M at PDC

I ran into Shoshanna Budzianowski today at PDC. She and I hooked through linked in after a post about OSLO months ago. She is Product Unit Manager, Repository and Modeling at Microsoft Corporation and involved in M. We had a nice talk not just about M, but also kids and so on. She also introduced me to Don Box who even autographed a OLSO Model Language book for me. I have got two copies now of the book, so if anybody not attending PDC is interested I will send it to you. I been to a couple of OSLO sessions now and I got to tell you it is awesome. You can see sessions about on channel 9 and PDC. Tonight I am going with some BizTalk People and Microsoft Netherlands (thanks Michiel Rozema) to LA Lakers game againt LA Clippers. I leave my colleague Edward behind at 'Ask The Experts'.

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PDC So far

I keep appearing in some ones blogs constantly everyday. I do not know the guy. Look at blog posts of Robert Jan who does describe the experience here at PDC very well. Today PDC will kick off with a key note by Rick Rashid from Microsoft Research. I keep you posted.

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Cloud Computing

At PDC I bought this book called 'Cloud Computing Web-based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online'. I read two chapters before I went to the first keynote on monday. Concept of cloud computing Ray Ozzie explained just really falls in place with content in first two chapters. This book is focused on 'Cloud Computing' in general looking at Microsoft, Amazons and Google's efforts. Azure is mentioned in here. I do thing that Microsoft is taking Cloud Computing futher that Amazon with it's elastic computing or Google's services. Azure is going to be more open and flexible to the community of users on one end and developers on the other. It is a platform for the Next Revolution like Steve Ballmer puts it in a memo I found in my mail box:


During the past decade, a dramatic transformation in the world of information technology has been taking shape. It's a transformation that will change the way we experience the world and share our experiences with others. It's a transformation in which the barriers between technologies will fall away so we can connect to people and information no matter where we are. It's a transformation where new innovations will shorten the path from inspiration to accomplishment.

Many of the components of this transformation are already in place. Some have received a great deal of attention. "Cloud computing" that connects people to vast amounts of storage and computing power in massive datacenters is one example. Social networking sites that have changed the way people connect with family and friends is another.

Other components are so much a part of the inevitable march of progress that we take them for granted as soon as we start to use them: cell phones that double as digital cameras, large flat-screen PC monitors and HD TV screens, and hands-free digital car entertainment and navigation systems, to name just a few.

What's missing is the ability to connect these components in a seamless continuum of information, communication, and computing that isn't bounded by device or location. Today, some things that our intuition says should be simple still remain difficult, if not impossible. Why can't we easily access the documents we create at work on our home PCs? Why isn't all of the information that customers share with us available instantly in a single application? Why can't we create calendars that automatically merge our schedules at work and home?

This week at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, we shared news with software developers about a new set of platform technologies that will help transcend these limits. Because you are a subscriber to Executive Emails from Microsoft, I wanted to share my thoughts about the impact that these technologies will have as developers begin to use them to create a new generation of experiences that extend uninterrupted from the desktop to the mobile phone, media player, car, and beyond-to places where we never thought information and communications would be available to us.

A New Platform for Cloud Computing

At PDC, we announced the availability of an early preview release of a new technology called Windows Azure. Windows Azure will enable developers to build applications that extend from the cloud to the enterprise datacenter and span the PC, the Web, and the mobile phone. For the first time, we shared pre-beta code for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 7, which is the next version of the Windows desktop operating system, will take advantage of software and hardware advances to help eliminate the boundaries between information, people, and devices.

We also previewed Office Web applications, which are light-weight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that are designed to be accessed through a browser. Office Web applications will be part of the next version of Office and will enable people to view, edit, and share information and collaborate on documents on the desktop, the phone, and in a Web browser in a way that is consistent and familiar.

Windows Azure is part of the Azure Services Platform, a comprehensive set of storage, computing, and networking infrastructure services that reside in Microsoft's network of datacenters. Using the Azure Services Platform, developers will be able to build applications that run in the cloud and extend existing applications to take advantage of cloud-based capabilities. The Azure Services Platform provides the foundation for business and consumer applications that deliver a consistent way for people to store and share information easily and securely in the cloud, and access it on any device from any location.

