Migrate your existing, on-premises applications into the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. This book covers the best practices to plan, implement, and operationalize the migration of a database application from your organization's data center to Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. Data modernization and migration is a technologically complex endeavor that can also be taxing from a leadership and operational standpoint. This book covers not only the technology, but also the most important aspects of organization culture, communication, and politics that so frequently derail such projects. You will learn the most important steps to ensuring a successful migration and see battle-tested wisdom from industry veterans. From executive sponsorship, to executing the migration, to the important steps following migration, you will learn how to effectively conduct future migrations and ensure that your team and your database application delivers on the expected business value of the project. This book is unlike any other currently in the market. It takes you through the most critical business and technical considerations and workflows for moving your data and databases into the cloud, with special attention paid to those who are deploying to the Microsoft Data Platform in Azure, especially SQL Server. Although this book focuses on migrating on-premises SQL Server enterprises to hybrid or fully cloud-based Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instances, it also cover topics involving migrating non-SQL Server database platforms such as Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL applications to Microsoft Azure. What You Will Learn Plan a database migration that ensures smooth project progress, optimal performance, low operating cost, and minimal downtime Properly analyze and manage non-technical considerations, such as legal compliance, privacy, and team execution Perform a thorough architectural analysis to select the best Azure services, performance tiers, and cost-containment features Avoid pitfalls and common reasons for failure relating to corporate culture, intra-office politics, and poor communications Secure the proper executive champions who can execute the business planning needed for success Apply proven criteria to determine your future-state architecture and your migration method Execute your migration using a process proven by the authors over years of successful projects Who This Book Is For IT leadership, strategic IT decision makers, project owners and managers, and enterprise and application architects. For anyone looking toward cloud migration projects as the next stage of growth in their careers. Also useful for enterprise DBAs and consultants who might be involved in such projects. Readers should have experience and be competent in designing, coding, implementing, and supporting database applications in an on-premises environment.

Get started with Azure Cognitive Services and its APIs that expose machine learning as a service. This book introduces the suite of Azure Cognitive Services and helps you take advantage of the proven machine learning algorithms that have been developed by experts and made available through Cognitive Services, easily integrating those algorithms into your own applications without having to develop the algorithms from scratch. The book also shows you how to use the algorithms provided by Cognitive Services to accelerate data analysis and development within your organization. The authors begin by introducing the tools and describing the steps needed to invoke libraries to analyze structured and unstructured text, speech, and pictures, and you will learn to create interactive chatbots using the Cognitive Services libraries. Each chapter contains the information you need to implement artificial intelligence (AI) via Azure Cognitive Services in your personal and professional projects. The book also covers ethical considerations that are becoming increasingly of concern when using AI to drive decision making. You will be introduced to tools such as FairLearn and InterpretML that can help you detect bias and understand the results your models are generating. What You Will Learn Invoke the Cognitive Services APIs from a variety of languages and apps Understand common design architectures for AI solutions in Azure Decrease discrimination and bias when creating an AI-driven solution Execute the examples within the book and learn how to extend those examples Implement best practices for leveraging the Vision, Speech, and Language parts of the suite Test Cognitive Services APIs via the Azure portal and using the Postman API tool Execute AI from low-code and no-code platforms like Logic Apps and Microsoft's Power Platform Who This Book Is For Technical professionals who are interested in implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in pre-existing apps, expanding their value and skill sets, or learning more about AI for personal projects; for programmers working in languages such as C# and Python; and for those using low- and no-code platforms such as Microsoft Power Platform

In a helter-skelter world, it is nice to have a soothing voice. In this offbeat collection of clever, concise humor pieces, Matt Gordon provides an easy-going antidote to the hectic pace of life. Whether it is featuring the ludicrous nature of online communication, a surprise marital rollerblading misadventure, or the battle between the author and a local Walmart greeter, The Monkeys of God will challenge readers to slow down, to look around, and, mostly, to laugh. Recommended (by the author) for those who like the works of any of the following people: The Beatles; Leonardo da Vinci; Edgar Allan Poe; J.K. Rowling; David Sedaris; William Shakespeare; Jay Z and/or Beyonce; Stephen Spielberg; CS Lewis; Coldplay; Ernest Hemingway; Socrates, Plato, and the Gang; Dave Barry; Any Country Music Star Ever; Poets; any of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America; or any other really famous person--past or present--you happen to appreciate. If you like any of that, you'll love this.