Professional Azure SQL Managed Database Administration. Efficiently manage and modernize data in the cloud using Azure SQL - Third Edition

Ahmad Osama, Shashikant Shakya

Despite being the cloud version of SQL Server, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance stands out in various aspects when it comes to management, maintenance, and administration. Updated with the latest Azure features, Professional Azure SQL Managed Database Administration continues to be a comprehensive guide for becoming proficient in data management. The book begins by introducing you to the Azure SQL managed databases (Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance), explaining their architecture, and how they differ from an on-premises SQL server. You will then learn how to perform common tasks, such as migrating, backing up, and restoring a SQL Server database to an Azure database. As you progress, you will study how you can save costs and manage and scale multiple SQL databases using elastic pools. You will also implement a disaster recovery solution using standard and active geo-replication. Finally, you will explore the monitoring and tuning of databases, the key features of databases, and the phenomenon of app modernization. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the key aspects of an Azure SQL database and Azure SQL managed instance, including migration, backup restorations, performance optimization, high availability, and disaster recovery.

The Self-Taught Cloud Computing Engineer. A comprehensive professional study guide to AWS, Azure, and GCP

Dr. Logan Song, Yu Meng

The Self-Taught Cloud Computing Engineer is a comprehensive guide to mastering cloud computing concepts by building a broad and deep cloud knowledge base, developing hands-on cloud skills, and achieving professional cloud certifications. Even if you’re a beginner with a basic understanding of computer hardware and software, this book serves as the means to transition into a cloud computing career.Starting with the Amazon cloud, you’ll explore the fundamental AWS cloud services, then progress to advanced AWS cloud services in the domains of data, machine learning, and security. Next, you’ll build proficiency in Microsoft Azure Cloud and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) by examining the common attributes of the three clouds while distinguishing their unique features. You’ll further enhance your skills through practical experience on these platforms with real-life cloud project implementations. Finally, you’ll find expert guidance on cloud certifications and career development.By the end of this cloud computing book, you’ll have become a cloud-savvy professional well-versed in AWS, Azure, and GCP, ready to pursue cloud certifications to validate your skills.

The Handbook of NLP with Gensim. Leverage topic modeling to uncover hidden patterns, themes, and valuable insights within textual data

Chris Kuo

Navigating the terrain of NLP research and applying it practically can be a formidable task made easy with The Handbook of NLP with Gensim. This book demystifies NLP and equips you with hands-on strategies spanning healthcare, e-commerce, finance, and more to enable you to leverage Gensim in real-world scenarios.You’ll begin by exploring motives and techniques for extracting text information like bag-of-words, TF-IDF, and word embeddings. This book will then guide you on topic modeling using methods such as Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for dimensionality reduction and discovering latent semantic relationships in text data, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for probabilistic topic modeling, and Ensemble LDA to enhance topic modeling stability and accuracy.Next, you’ll learn text summarization techniques with Word2Vec and Doc2Vec to build the modeling pipeline and optimize models using hyperparameters. As you get acquainted with practical applications in various industries, this book will inspire you to design innovative projects. Alongside topic modeling, you’ll also explore named entity handling and NER tools, modeling procedures, and tools for effective topic modeling applications.By the end of this book, you’ll have mastered the techniques essential to create applications with Gensim and integrate NLP into your business processes.

TensorFlow Developer Certificate Guide. Efficiently tackle deep learning and ML problems to ace the Developer Certificate exam

Oluwole Fagbohun

The TensorFlow Developer Certificate Guide is an indispensable resource for machine learning enthusiasts and data professionals seeking to master TensorFlow and validate their skills by earning the certification. This practical guide equips you with the skills and knowledge necessary to build robust deep learning models that effectively tackle real-world challenges across diverse industries.You’ll embark on a journey of skill acquisition through easy-to-follow, step-by-step explanations and practical examples, mastering the craft of building sophisticated models using TensorFlow 2.x and overcoming common hurdles such as overfitting and data augmentation. With this book, you’ll discover a wide range of practical applications, including computer vision, natural language processing, and time series prediction.To prepare you for the TensorFlow Developer Certificate exam, it offers comprehensive coverage of exam topics, including image classification, natural language processing (NLP), and time series analysis. With the TensorFlow certification, you’ll be primed to tackle a broad spectrum of business problems and advance your career in the exciting field of machine learning. Whether you are a novice or an experienced developer, this guide will propel you to achieve your aspirations and become a highly skilled TensorFlow professional.

