New Technology Meetup Derby 1: Bots and Clouds Wifi: iHub @andyelastacloud

About me Andy Cross, Microsoft Azure MVP & Regional Director Co-Founder of Elastacloud Background in Web & “internet scale” challenges UK Azure User Group IoT Innovators Cloud Infrastructure User Group New Technology Meetup @andyelastacloud

I do not work for Microsoft I do have a bunch of experience with their technology and find it a convenient sharing platform. If things sound vendor specific, they can almost always be reapplied elsewhere. If things seem hard when I do them and you have experience of it being easier elsewhere, always shout out. We’re blinkered by the things we can reach. I do work for Elastacloud We’re polycloud, polyglot and polymath. We build data solutions and innovative user interfaces. We’re based in this office. We’re hiring. We’re paying for the beer. @andyelastacloud

About this Run by a board; member applicants welcome Our mission To build a leading technology community and support their innovations using cutting edge technologies. Targeting monthly meetings on new technology. opinionated change advocacy champion member oriented vendor agnostic @andyelastacloud

1; Bots and Clouds A new metaphor for engaging users @andyelastacloud

What’s a bot? What’s a cloud? Bots participate in conversations Conversational platforms are web oriented Modern chat services integrate with many services On more recent integration is to support conversation agents, or bots Clouds support web platforms Scalable and elastic Serverless and economic A developer’s best friend Not this @andyelastacloud

@andyelastacloud

Who supports bots? Messenger Apps Team Apps Productivity Apps Facebook Messenger Kik Telegram Skype SMS GroupMe Team Apps Slack Productivity Apps Email The bot movement started with Messenger Apps; adding a Bot into a conversation; primarily used on mobile devices, and a way for brands to participate in the ecosystem @andyelastacloud

Why are bots taking off? Engagement @andyelastacloud

Why are bots interesting for a business? Active users respond to messages within 20 seconds of receiving a message. Passive users take minutes to respond to a message. Roughly 20 percent of Kik usage is active and 80 percent is passive. The 40 percent of U.S. teens who use the app on average take part in six chat sessions a day, each 12 minutes long. @andyelastacloud

Why are bots interesting for a dev? Ever wanted to write an app but the UI got in the way? In a bot context your input/output is English (or language) The technology areas are futuristic: AI – with ML for NLP Web tech (which we will present today around Cloud) – without the css ;-) Modern data access More direct access to user interaction @andyelastacloud

Prime-Cloud-Scenario Some major post-cloud explosion example trends Big Data: Cloud oriented, Server Abstracted, Job as a Service, REST based Containerized: Docker as a service, Server Abstracted, Isolation of monoliths, REST hosts CloudDevOps: Infrastructure as Code, Setup Abstractions, scalable, REST + more Bots: Serverless, elastic, REST based, polyglot @andyelastacloud

Bot Design Using Microsoft’s BotFramework (botbuilder) @andyelastacloud

Bot Builder SDK (Node.js + C#) Your bot Logic Web service Bot Builder SDK (Node.js + C#) Your conversation logic LUIS @andyelastacloud

Send/receive messages Bot Connector Dev portal Bot Connector Send/receive messages Store state Translation Telemetry … Your bot @andyelastacloud

Bot Connector messages Your bot Bot Connector { "type": "Message", "id": "68YrxgtB53Y", "conversationId": "DphPaFQrDuZDKyCez4AFGcT4vy5aQDje1lLGIjB8v18MFtb", "language": "en", "text": "You can say \"/order\" to order!", "attachments": [ ], "from": { "name": "+12065551212", "channelId": "sms", "address": "+12065551212", "id": "Ro52hKN287", "isBot": false }, "channelData": { SMS data here }, "botUserData": { your data here }, ... } @andyelastacloud

Azure Design Bot App A Deploy Channels Bot Framework Azure WebApp Or Azure Function Azure SQL Db 3rd party services @andyelastacloud

Bot Design A new type of design; conversationalist Bots aren’t meant to be opinionated Bots are servants and must be service Bot must ask a question, pretty much at the end of every action.

Demo; bot scaffold! A festival of demonstration and potential failure with a back beat of swearing

Demo; bot hosting!

Demo; AI

Summary

Bots are good Bots are easy to put together with the botbuilder framework. Typescript rocks AI rocks Best practises: Always ask a question to be a good conversationalist.