OpenHack

Microsoft OpenHack is a developer-focused engagement where a wide variety of participants (Open) learn through hands-on experimentation (Hack) using challenges based on real-world customer scenarios designed to mimic the developer journey.

OpenHack provides a unique and fun upskilling experience for Microsoft employees, customers and partners. Attendees work together in teams to complete challenges that increase in complexity and are actively engaged, requiring deep collaboration, as they learn together.

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OpenHack Calendar

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OpenHack Topics

Status

Available now

Overview

The challenges in this OpenHack are inspired from real-world scenarios where customers are looking to modernize their application by moving to containers, so that they can meet the demands of their large, and scaling, workloads. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on configuring an AKS cluster with production concerns in mind such as security (secret management and RBAC) and observability (logging and monitoring). By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that has cluster(s) ready for production – meeting top-quality security, observability and networking requirements.

Value proposition

  • Deliver value to end-users of your application faster, with zero-downtime deployment
  • Focus on what matters – code and scale out! Rather than tediously manage compute on your own, use Kubernetes containers orchestration services (AKS) to easily real-time manage your clusters

Technologies

Linux and Windows Containers, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Container Registry, Virtual Machine, Networking, Storage, Azure Monitor, Key Vault, Service Mesh

Prerequisites

It helps to know general concepts around containerization, orchestration using Kubernetes before diving into the production level concerns.

Even if you have successfully deployed your application to Kubernetes, it may be beneficial to learn more about running production workloads using AKS and understanding how to address concerns around Security, Monitoring, Service Meshes and Mixed Container Workloads.

Note: Serverless and DevOps services are not addressed in this OpenHack.

Status

Inactive

Overview

Developers attending the IoT + Data OpenHack will learn how to build an end to end IoT Solution, which includes securely collecting IoT telemetry data, intelligence on the Edge, archival, analysis, and visualization all while using the developer’s choice of tools, technologies, and services in Azure. Challenges are designed to mimic the developer’s journey to learn how data from IoT devices can bring insights and create impactful actions for businesses making a digital transformation. The best part of all - the whole event is set around the theme of an amusement park so everyone can enjoy the ride!

Value proposition

N/A

Technologies

IoT Hub, IoT Edge, Azure Storage, Azure Stream Analytics, Spark on HDInsights, Azure Functions, Databricks, Data Factory, Power BI

Prerequisites

None

Status

Inactive

Overview

OpenHack Machine Learning-Computer Vision brings developers together to sharpen Machine Learning skills through a series of structured challenges to solve problems in the Computer Vision space. This journey explores Data Wrangling, Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning and Custom Machine Learning solutions as well as neural networks on industry standard frameworks such as TensorFlow and CNTK and, finally, deploying the solution on the cloud.

Value proposition

Understand and implement an end-to-end advanced Machine Learning technical scenario around Computer Vision.

Technologies

Custom Vision APIs, Data Science Virtual Machine, Cognitive ToolKit and Azure Machine Learning as well as the VOTT image labeling tool.

Prerequisites

This OpenHack assumes that participants have existing Python programming skills, such as those taught in Microsoft’s online Introduction to Python for Data Science course at https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-python-data-science-2. A conceptual awareness of data science and machine learning fundamentals such as those taught in Introduction to Data Science is useful, but not essential.

Status

Available now

Overview

This OpenHack enables attendees to quickly build and deploy Azure Serverless solutions that are comprised of cutting-edge compute services like Functions, Logic Apps, Event Grid, Service Bus, Event Hubs and Cosmos DB. The OpenHack simulates a real-world scenario where an ice cream company wants to utilize Platform as a Service (PaaS) services to build and release an API to integrate into their distributor’s application. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on 1. building serverless functions, web APIs, and CI/CD pipeline to support them and, then, 2. implementing further Serverless technologies to integrate LOB app workflows, process user/data telemetry and create business KPI-aligned reports. By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that is a full serverless solution which can create workflows between systems and handle events, files, and Data Ingestion

Value proposition

  • Build Azure cloud native event driven applications (mid-tier and backend) using Azure Serverless technologies
  • Increase awareness on building scalable event driven applications with messaging services for a synchronous communication
  • Remove infrastructure related tasks and considerations from developers to focus on rapid application development
  • Help make decisions on when to chose what Azure Services to achieve the business outcomes customer would have
  • Learn best practices for building CI/CD for Serverless and processing events at scale

Technologies

Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Event Grid, Cosmos DB, API Management, Event Hubs, Azure Dev Ops or GitHub (team choice), Application Insights, Dynamics 365/Office 365, Cognitive APIs, Service Bus

Prerequisites

Note: Customers who are using FaaS should attend this OpenHack because the content showcases end-to-end application cycles with focus on CI/CD, Scaling, DR and VNet requirements.