Google Apps Script for Beginners. Building on your basic JavaScript knowledge, this book takes you into the world of Google Apps Script and shows you how to develop and customize your own apps. The step-by-step approach provides all the necessary skills

Serge Gabet

Hands-On Neuroevolution with Python. Build high-performing artificial neural network architectures using neuroevolution-based algorithms

Iaroslav Omelianenko

Neuroevolution is a form of artificial intelligence learning that uses evolutionary algorithms to simplify the process of solving complex tasks in domains such as games, robotics, and the simulation of natural processes. This book will give you comprehensive insights into essential neuroevolution concepts and equip you with the skills you need to apply neuroevolution-based algorithms to solve practical, real-world problems.You'll start with learning the key neuroevolution concepts and methods by writing code with Python. You'll also get hands-on experience with popular Python libraries and cover examples of classical reinforcement learning, path planning for autonomous agents, and developing agents to autonomously play Atari games. Next, you'll learn to solve common and not-so-common challenges in natural computing using neuroevolution-based algorithms. Later, you'll understand how to apply neuroevolution strategies to existing neural network designs to improve training and inference performance. Finally, you'll gain clear insights into the topology of neural networks and how neuroevolution allows you to develop complex networks, starting with simple ones.By the end of this book, you will not only have explored existing neuroevolution-based algorithms, but also have the skills you need to apply them in your research and work assignments.

A BIM Professional's Guide to Learning Archicad. Boost your design workflow by efficiently visualizing, documenting, and delivering BIM projects

Stefan Boeykens, Ruben Van de Walle, Dr. Arch. Eng. Pieter Pauwels

A BIM Professional’s Guide to Learning Archicad is a comprehensive introduction to all that Archicad has to offer for creating 3D models, 2D document extracts, and related outputs. This book is not a click-by-click series of recipes, but rather focuses on helping you understand why and how Archicad works by providing realistic examples and expert tips.The book gradually introduces you to Archicad tools using ample examples. It then helps you master its complexity through clear modules, allowing you to start your first project quickly, gain useful skills in subsequent projects, and keep using the book as a source for insights into the software. You’ll start with the basic modeling of construction elements and then move on to adding roofs, stairs, and objects to the project. Next, you’ll dive into basic drafting and 2D views for creating 2D output, and grasp how to use attributes and more advanced modeling tools for designing curtain walls and sites. The concluding chapters will show you how to extract and visualize your data and automate the publishing of your extracts and 2D documents into a variety of output formats.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of Archicad, how to implement it efficiently in your architectural projects, and how BIM can improve your overall design workflow.

Moodle Administration Essentials. Learn how to set up, maintain, and support your Moodle site efficiently

Gavin Henrick, Karen Holland

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook. There no better way of getting to grips with the Dynamics AX framework than learning by example. This cookbook is packed with recipes for creating and managing reports along with full explanations for complete understanding