Windows Azure is not software that companies will run on their own servers. It's something new: a service that runs in Microsoft's growing network of datacenters and provides the platform that helps companies respond to the realities of today's business environment, and tomorrow's. Windows Azure technologies are already finding their way into products such as Windows Server 2008 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, enabling organizations and Microsoft partners to create their own cloud infrastructure.

Windows Azure will enable organizations to respond to realities such as the need to use the Web to provide customers with comprehensive information and to interact with an audience that has the potential to expand exponentially overnight; to integrate operations with partners-and sometimes even competitors-to meet customer needs; to add new capabilities quickly to respond to new opportunities; and to enable employees to work efficiently and effectively no matter where they are. These realities apply not just to businesses, but to organizations of all kinds: schools, governments, community groups, and more.

Traditional approaches to building technology infrastructure and delivering computing capabilities make it difficult and expensive to adjust to these realities. You need systems with enough capacity to meet the highest possible demand-capacity that includes servers and buildings to house them, the power to run them, and the people to manage them. You have to spread that capacity across locations so there's a backup if one part fails. You have to solve issues like access for different types of users and compliance with tax regulations in all countries where your customers reside.

Designed specifically to meet the global scale that today's organizations require, the Azure Services Platform will provide fundamentally new ways to deploy services and capabilities. It gives businesses the option to take advantage of the capacity available in the cloud as it is needed, reducing the need to make large upfront investments in infrastructure simply to be ready when demand spikes. It will enable developers to create applications that run in the cloud and provide the features, information, and interactivity that employees, partners, and customers expect-no matter how many of them there are, where they are in the world, or what device they have at hand.

Software Plus Services and the Power of Choice

The Azure Services Platform reflects our belief that choice is critical for developers, companies, and consumers. It is also based on our belief that the key to delivering value today and in the future lies in combining the best aspects of software running on PCs, servers, and devices with the best aspects of services running on the Web-an approach we call "software plus services."

Our software plus services approach lets people take full advantage of the incredible power of today's devices. While there are undeniable benefits to being able to tap into the wealth of information and services that can be accessed over the Web through a browser, the interactive experiences that people expect on their PC, mobile phone, and media player depend on sophisticated software running on powerful processors.

The richness of these experiences will only increase as multicore processors expand the computing capabilities of our devices and new programming languages open the door to a new generation of applications that let us use more natural ways to interact with digital technology such as voice, touch, and gestures.

Software plus services also recognizes that for most companies, the ideal way to build IT infrastructure is to find the right balance of applications that are run and managed within the organization and applications that are run and managed in the cloud.

This balance varies by company. A financial services company may choose to maintain customer records within its own datacenter to provide the extra layers of protection that it feels are needed to safeguard the privacy of personal information. It may outsource IT systems that provide basic capabilities such as email.

This balance will change over time within an organization, as well. A company may run its own online transaction system most of the year, but outsource for added capacity to meet extra demand during the holiday season. With software plus services, an organization can move applications back and forth between its own servers and the cloud quickly and smoothly.

Today, companies around the world are implementing Microsoft technologies to take advantage of the best combination of on-premise software and cloud-based services. Using Microsoft Online Services, businesses including Coca-Cola Enterprises, Blockbuster, and Energizer access and manage Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications Server, and Live Meeting over the Web through a single, secure infrastructure. In addition, 1 million people rely on Office Live Workspace for sharing and collaborating with friends, family, and colleagues.

Expanding the Definition of Personal Computing

Ultimately, the reason to create a cloud services platform is to continue to enhance the value that computing delivers, whether it's by improving productivity, making it easier to communicate with colleagues, or simplifying the way we access information and respond to changing business conditions.

In the world of software plus services and cloud computing, this means extending the definition of personal computing beyond the PC to include the Web and an ever-growing array of devices. Our goal is to make the combination of PCs, mobile devices, and the Web something that is significantly than more the sum of its parts.