Status

Available now

Overview

This OpenHack enables attendees to use DevOps practices to achieve zero downtime deployment for a micro-service based application running on a managed Kubernetes cluster on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). The OpenHack simulates a real-world scenario where developers from an insurance company have to “keep the lights on” while evolving their containerized application – collecting relevant usage data and minimizing downtime. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on 1. building a CI/CD pipeline from scratch that accommodates basic testing and, then, 2. building out and improving the pipeline to implement monitoring, integration testing, and phased rollout. By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that is a complete development pipeline which fully takes into account modern compute (utilization of containers to run workloads).

Value proposition

  • Zero-downtime deployment strategies: Reduced friction in production deployments, ensuring that deployments of new features can occur more frequently and safely without requiring system downtime.
  • Testing in production: React to feedback and change, continuously deliver value, and determine user preferences through controlled experiments.

Technologies

Azure Kubernetes Service, GitHub, Azure DevOps Services (formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services - VSTS) or Jenkins (team choice), Log Analytics/Application Insights/Azure Monitor or Prometheus/Grafana (team choice), Istio/Traefik

Prerequisites

To be successful and get the most out of this OpenHack, participants should have existing knowledge of the benefits of adopting DevOps practices as well as Azure Kubernetes Service. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves, learn, and participate in an interactive team environment. Before the start of OpenHack, you should make sure you have a good knowledge of what DevOps is.

Status

Inactive

Overview

The Intelligent Bots OpenHack focuses on helping developers work in a challenge-based environment solving real life scenarios leveraging Microsoft Bot Framework, Azure Bot Service and integrating relevant Cognitive Services to build an intelligent bot. During the challenges, developers will start by setting up and deploying a bot intended to be used by a fictional company. Developers will also explore various channels such as Slack, Teams, Facebook, etc. to expand the reach of their bots. Challenges become more difficult as developers will add dialog flows to guide a user with the bot answering more complex questions and adding capabilities such as fuzzy search for parsing broader data sets. Finally, participants will add additional features that are common in bot implementations such as authentication, creation of an administrator’s portal for proactive user notifications, and bot to human handoff for escalations in a conversation.

Value proposition

N/A

Technologies

Azure Bot Service, Cognitive Services such as QnA Maker and Language Understanding Intelligence Service, Azure Search and Databases. Teams will have the option to work with either JavaScript, Node.js, TypeScript or C#

Prerequisites

None

Status

Available now

Overview

This OpenHack enables attendees to develop, implement, and operationalize ETL pipelines for a multi-source data warehouse solution on Microsoft Azure. This OpenHack simulates a real-world scenario where an online DVD company’s data is coming in from a mess of disparate sources but needs to be stored in a single location, made sense of, and then used to feed a wide variety of downstream systems. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on 1. systematically ingesting and securing data from multiple sources and, then, 2. transforming data to.fit business’s required schema and monitor dataflow with levels of DevOps testing. By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that is a fully operating Modern Data Warehouse with corresponding CI/CD pipeline that takes into account data management – which meets top-quality data consumption requirements, like reliability, scalability, and maintainability.

Value proposition

  • Modern cloud solution that results in higher reliability, scalability, and maintainability of large amounts of data.
  • Introduction to new data storage services to meet unique and multiple data streams needs

Technologies

Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Azure DevOps, SQL Data Warehouse

Prerequisites

To be successful and get the most out of this OpenHack, participants should have existing knowledge of relational database structures and concepts (e.g. tables, joins, SQL) and experience with either SSIS or programing languages like Scala or Python. Previous experience creating ETL pipelines, source control management, automated testing, and build and release automation will help you advance more quickly.

Status

Available now

Overview

This OpenHack enables attendees to add intelligent search capabilities to their applications and services, leveraging artificial intelligence to extract meaningful results from data. This OpenHack simulates a real-world scenario where a travel company needs to uncover data locked up in documents and withdraw insights from that data to make key business decisions. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on 1. exploring ways in which Azure Search can be used as the core of a search solution and 2. enriching the search solution through integration with Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning, and custom code. By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that is a complete Azure machine learning-based intelligent search infrastructure that can make sense of vast quantities of data (i.e. documents, scanned images, and other digital artifacts).