Kamalakannan Elangovan

Dynamics AX 2012 is a modern ERP solution from Microsoft that is targeted at the mid-and-high-level organizations. It is seeing an increased rate of adoption due to its tighter integration with the Microsoft technology stack and the flexibility it offers.Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook focuses mainly on the reporting aspects of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Reports play a very central role in an ERP system being accessible to customers, vendors, top management and the shop floor. Every ERP implementation includes reporting changes as companies try to refit the reports to their standards and processes. As a Dynamics AX developer, reporting skills are a must-have and this book intends to make report development easier and simpler.Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Reporting Cookbook deals with the SSRS-based reporting framework introduced with Dynamics AX 2012. It explains the reporting model in detail and offers instruction-led examples to help you understand the nuances involved in developing a report.Throughout this book, you will learn how to build your own reports based on Queries, RDP, and different designs like Auto/Precision designs. You will also gain an understanding of the programmatic flow, which will help you develop reports with confidence. You will find different approaches to debug issues in your reports. The examples offered in this book can be readily used in your real-world scenarios. This book also offers strategies for new reports as well as for migrating your reports from the old reporting framework and development. Report designs like table, matrix, and charts have been discussed with examples. There are also tips, tools and references spread across the book that can hasten your report development process.Overall, this book will guarantee you a deeper understanding of report development in Dynamics AX.

Mastering Python Design Patterns. Craft essential Python patterns by following core design principles - Third Edition

Kamon Ayeva, Sakis Kasampalis

As software systems become increasingly complex, maintaining code quality, scalability, and efficiency can be a daunting challenge. Mastering Python Design Patterns is an essential resource that equips you with the tools you need to overcome these hurdles and create robust, scalable applications.The book delves into design principles and patterns in Python, covering both classic and modern patterns, and apply them to solve daily challenges as a Python developer or architect.Co-authored by two Python experts with a combined experience of three decades, this new edition covers creational, structural, behavioral, and architectural patterns, including concurrency, asynchronous, and performance patterns. You'll find out how these patterns are relevant to various domains, such as event handling, concurrency, distributed systems, and testing. Whether you're working on user interfaces (UIs), web apps, APIs, data pipelines, or AI models, this book equips you with the knowledge to build robust and maintainable software. The book also presents Python anti-patterns, helping you avoid common pitfalls and ensuring your code remains clean and efficient.By the end of this book, you'll be able to confidently apply classic and modern Python design patterns to build robust, scalable applications.

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification and Beyond. A complete AZ-900 exam guide with online mock exams, flashcards, and hands-on activities - Second Edition

Steve Miles, Peter De Tender

Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification and Beyond, Second Edition, combines the comprehensive cloud fundamentals book with Packt’s powerful exam training platform, offering a holistic learning experience designed to help you not just ace the AZ-900 exam but also apply that knowledge to excel in your career.Guiding you in building robust foundational knowledge of the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, this book helps you prepare for the AZ-900 exam confidently. The online content, included with every purchase, will help you memorize key concepts and assess your exam readiness.Starting with an introduction to cloud computing and its advantages, the book systematically guides you through Azure architecture and services before progressing to management and governance within Azure. The online platform unlocks unlimited access to mock exams with exam-like timers, detailed solutions for each question, interactive flashcards, exam tips, and interactive activities—all accessible from your computer, tablet, and smartphone.By the end of this book, you’ll be well prepared to pass the AZ-900 exam and have the foundational knowledge to delve into advanced cloud concepts.

Oracle Primavera Contract Management, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition v14. A one-stop reference to concepts and usability of the core modules of a complex application with this book and

Stephen Kelly, Stephen D. Kelly

Oracle's Primavera Contract Management, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition is a document management, job cost, and field controls solution that keeps construction projects on schedule and on budget through complete project control. Oracle Primavera Contract Management, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition v14 explains the concepts behind the core modules and how to use them.Oracle Primavera Contract Management, Business Intelligence Publisher Edition v14 makes this complex application understandable. You will understand the concepts behind the core modules and how to use them. This book starts with some basic introduction to Contract management and then covers the advantages and disadvantages of using a spreadsheet in managing information on a project. The book then covers in detail the concepts involved with how it works from a 30,000 foot view and explains the concept of how Oracle Primavera Contract Management is diametrically opposed to a spreadsheet mentality. The book also covers the aspects of how Oracle Primavera Contract Management manages the money and contractual relationships on a project.

