We talk to Danny Garber, a Media Services specialist at Microsoft and he gives us all the low-down on this little-understood Azure service that has grown to serve the Sochi Olympics live.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode60.mp3

Azure Media Services (General Info, Docs etc.): http://azure.com/media

Blog: http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/topics/media-services/

Case studies for Azure Media Services including the 2014 Sochi Games http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/02/06/going-for-gold-windows-azure-media-services-provide-live-and-on-demand-streaming-of-2014-olympic-winter-games-on-nbc/

• The US broadcaster NBC and their Sports division’s Live and On Demand content via an app called “LiveExtra” (http://stream.nbcsports.com/liveextra/)
  
• Blinkbox (http://www.blinkbox.com) the OTT video on demand provider in the UK
  
• NASCAR and their wide array of car and motorbike racing at http://www.fanschoice.tv
  
• FujiTV’s “NextSmart” Service in Japan which streams all kinds of programming including F1 motor car racing - http://ch.nicovideo.jp/fujinextsmart
  
• Das Erste public broadcasting in Germany  (which has an app in the Windows 8 App Store in Germany - http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/de-de/app/5cf1d640-0f00-41ba-967f-73168da01827
  

Everything you wanted to know about Azure Backup - from the source.

Cale and Evan talk to Microsoft Azure Support engineer William Effinger about Backup.

Media File: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode34.mp3

What is this all about?

SMB 2.1 protocol

VM/Web/Worker on Azure can share files using standard file api (ReadFile/WriteFile)

REST interface as well

Moving existing apps to the cloud (without more integration work)

App Settings

Logs

Install share (dev builds)

How do I use this thing 

• PowerShell cmdlets
• REST Apis

RDP Drives works!

Limitations: 

• Must be in the same region as the storage account hosting (REST everywhere!)
• Currently can't copy directly from blob to files or between File Shares
• Reading GEO copy of Files
• Using SAS (must use accountname/accountkey)
• No emulator support currently

Media File: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode29.mp3

VS 2013 Update 2 Azure related enhancements:

http://www.asp.net/visual-studio/overview/2013/aspnet-and-web-tools-20132-preview-for-visual-studio-2013-release-notes#AzureResources

Regional Virtual Networks: http://blog.azure.com/2014/05/14/regional-virtual-networks/

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/

Final warning about Guest OS family 1 (2008 based servers) 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wats/archive/2014/05/19/how-to-determine-current-guest-os-family-only-for-pass-instance-web-role-and-worker-role-windows-azure-powershell.aspx