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Microsoft

Microsoft Silverlight

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the world’s most successful and best known software company. The company’s Windows operating system is used on the majority of the world’s servers, networks and desktop PCs. Microsoft has over 90,000 employees worldwide. www.microsoft.com

When Microsoft wanted to showcase Silverlight development for Azure and Windows Phone 7 platforms, they turned to QA.

The challenge

Microsoft wanted to run workshops to demonstrate how its Silverlight software for developers could be used with its latest Cloud and mobile platforms: Windows Azure and Windows Phone 7. As a market-leading learning organisation and Microsoft Gold Partner, QA was ideally placed to design and deliver the unique, four-day events, run for Microsoft's leading partners and customers in EMEA.

"We wanted a unique workshop which would show leading Microsoft partners and customers across EMEA how to create Silverlight applications and deploy them on the Windows Azure and Windows Phone 7 platforms." Michael Koester, Solution Specialist - Developer Tools EMEA Microsoft Corporation

The solution

QA worked closely with Microsoft's EMEA Developer Platform and Evangelism Group to create workshops that demonstrated how to create a multi-tier, rich user experience Silverlight application and deploy it on the Windows Azure Cloud platform and Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.

The interactive workshops were designed to follow a modular approach, combining instructor-led training (delivered through slides, presentations and demonstrations) with opportunities for delegates to get hands-on experience with the most up-to-date Microsoft technologies and tools for developers. The course was structured as follows:

Days one and two: Delegates were shown how to use Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4 together to build multi-tier Silverlight applications and use the debugging tools of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. This enabled developers to create a complex application and investigate the key areas of Silverlight development in more depth, specifically user experience external data access and the integration between the browser and Silverlight.

Delegates developed a rich Silverlight application that integrated data from Bing Maps and a local instance database to present complex sales data in an accessible way.
Day three: Focusing on the Windows Azure platform, delegates were introduced to Cloud computing with Windows Azure, SQL Azure and AppFabric. Delegates learnt how to design, create and secure applications hosted in Windows Azure and migrate on-premise data to the SQL Azure environment, before using this knowledge to migrate the data and services tiers of the developed Silverlight application into the Cloud. Delegates also learnt how to use the Intellitrace feature in Visual Studio 2010 to debug Azure Cloud services.
Day four: Delegates were introduced to the Silverlight design tools for Windows Phone 7 and the additional phone-specific APIs provided by the Windows Phone 7 platform, before demonstrating how an existing Silverlight application could be imported into this platform.

Using this knowledge, delegates completed the course by migrating the user interface tier of the existing application to Windows Phone 7, and learned how to use the Visual Studio debugger in tandem with the Windows Phone 7 Emulator to debug Windows Phone 7 applications.

"QA has a long standing partnership with Microsoft and we were very happy to work with them again to create and deliver these unique workshops. We were delighted with the results of this programme - especially the positive feedback from delegates on the quality of the training delivered and the new skills it has given them." Michael Koester, Solution Specialist - Developer Tools EMEA Microsoft Corporation

The outcome

QA successfully developed and delivered this workshop to over 60 developers in a three month period from March 2011 through to May 2011 at events in the Netherlands, Portugal and Norway.

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QA - training courses across the UK and Ireland from the leading provider of PRINCE2 and Microsoft training

QA provides PRINCE2 training, project management training, Microsoft training, Cisco training plus an extensive range of 1500 other courses covering all areas of IT, project management, service management, business applications and professional development. We provide PRINCE2 training and all courses in locations including London, Bristol, Reading, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ireland plus online eLearning and virtual learning.

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