Minimal APIs in ASP.NET 9. Design, implement, and optimize robust APIs in C# with .NET 9 - Second Edition

Nick Proud

Written by an esteemed technology leader, a .NET specialist, and Microsoft MVP for Developer Technologies, Minimal APIs in ASP.NET 9 provides you with specialized insights into the latest advancements in .NET technology, particularly minimal APIs.You’ll get your first minimal API set up and running, before exploring the anatomy of a typical minimal API project, seeing how the framework can be used to create various HTTP endpoints, route, and validate requests, as well as enhancing those requests with custom middleware. After covering the basics, you’ll move on to data mapping, managing important dependencies through dependency injection and integrating your minimal APIs with data sources such as Entity Framework, Dapper, and SQL databases for creating CRUD operations. The chapters also walk you through performance optimization, asynchronous programming, and caching, which’ll allow you to examine the more advanced aspects of minimal API development, with code examples reflecting real-world scenarios.By the end of this book, you’ll be armed with the necessary best practices and skills needed for deploying performant, elegant, and scalable minimal APIs in .NET.

C++ High Performance. Master the art of optimizing the functioning of your C++ code - Second Edition

Björn Andrist, Viktor Sehr, Ben Garney

C++ High Performance, Second Edition guides you through optimizing the performance of your C++ apps. This allows them to run faster and consume fewer resources on the device they're running on without compromising the readability of your codebase.The book begins by introducing the C++ language and some of its modern concepts in brief. Once you are familiar with the fundamentals, you will be ready to measure, identify, and eradicate bottlenecks in your C++ codebase. By following this process, you will gradually improve your style of writing code. The book then explores data structure optimization, memory management, and how it can be used efficiently concerning CPU caches.After laying the foundation, the book trains you to leverage algorithms, ranges, and containers from the standard library to achieve faster execution, write readable code, and use customized iterators. It provides hands-on examples of C++ metaprogramming, coroutines, reflection to reduce boilerplate code, proxy objects to perform optimizations under the hood, concurrent programming, and lock-free data structures. The book concludes with an overview of parallel algorithms.By the end of this book, you will have the ability to use every tool as needed to boost the efficiency of your C++ projects.

Practical Game Design. A modern and comprehensive guide to video game design - Second Edition

Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci

If you’re in search of a cutting-edge actionable guide to game design, your quest ends here! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with expert guidance from veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms.The second edition of this book remains dedicated to its original goal of helping you master the fundamentals of game design in a practical manner with the addition of some of the latest trends in game design and a whole lot of fresh, real-world examples from games of the current generation. This update brings a new chapter on games as a service, explaining the evolving role of the game designer and diving deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever. From conceptualizing a game idea, you’ll gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games, exploring the craft of producing original game mechanics, and eliminating anticipated design risks through testing. You’ll then be introduced to level design, interactive storytelling, user experience and accessibility.By the end of this game design book, you’ll have learned how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing free-to-play games and games as a service, and significantly improve their quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.

Designing Professional Websites with Odoo Website Builder. Create and customize state-of-the-art websites and e-commerce apps for your modern business needs

Sainu Nannat

The Odoo website builder is an operational tool in the Odoo platform that allows you to design, develop, and manage a website. This book introduces and explains all the features of the Odoo website builder that will help you to be more productive while creating websites.The book starts with an overview of the Odoo website builder, its functionalities, and the tools it offers. Using descriptive illustrations and practical examples, you’ll gain detailed insights into the block operations of the Odoo website builder and learn how to work with structure blocks, features blocks, and dynamic content blocks. As you advance, you’ll discover how to use the HTML, CSS, or JS editor in Odoo website builder applications for customization. This Odoo book will take you through the different aspects of website building and show you how e-commerce websites can be designed and developed using website builder applications. You’ll build a website, manage it, and run a discussion forum in Odoo using the website builder, and apply your knowledge to add a live chat tool that can be incorporated into your website using the Odoo website builder.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of the Odoo website builder and be able to leverage its features to develop your own website.

