us and then I got the opportunity to write this book after I reached out to them
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So it became a project and it's a project that I've been doing for the last two years of my spare time and weekends outside my work
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Wow, Jonah, you inspired me, to be honest. You know, the story that you just spoke about and how you went through your personal journey
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you know, the challenges that you had, you saw it firsthand and that inspired you to write a book
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And you actually reached out to O'Reilly that, hey, I really want to write a book
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I don't know how many people would do it, but you are really making a difference, Jonah, out there
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Oh, my goodness. I wasn't expecting. It was a brave move. Yeah, it was a brave move
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So how long it took you? I mean, I see it's a very big book once you're holding it, right
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How long it took you to write it? Because you were, oh, my goodness, like 500 pages or something
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Yeah, it's almost actually the digital version is almost 500 pages. But since the text font size of O'Reilly's paperback format is a bit like smaller, not the normal 12 pixels
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it's like 400 plus in the paper one e-book at 480 something
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So it took me almost a year. I mean, almost two years or over a year to do the project
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O'Reilly gave their new writers a chance to do a project at least maximum one year
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But they have been very kind and very flexible with me, a busy woman to do the project
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But I did the project itself by myself with the help of the community
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So when I started, I had to structure the book already through a book proposal
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So from what chapters I need to write, that's already planned and laid out before I even started writing
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So I learned the process of writing a book in so many ways with the help of O'Reilly team that was working close to me
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But it's a journey itself. Like when you start writing chapter one and two, it's time to give it to the technical reviewers
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The technical reviewers leave feedback. And then the first time I received feedback, input on my grammars, on my technical stuff that I wrote
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I was actually challenged emotionally in a way that I learned the art of receiving feedback
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and take it as constructive input from the other technical reviewers. And I was also in the process that I was close to giving up because I was too busy
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But I realized every time I see a post on LinkedIn about my book project when it was still starting
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and then people were like commenting, we're really looking forward to this coming out
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And that really inspired me to keep going. So it's the community and the people that contributed to the book actually inspired me as well to finish this project
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So I credit it back to the community and the people around
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Wow, Jonah, I'm really excited now to go ahead and read that book, to have all the hard work right in my hand
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You see, you're saying you spent about a year and a half writing that book and all the feedback that you got
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I can't wait to have that book and read it. You did mention briefly, Jonah, about different chapters, right
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I mean, you have many chapters. So would you like to mention some of the chapters that you have in the book, just so people get an idea
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Yes, yeah, sure. So the book, first of all, the book is for IT professionals, IT business leaders, developers
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so even architect or even experts that wants to refresh their skills
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And the book is 14, has 14 chapters. And it starts with cloud computing, the first chapter, because if you're new in the cloud, right
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I mean, you're new to Azure, the first thing you want to understand is the basic
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What is cloud? How does it differ from on-prem or the traditional computers that we were used to when we were young
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So after that, second chapter is about Azure fundamentals. And then the remaining of the chapters focuses on what's in the Azure cloud stack
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And that includes what are the compute services in Azure, networking services, networking security
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DevSecOps, what are the tools that developers can use and can utilize in terms of developer
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productivity on Azure when working with that? And then there's a focused chapter on IoT, AI, big data, as well as cloud migration
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So I mentioned CAF, WAF, and all the certification tips at the end
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So it's kind of like from the cloud computing, no knowledge at all about Azure
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learn cloud to Azure until at the end of the chapter, I prepared it that
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hey, here are the tools that you have, VS Code, Visual Studio, Azure
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Here's what you can do to develop with cloud or with Azure
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Yeah, that's very nicely put up. So I get an idea that if I start reading this book and I don't have any knowledge
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about cloud or Azure, I can start reading this book. And with no background, I can start it by the end of the book, right
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I feel very confident. I can say I'm a cloud developer, right
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I can write it in my resume. But one thing sometimes we really miss is the examples or the project
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So in this book, are there any projects that you're making or are there any examples that
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you give when you explain any of the topic, anything around that
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Yes. So yeah, that's a great question. Yes, in the book, I did have, because when you're reading a book, right
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I mean, you can be overloaded with lots of information. So in between the topics of the book, there are like tips and warnings
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And at the end of each book, I did actually, I mean, each chapter, I did actually add the
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option to try it out yourself, which has links where they can do some hands-on
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It can be a Microsoft Learn path or a recommended resource of a previous session in my user
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group or any other friends I know in the community or other courses
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And there are some hands-on options as well. So there's a Q&A at the end of each chapter
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I like that. It's going to test your knowledge. And then at the end of the book, you can go back and see if you have at least answered
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the book almost correct, because it should be a question that's not just yes or no
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It should be something that will make you think and check your knowledge
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What is it called, by the way? Because, you know, there's lots of terms
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Yeah, I really like the part where you said you have question answers. I think I'll be more interested, I'll be very interested to reach that part of the chapter
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where my knowledge is tested. And I'm like, okay, out of 10 questions, I answered seven, correct, but three went wrong
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Now I'll again go back and read that particular section of that chapter