The starting point is to recognize the unique value of each part. The value of the PC lies in its computing power, its storage capacity, and its ability to help us be more productive and create and consume rich and complex documents and content.

For the Web, it's the ability to bring together people, information, and services so we can connect, communicate, share, and transact with anyone, anywhere, at any time.

With the mobile phone and other devices, it's the ability to take action spontaneously-to make a call, take a picture, or send a text message in the flow of our activities.

Through Live Mesh-a service from Microsoft that we announced earlier this year and about which we shared new information week-we're beginning to bridge the PC, phone, and Web and create this next generation of connected experiences. Built on the Azure Services Platform, Live Mesh enables you to use programs and information stored on your work computer from your home PC, and vice versa. With Live Mesh, you can share folders and ensure that the information is automatically synchronized across your devices.

Live Mesh hints at how our lives will be transformed as the barriers between devices disappear and the option to connect instantly to people, devices, programs, and information becomes a reality.

We're not quite there yet. Today, the Azure Services Platform is available only as a limited technology preview release. But as developers begin to combine the capabilities of this new platform with the amazing ongoing hardware and software innovations that we are seeing from companies across the industry, it will bring us significantly closer to the time when information, communication, and computing flows along with us seamlessly as we move through our day-to-day activities.

You can learn more about these technologies and the progress we are making by visiting the Microsoft Software + Services Web site.

I look forward to sharing more information with you about these new technologies in the near future.

Steve Ballmer

It all makes sense to me now. Go check out the book it is a good read. Finally I also received my activation code for Microsoft® .NET Services and Microsoft® SQL Services, so I make use of Azure Services Platform. Also I have got the so-called goods (USB PDC Hard disk). So I am all set to go.


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Microsoft OSLO available

Finally I can witness one of the first sessions about OSLO at PDC; now I and rest of world get to actually see it. There will be another frenzy and plethora of blog posts being shed next couple of hours. OLSO is M, Quadrant and Repository; language, tools and store/share models. More than 150 Dutch people are here and some already blogged about OSLO, therefore I am going to be lazy and refer to them. So here you go Paul, Dennis and Alex.

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The Keynote

I will be short since there will be a blog frenzy over Microsoft Azure. During keynote this cloud windows platform new name was announced. So Windows Cloud OS is now: Azure.

 

Available only PDC attendees for now, but later on for general public.

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WCF History Lesson

Pre-conference session of Microsoft Software Legend Juval Lowy today seems more a history lesson of WCF than something completely new. All stuff that was shown and demoed was .NET 3.0. If you read his book WCF Programming than you have a the knowledge all attendees got today during this pre-conference session. For me it was/is history repeats it-self and story about WCF and origins is the same. In my point of view there was not much added value here. His book about Programming WCF Services will be updated shortly to a second version available soon through O’Reilly. I think here you could speak about ‘power of repeating’. It must say though that his session was presented in an understandable way and his jokes about VB for instance where very funny.

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Touch down in LA

I have arrived in LA as you can see on the pictures. Impressive view from the plane on LA when we landed. I had a taxi trip to hotel with Edward and some old colleagues from him Robert Jan en Rutger. All of us went for a nice meal at Mexican Grill downtown. Today I will attend pre-conference WCF.

Ready for take-off

Just came back home after a few days with the family in Limburg. I packed my bags and am ready to leave to Los Angeles to attend PDC. Sunday I kick off with pre-conference; WCF. Monday to Thursday I will focus on OSLO, SSDS, Windows Cloud and Dublin . See you there.

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Microsoft 2.0 continued

Yesterday I received Microsoft 2.0 book by Mary Jo Foley. I have already read half the book by now and I do not think it will be the book be reading on my way to LA. Book starts a bit slow on why it was written and she was not able to talk to big shots at Microsoft like Ray Ozzie, Steve Ballmer and so on about which way Microsoft I heading in the future. After first pages it started to get interesting and I liked bits about people inside Microsoft, one in charge mainly and why for instance Ray came on board. A lot of information has already made available on the web through her blog or sources like businessweek, eweek, Microsoft (presspass) and blogs at zdnet. It is a good read to get to know Microsoft better and I think people not living close to Redmond or abroad and read (local)news, zdnet, eweek it is an eye opener. For me at least I know some background now about Bob Muglia, Steven Sinofsky and Rick Rashid and their role inside Microsoft.