VMware vSphere 5.1 Cookbook. If you prefer practice to theory then this is the ideal book for learning how to install and configure VMware vSphere components. Packed with recipes, it's a hands-on tutorial and reference guide for this unbeatable virtualization product

Abhilash G B

Amidst all the recent competition from Citrix and Microsoft, VMware's vSphere product line is still the most feature rich and futuristic product in the virtualization industry. Knowing how to install and configure vSphere components is important to give yourself a head start towards virtualization using VMware.If you want to quickly grasp the installation and configuration procedures, especially by using the new vSphere 5.1 web client, this book is for you.VMware vSphere 5.1 Cookbook will take you through all the steps required to accomplish a task with minimal reading required. Most of the tasks are accompanied with relevant screenshots with an intention to provide a visual guidance as well.The book has many useful recipes that will help you progress through the installation of VMware ESXi 5.1 and vCenter Server 5.1. You will learn to use Auto Deploy and Image Profiles to deploy stateless/stateful ESXi servers, configure failover protection for virtual machines using vSphere HA, configure automated load balancing using vSphere DRS and DPM.Finally, the book guides you through upgrading or patching ESXi servers using VMware Update Manager and also deploying and configuring vSphere Management Assistant (VMA) to be able to run scripts to manage the ESXi servers.

Python Geospatial Development Essentials. Utilize Python with open source libraries to build a lightweight, portable, and customizable GIS desktop application

Karim Bahgat

Articulate Studio Cookbook. Go from Studio newbie to Studio guru

Robert Kennedy, Robert Kennedy III

More and more companies find they need to build their training courses internally. They are turning to tools like Articulate Studio because it is easy to use and doesn't have a steep learning curve. If you are familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint in any way, you should feel right at home with Articulate Studio.Articulate Studio Cookbook will get you ready to add Articulate Studio to your enterprise toolkit. This book gives you detailed yet simple steps to complete your training course. By following the clear steps in each chapter, you will gain an understanding of the software but also be able to complete specific tasks and common activities.The good thing about this book is that you can start anywhere and get the information that you need for a specific activity. Cross-references are provided if there is a skill located elsewhere that you need to complete a task.It can be frustrating to pick up a new piece of software and not know where to begin. With Articulate Studio, there is a whole suite of software to work with. You need to know how to work with Presenter, Engage, Quizmaker and Encoder to make great Articulate courses. Then, you'll need to know how to put them all together in a way that makes a professional looking, cohesive and smooth-flowing course. We'll make it easy to follow step by step until you have a professional course.Articulate Studio Cookbook will help you go from Studio newbie to Studio guru. Dive in and choose your recipe.

Getting started with Audacity 1.3. Create your own podcasts, edit music, and more with this open source audio editor

Bethany Hiitola, Stephen Daulton

Using the Audacity software as the starting off point, we discuss what the software is, what it can do, how you can use it, and where you go to get started installing it. All of this information is grounded in some basic audio editing terminology and background for those that aren't so technology inclined.Then we'll start digging into a sample project! You'll learn about how to set up a project, create a voice track, record an interview with Skype, and basic audio editing techniques. All of this done in an easy to follow, task based approach with lots of examples. Here, we plan to go a step further, we teach how to wrap all of these steps together and create a podcast that can be posted on your own website or blog.There's always more you can do with Audacity! The last portion of the book is dedicated to just that - discussing more advanced editing and mixing techniques, using affects, adding music, adding additional plug-ins to the software. All still incorporating examples and easy to follow tasks you can try on your own audio projects.

