The Top 10 TechNet UK Articles of 2021!

An illustration of Bit the Raccoon holding a laptop, with text reading 'Community' on the screen. Bit is surrounded by six other raccoons of different colours.

We’re now arriving at the end of 2021, so as is tradition we’re taking a look back at the Top 10 articles that were most popular by you, the TechNet UK audience! It’s great to see a mix of names amongst the authors, complimenting a wide variety of different topics.

A massive thank you to our guest writers and contributors for providing these articles, and we hope to work with writers new and old in 2022 to create even more great content for everyone at TechNet UK.

If you’re interested in writing for TechNet UK, drop us an email at UKTechStories@microsoft.com with a rough idea about what topic you’d like to cover and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Without further ado, here’s the top ten!

The Azure logo, with a drawing of Bit the Raccoon looking up at it.

10. Azure AppDev Trends in 2021

by Mark Harrison

Mark Harrison takes a look at the AppDev trends he’s been seeing so far this year, as well as touching on the themes he’s frequently asked to cover as an Azure AppDev Specialist.

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An illustration depicting Azure Data Factory, next to a picture of Bit the Raccoon.

9. Backup your data lake using Azure Data Factory – Metadata Copy activity

by Issagha Ba, Athulya Ramamoorthy, Volkan Civelek and Abiodun Olatunji

In this blog post, the Microsoft Customer Success Unit will walk you through how to leverage ADF pipelines for full and incremental backups of your data lake on Azure.

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An illustration representing a data warehouse, next to an illustration of Bit the Raccoon.

8. Building Scalable Data Science Applications using Containers – Part 5

by Jon Machtynger

In this first of two blogs, Jon Machtynger takes a look at building an environment locally using docker-compose, while making some observations about limitations.

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An illustration of leaves representing sustainability, next to an illustration of Bit the Raccoon.

7. How to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of your application

by Assim Hussain

The first principle of green software engineering is to build applications that are carbon efficient. That means for each gram of carbon our application is responsible for emitting into the environment, we try to extract the most value from that gram as possible.

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An illustration of leaves representing sustainability, next to an illustration of Bit the Raccoon.

6. Sustainability and Green Software Engineering

by Mark Harrison

Mark Harrison takes a look at what Sustainability and Green Software Engineering means for Software Engineers and Application Developers.

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An image depicting a human figure in front of a calendar, next to a picture of Bit the Raccoon.

5. A look at the Azure announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2021

by Chris Walden

This year’s Microsoft Ignite is now over. Let’s take a look at some of the announcements, and how you can catch up on sessions if you’ve missed them.

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The Azure logo, with a drawing of Bit the Raccoon looking up at it.

4. Creating a Metadata-Driven Processing Framework For Azure Data Factory

by Paul Andrew

This open source code project delivers a simple metadata driven processing framework for Azure Data Factory and/or Azure Synapse Analytics (Intergate Pipelines).

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An illustration of Bit the Raccoon holding a laptop, with text reading 'Community' on the screen. Bit is surrounded by six other raccoons of different colours.

3. The ultimate guide to attending technical events remotely in the UK

by Sara Allison

There are hundreds of amazing Microsoft-focused technical communities you can get involved in (yes, even during a pandemic!), with focus areas from .NET to data science and SQL and everything in between.

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An ASCII image of a block of flats, next to an image of Bit the Raccoon.

2. Using open source software to connect charities with people in need of social housing

by Chris Sainty

We speak to Chris Sainty, who proved anything is possible in OS by using it to develop the Blazor app that connects charities to people in need of social housing.

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The ASOS logo, next to an illustration of Bit the Raccoon.

1. Powering 3 million requests an hour with open source software

by Tony Gorman

We spoke to Tony Gorman from ASOS to learn how open source software is being used to power services that handle upwards of 3 million customer requests an hour.

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