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SOA and cost reduction

Will SOA lead to cost reduction? Recently I followed this discussion (answers on the question) amongst some of my colleagues. Well on the long-run this may be one of the drivers to adopt SOA, but an enterprise will need to invest upfront. In adaption of SOA investments in legacy systems are not down the drain. SOA is not applied inside enterprises to rip and replace all legacy systems. Functionality inside legacy systems can be exposed and there is a plethora of technology available today to do it. Eventually hard maintainable legacy can be replaced gradually, not instantly. This will take some time and is not done overnight. In long run this could mean reduction of costs having modernized, easy maintainable systems.

One needs to invest to adopt SOA, therefore it is probably better to speak in terms of return of investment than of cost reduction. In past I have read many article and blog posts where ROI in SOA is hard to assess. If it is hard to assess, than how will SOA lead to cost reduction equals positive ROI. There are some SOA ROI calculators offered by IBM and TIBCO. IBM for instance calls their calculator IBM SOA Business Analyzer. Besides calculators there are many systems integrators, consultancy companies and so that have enough knowledge and experience to assess ROI, although no company or SOA to implement are the same.

ROI is interesting, important aspect of SOA and you can find a lot of information about it on the internet. I myself have not yet been in a situation, where I had to advice an organization about adoption of SOA and discuss or assess ROI. I usually participated in a later stadium of SOA project, where implementation had already started and Microsoft technology was used. My interest lies more in technology than with the business, but I do not ignore business side of things. Discussion like this for me is very helpful to have a better understanding of business drivers for SOA.

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Microsoft codename Dublin: you want to know some more !

Today I found some interesting posts about Dublin. Very interesting one comparison of BizTalk and Dublin. Another one by Darren Jefford quote: ‘BizTalk is by no means dead’. And last but not least this one by Damir Dobric. In less than two weeks more information during PDC will be available.

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Microsoft 2.0

As PDC is coming closer I noticed that Mary-Jo Foley blog all about Microsoft is a good resource to track to news about PDC and coming announcements (like Windows Cloud). She also wrote a book a book called ‘Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era’, which I recently ordered through Amazon. Notice 2.0 version like web 2.0, enterprise 2.0 and so; everything seems to be 2.0 these days. But anyways I hope to get copy of the book, before I will leave to US and have something to read during eleven hour flight to LA.

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WSCF Blue

WSCF.Blue has recently been made public (available) on Codeplex. My colleague Edward Bakker is project leader on this project and I am happy to join in his conquest to make this a better tool. Together with Buddhike de Silva, Benjamin Santosh and hopefully some other developers I hope to make this a very useful tool as Christian Weyer states in his blog post. He is the 'father' of this project. I must say I like this challenge, since I am very fond of WCF as technology.

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Platform as a Service: PaaS

Today I received an message through LinkedIn from a BizTalk colleague in the field Jonathan Gurevich about Cloud Platforms. I got this message from him concerning my blog post Window Cloud. David Chappell has written a whitepaper 'A Short Introduction to Cloud Platforms'. In this paper I saw terms like on-demand platform and platform as a service (PaaS). Last one a new acronym to be added to a already existing long list. I looked at Wikipedia and it is defined there:

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is an outgrowth of the Software as a Service application delivery model. The PaaS model makes all of the facilities required to support the end-to-end life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet with no software downloads or installation for developers, IT managers or end-users. It's also known as cloudware.

And of course there are people that like to define it themselves and/or explain it very well too like Alex Barnett. Or Salesforce a CRM in the cloud even called PaaS next version of Web: Web 3.0.

Back to the paper itself. There are three kinds of cloud services as David puts it. Software as a Service, Shared services and Platforms. Each can be found in the cloud and on-premises. This is explained in the paper. Futhermore cloud platforms are examined with focus on cloud foundation, infrastructure services and application services. I suggest go red and those of you that are going to attend PDC: it is a good primer to put Windows Cloud in context.