Tableau 10 Business Intelligence Cookbook. Create powerful, effective visualizations with Tableau 10

Donabel Santos, Paul Banoub

Tableau is a software tool that can speed up data analysis through its rich visualization capabilities, and help uncover insights for better and smarter decision making. This book is for the business, technology, data and analytics professionals who use and analyze data and data-driven approaches to support business operations and strategic initiatives in their organizations.This book provides easy-to-follow recipes to get the reader up and running with Tableau 10, and covers basic to advanced use cases and scenarios. The book starts with building basic charts in Tableau and moves on to building more complex charts by incorporating different Tableau features and interactivity components. There is an entire chapter dedicated to dashboard techniques and best practices. A number of recipes specifically for geospatial visualization, analytics, and data preparation are also covered.By the end of this book, you’ll have gained confidence and competence to analyze and communicate data and insights more efficiently and effectively by creating compelling interactive charts, dashboards, and stories in Tableau.

Mastering DevOps on Microsoft Power Platform. Build, deploy, and secure low-code solutions on Power Platform using Azure DevOps and GitHub

Uroš Kastelic, József Zoltán Vadkerti

Mastering DevOps on Microsoft Power Platform is your guide to revolutionizing business-critical solution development. Written by two Microsoft Technology Specialists with extensive experience in enterprise-scale Power Platform implementations and DevOps practices, this book teaches you how to design, build, and secure efficient DevOps processes by adapting custom software development practices to the Power Platform toolset, dramatically reducing time, cost, and errors in app modernization and quality assurance.The book introduces application life cycle management (ALM) and DevOps-enabled architecture, design patterns, and CI/CD practices, showing you why companies adopt DevOps with Power Platform. You'll master environment and solution management using Dataverse, Git, the Power Platform CLI, Azure DevOps, and GitHub Copilot.Implementing the shift-left approach in DevSecOps using GitHub Advanced Security features, you’ll create a Power Platform tenant governed by controls, automated tests, and backlog management. You’ll also discover advanced concepts, such as fusion architecture, pro-dev extensibility, and AI-infused applications, along with tips to avoid common pitfalls.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to build CI/CD pipelines from development to production, enhancing the life cycle of your business solutions on Power Platform.

Conversational AI with Rasa. Build, test, and deploy AI-powered, enterprise-grade virtual assistants and chatbots

Xiaoquan Kong, Guan Wang, Alan Nichol

The Rasa framework enables developers to create industrial-strength chatbots using state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning technologies quickly, all in open source.Conversational AI with Rasa starts by showing you how the two main components at the heart of Rasa work – Rasa NLU (natural language understanding) and Rasa Core. You'll then learn how to build, configure, train, and serve different types of chatbots from scratch by using the Rasa ecosystem. As you advance, you'll use form-based dialogue management, work with the response selector for chitchat and FAQ-like dialogs, make use of knowledge base actions to answer questions for dynamic queries, and much more. Furthermore, you'll understand how to customize the Rasa framework, use conversation-driven development patterns and tools to develop chatbots, explore what your bot can do, and easily fix any mistakes it makes by using interactive learning. Finally, you'll get to grips with deploying the Rasa system to a production environment with high performance and high scalability and cover best practices for building an efficient and robust chat system.By the end of this book, you'll be able to build and deploy your own chatbots using Rasa, addressing the common pain points encountered in the chatbot life cycle.

Python Data Science Essentials. Become an efficient data science practitioner by thoroughly understanding the key concepts of Python

Alberto Boschetti, Luca Massaron

The book starts by introducing you to setting up your essential data science toolbox. Then it will guide you across all the data munging and preprocessing phases. This will be done in a manner that explains all the core data science activities related to loading data, transforming and fixing it for analysis, as well as exploring and processing it. Finally, it will complete the overview by presenting you with the main machine learning algorithms, the graph analysis technicalities, and all the visualization instruments that can make your life easier in presenting your results.In this walkthrough, structured as a data science project, you will always be accompanied by clear code and simplified examples to help you understand the underlying mechanics and real-world datasets.