About the Author

Riccardo Becker works full time as a principal IT architect for CGI in the Netherlands. He holds several certifications and his background in computing goes way back to 1998, when he started working with good old Visual Basic 5.0 (or was it 6.0?). Ever since, he has fulfilled several roles, such as a developer, lead developer, architect, project leader, practice manager. Recently, he decided to accept the role of a principal IT architect where he focuses on innovation, cutting-edge technology, and specifically on Microsoft Azure, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing in general.

In 2007, he joined the Microsoft LEAP program where he got a peek at the move Microsoft was about to make on their road to the cloud. Pat Helland gave him that insight, and since the first release of Microsoft Azure on PDC 2008, he started to focus on it, keeping track of the progress and the maturity of the platform. In the past few years, he has also done a lot of work on incubation with his employer, raising awareness of cloud computing in general and Microsoft Azure in particular.

I would like to thank all my colleagues who have helped me on various subjects inside the world of Azure. Special thanks go to Rémon ter Haar and Juan Carlos Sánchez who were patient enough to review my chapters. Thanks Rémon and Juan!

I would also like to thank the folks from Packt Publishing who helped me stay on track and on schedule despite some bummers and some changes that I made to the original outline.

Special thanks to my employer CGI for giving me all the opportunities and interesting projects that have helped me in realizing this book. Thanks to my daily job and the ability to focus on the subjects, I have come to the point of having enough knowledge to write this book.

This is my second published book, since I have already published Windows Azure Programming Patterns for Start-ups, also with the help of Packt Publishing.