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OLSO CTP

At PDC a mere two weeks away attendees will get a first-hand look at OLSO through a CTP. Three technologies that will make up OSLO will be in it:

• A language – codenamed “M” – that helps people create and use textual domain-specific languages (DSLs) and data models
• A relational repository – that makes models available to both tools and platform components
• A tool – codenamed “Quadrant” – that helps people define and interact with models in a rich and visual manner

So some more codename’s, but at least I know what to expect. This CTP will probably reside on a 160 Gb external hard disk every attendee will receive.

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Windows Cloud

I recently found something interesting while browsing through the web. Something called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). What is this? Well it is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Ok and it seems that one is able to use Amazon EC2 to host highly scalable ASP.NET sites, high performance computing (HPC) clusters, media transcoders, SQL Server, and more. You can run Visual Studio (or another development environment) on your desktop and run the finished code in the Amazon cloud. That is impressive and what will Microsoft answer be on this development? Microsoft will announce a new operating system, codenamed “Windows Cloud”, at the forthcoming Professional Developers Conference end of this month. And Steve Ballmer even said:” By the time we finish our Professional Developers Conference this month, I think you’ll have to say, that there is nobody out there with as wider range of Cloud Computing services as Microsoft including dare I say it, Google.” So he forgot all about Amazon and EC2. I am curious now what Windows Cloud is, I at least now know what Amazon is going to offer in the near future. Will the real cloud platform stand up!

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First SharePoint Services 3.0 HOL Experience

In my previous post I downloaded a VPC from Microsoft ‘Developing with SharePoint Services 3.0 and visual studio 2008’ together with some hands on labs. On my laptop containing a Vista OS I did the following:

1) Deploy VPC

















2) Start WSS-July2008-V7


















3) Install Office On VPC (Plus version MSDN)



















4) Unpack HOL
















5) Start VS 2008 and exercise













I created a web part through HOL called HelloWorld, deployed it and added to a already created SharePoint site. Works like a charm. Downloaded HOL are already updated to VS2008. Al in all very straight forward, took me few minutes to set things up and 15 minutes for first exercise. I am going to try some more exercises coming days.

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Developing with sharepoint services 3.0 and visual studio 2008

VS 2008 has been released for some while and same accounts for SharePoint Services 3.0. As a developer or experienced .NET Architect and so on you might want to know how to develop with SharePoint Services. I am interested how and therefore I downloaded a time limited VHD (30th September 2009) containing Windows SharePoint Services SP1, Visual Studio 2008. I also wanted some Hands-on Labs to with it and found Developing Applications on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with VS 2005 though, but that should not be problem (maybe challenging). The hands on labs contain a set of 10 Hands on Labs for Developing Applications for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Visual Studio 2005. These labs are provided in C# and VB.NET languages. Each Hands on Lab is expected to take 60 minutes to complete and no SharePoint development experience is required. Participants are expected to have .NET development experience. The download includes lab manuals, completed lab exercises and any resource files required by the labs. The HOLs included are:

1. Web Parts;
2. Data Lists;
3. Event Handlers;
4. Workflow;
5. Silverlight;
6. Page Navigation;
7. Page Branding;
8. Web Services;
9. Content Types;
10. User Authentication.

Since no experience in SharePoint is needed it is ideal for folks like me. I usually more into SOA, BizTalk and integration, but I sometimes get connected with people creating and building portals. It doesn't hurt to know little about what they are doing. I have to thank Bart Wessel since his blog pointed me in right directions.

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PDC Dublin and .NET 4.0

I survived yet again another edition of Munich Oktoberfest. Now it is back to life and hard work. PDC is next trip I will make and I read some new announcements of .NET 4.0 and that there will preview of this with something called Dublin. Nice codename, I visited Dublin last year I must say a great town. Connect new technology to such a codename must promise something. Dublin as it is stated on Microsoft .NET site involves enhancements on Windows Server that will offer greater scalability and easier manageability. You can read all about it in a document (introduction) that can be downloaded. Other resource is Steve martin’s blog post or Brain Loesgen post.

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