Value proposition

  • Increased revenue from better-made business decisions (from better data extraction and analysis)
  • Improved search functionality to decrease time-to-find relevant data

Technologies

Microsoft Azure Search, Cognitive Services, Azure Functions, Microsoft QnA Maker, Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS), Microsoft Form Recognizer, Azure Machine Learning

Prerequisites

To be successful and get the most out of this OpenHack, participants should have existing knowledge of programing languages including C#, JavaScript, Node.JS or Java.

Status

Available now

Overview

In the App Modernization with NoSQL OpenHack, developers will migrate an application from a relational database to a NoSQL database. During the initial set of challenges, developers focus on migrating data and optimizing their NoSQL database for performance and costs. Developers also learn about the massively scalable event-sourcing design pattern and build this for their application using their chosen NoSQL database. After attending this OpenHack, developers will be able to identify workloads that are good candidates for migration to NoSQL and be able to execute a successful migration.

Value proposition

  • Gain experience migrating from a relational database to NoSQL, using tools to automate the process
  • Learn how to optimize the NoSQL database through modeling, denormalization, indexing, and partitioning, given a set of customer requirements and query patterns
  • Enable app modernization through a scalable, distributed, event-based data pipeline, enabled by a flexible NoSQL data store and complimentary Azure services
  • Reduce latency and increase availability and customer reach, through global distribution of the NoSQL database

Technologies

Attendees will have the option to leverage several services available in Azure, such as Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Factory, Azure Functions, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Stream Analytics, Power BI, and Azure Cognitive Search

Prerequisites

To be successful and get the most out of this OpenHack, participants should have familiarity with database concepts such as data modeling, partitioning, and indexing. Prior experience with NoSQL databases and familiarity with relational data structures is helpful, but not required. Experience with programming languages such as C#, Java, and Python will help you advance more quickly.

Status

Available now

Overview

The Migration OpenHack enables attendees to assess, migrate, modernize, and optimize existing on-premises applications hosted on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 as they move to Microsoft Azure, in a secured way. The OpenHack simulates a real-world scenario where a mortgage company has multiple line-of-business applications residing on legacy infrastructure that is rapidly approaching end-of-support and need to be migrated. During the “hacking” attendees will focus on 1. migrating their applications from legacy operating systems to Azure using a rehost methodology and, then, 2. transitioning from IaaS to PaaS services that account for application behavior monitoring and security of organizational secrets. By the end of the OpenHack, attendees will have built out a technical solution that has all applications and virtual machines (all workloads) fully hosted on the Azure cloud.

Value proposition

  • Modernize your applications by moving away from outdated, expensive legacy infrastructure: discover, assess, and migrate on-premises applications, infrastructure, and data.
  • Take it step-by-step: centrally plan and track the migration across multiple Microsoft and third-party open source tools.
  • Increased resiliency and access to ongoing support for your legacy operating systems

Technologies

Azure Migrate, Azure Database Migration Service, Data Migration Assistant, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory Connect (AAD Connect), Azure Site Recovery, Azure Monitor/Log Analytics, Azure Networking, Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Storage, Azure DNS, Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Bastion, Azure Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites, but previous Containers knowledge would be beneficial to attendees.

What attendees are saying

Attendee at Serverless, London

“The event has definitely convinced me that Azure is the way to go as the primary cloud host”

MSFT Engineer at Containers, Sydney

“The amount of feedback and customer understanding leads me to believe that participation in these types of events is worth the engineering time and money needed to participate.”

Attendee at Enterprise Developer and Business Apps, London

“It’s been really epic. I loved meeting so many engineers from Microsoft. I think this is a right way to get professionals/companies on board with Microsoft technologies”

Attendee at IoT and Data, Singapore

“I came with the expectation that this event would be just another training event. But this OpenHack format is unlike the others. It’s challenging, it’s fun, it’s really a new way of learning”

MSFT Azure Specialist (GBB) at Zurich IOT + Data

"Challenges were not too easy and not too complex. OpenHack gives you the opportunity to take time with customers. We think OpenHack really helps build customer intimacy”

Attendee at Machine Learning, Las Vegas

“This was an enjoyable experience that taught me tenfold what I knew before about machine learning. It is not nearly as 'frightening' as I had previously thought - now it is much more inviting. Thank you!”

Attendee at Machine Learning Sydney

“I have participated in a few data science / ML events and this was by far the best run – and most challenging”

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