There were times when I programmed my own ASP.Net website but have since moved onto fully supported hosted platforms. I just find it easier to just worry about content and not the code behind the site. However, I always find that it is advantageous to know how to get a site up and running in order to gather input for various projects. Collecting budget data or other user input seems to be always a requirement for many BI projects.

Rapid Change

The pace of change just keeps getting faster and faster. What I learned last month seems out of date this month. Each vendor tries to provide ways in which a user can play and learn their technology which only helps those continual learners.  ASP.NET 5 is just around the corner and with Azure Websites, utilizing a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering is becoming more of a viable option for many BI solutions.

Sandboxed Test Site

Microsoft has provided a way to try out a sandboxed Azure website without having a subscription or making a commitment. The following link lets you chose from various languages from asp.net to straight HTML5/JavaScript, here. Select from template to base your demo on, which will then bring up the various languages available in that template.

Even if you are just curious, this provides a great way to kick the tires and evaluate if this technology will help your solutions.

Steve