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And hey, I need to re-read it. So I think the self-evaluation of having this question after every chapter is a really nice thing
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I'm glad that you put it. And I know there's more effort again that goes
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Having said that, Juna, are you maintaining any GitHub or a website about this book where
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people can stay updated, just in case you're bringing any second edition, third edition
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any updates coming to the book? Yeah, there's an O'Reilly website, which is the official online book site
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The online book, this is like the paper format, first edition, but we cannot edit it like
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we do in a computer, right? So the online version, which is in the O'Reilly's platform, it's going to be like a leaving
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document where people or readers that read my book, the physical one or the online one
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can leave their errata or like feedback or comments about, hey, you wrote this incorrectly
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or this should be this and that. So there's a errata page for that that will be an inspiration for the second edition
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depending on how I deal with O'Reilly. And then I also have a GitHub page that I don't have so much in there yet because most
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of the resources or examples are in the book. I have code snippets in there, but I am planning to maintain it as well
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So it's also given in the book itself also where it should be found
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I really like when you said that people can give feedbacks and then you can read it
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It's more like an open source book, isn't it? Yes, yes. There's an errata
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So right after I'm done with the book, O'Reilly told me, hey, Jonah, this is the errata page
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This is where you're going to keep track of the feedback from your readers
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So finishing a book and publishing it, the first edition, it's not the end of the journey
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That's where the real journey of being a writer actually starts. Maybe the second phase, the level two part of it
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And then speaking of Q&A, I did actually create an interactive Q&A that will be like quizzes
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on the O'Reilly's platform. It's not live yet, but the online book is going to have like a quiz
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when they read the online version as well. Wow, that's really nice
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I like this new concept. I think that changing people may have thought that, hey, books are who reads book, but the
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way these publishers and authors are working so hard to make reading books so interactive
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with some projects, GitHub URLs, exercises. I really like this approach. I didn't know that people do it in this way
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So I'm glad. Yeah. It's just a part that you know right now, but the book process itself is a very
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structured and tedious process. So if you write a book someday, let me know
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I would be glad to mentor you. I want to write a book now. I think I have a certification to clear
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It's scheduled for January 20th. It is on Azure IT administrator. If I can clear that, I've been working on it, and that's what I do when I don't do these
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live shows. If I can clear that, then you know what, Jonah, you have inspired me enough to go ahead and
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reach out to O'Reilly. I think I would like to do that
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Yeah, you should do that. And then as long as you have an idea that you want to write about, and you're very passionate
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to share it out to the community, then the project itself won't be tedious
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Because what really inspired me to keep going in spite of like spending too much hours writing
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this book, which I could have just laying in the sofa reading my own reading other books
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But what really inspired me is the motivation that I told you, my cloud migration journey
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that I really want others to learn. And also those that are beginners in Azure, because I really want to create like an inspiration
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to new in IT, that hey, you don't need to be super expert in .NET programming or cloud
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you can start learning this overview of everything in the cloud and the .NET tools or development tools
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And you still have this opportunity to learn and get the career that you want and choose
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the path that you're passionate about. Wow, Jonah, wow. And I'm saying wow a lot of time because this is so good
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Hearing you is so good to hear. And I bet you, you know, you're not only inspired me today, you have been inspiring many more
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people, especially the women in tech, as you say, right? You had to pay for it
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So I'm really happy that you had. I think last year, the women in tech, I won the developer of the year award
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Wow. Yes. How cool is that? Oh my goodness. Yeah, I know that
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Yes. Yeah, I know that one. All right, Jonah, so before we wrap it up, any final thing you want to add, apart from
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asking people to go ahead and read the book and everyone who's watching, you can find
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the links in the description. Yes, yes. And I just, yes, aside from like checking out my book, first of all, I want to thank
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you, Simon, for having me here in this episode and also for those that listen to this live
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or recorded. Thank you so much. And to all my followers that been supporting me along the way in this journey
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Thank you so much. And after you read my book, aside from reviewing it or sharing your feedback, feel free to
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reach out to me anytime if you have challenges or need advice about going through your career
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within Azure or cloud. So I am a busy woman, but I try my best to reach out and connect to the community and
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make a difference by passing the inspiration forward to others. Yeah, I bet, Jonah, you're very helpful to the community and thanks for everything that
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you do. And thanks for writing this book. I can't wait to read it. And if everyone's watching, you can find all the book details in the description
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And I encourage you all to go ahead and grab a copy of this book, Learning Microsoft Azure
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I think it is for everyone. If you're getting started, if you're new, even if you're in college, then why not
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This book is lovely. I cannot wait to read it. And thank you so much, Jonah, once again for being on the show
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We always enjoy you to have back. You're so inspiring. You're a friend
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You're family. Yes, I'm very inspired to inspire you and others as well
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Yeah, well, at least you did one today. Yes, you can hear in my voice that I'm very passionate about this topic that we're talking about
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Go with the flow. All right, Jonah, thank you so much. I won't take much of your time and thank you everyone for tuning in
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We'll see you in the next episode of the Azure.net. Until then, take good care of yourself and see you soon. Bye-bye
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