ADO.NET Data Services Team Blog : PDC

Breaking Down ‘Data Silos’ – The Open Data Protocol (OData)

dpblogs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:39:00 GMT

A few weeks ago we posted about steps we’ve been taking to enable a wide range of data sources (DB, SharePoint, Reports, Cloud storage services, etc) to expose their data for programmatic access from any platform (Java, PHP, Silverlight, .NET, AJAX, etc) using a simple HTTP/AtomPub based protocol as the means of communication. Our exploration in the area of data sharing has been driven by frustration we’ve observed in the broader community around the fact that data tends to exist in horizontal or vertical silos: it can be shared within a particular environment but often becomes difficult to use beyond its original intent. For example, one factor that can contribute to such a “silo effect”, is application domain/business logic that changes the shape of its data such that it is harder to share. As systems continue to become more interconnected, the need to reuse information in its raw form or exposed through layers of domain/business logic grows and, it probably goes without saying, such data becomes more valuable the more it can be shared. It is this need for data sharing, regardless of the type of data source, where the “silo effect” becomes increasingly painful.

Driven by the goal to enable simple data sharing across disparate data sources, today, at PDC, we are announcing the Open Data Protocol (OData). OData is an open protocol for sharing data that provides a way to break down data silos and increase the shared value of data by creating an ecosystem in which data consumers can interoperate with data producers in a way that is far more powerful than currently possible, enabling more applications to make sense of a broader set of data. Every producer and consumer of data that participates in this ecosystem increases its overall value. This is similar in many ways to Microsoft’s efforts with ODBC, although applied to the Web environment and supporting a variety of data sources including (but not limited to) relational databases, file systems, content management systems, and traditional web sites.

OData applies web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) and JSON to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and stores and will be published under the Open Specification Promise to allow anyone to freely interoperate with OData implementations. OData was previously known informally as the “data services protocol”, however, we’re renaming the specification to better express its intent. We are very interested in working with the web community around how to best align OData to future versions of AtomPub or other appropriate standards and welcome participation from anyone interesting in furthering the type of data sharing ecosystem OData strives to enable.

From a Microsoft standpoint, the Data Services framework was the first Microsoft technology to support the Open Data Protocol in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and provides developers with client libraries for .NET, Silverlight, AJAX, PHP and Java. In addition to developing WCF Data Services, Microsoft currently supports the OData in SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Azure Table Storage, Excel 2010 (through PowerPivot) and SharePoint 2010 with many other applications (such as Microsoft Mediaroom) in the works.

In addition to MSFT technologies, we’ve also already seen interest in the community to grow the OData ecosystem. For example, IBM’s WebSphere eXtreme Scale project implements the protocol to enable broad accessibility to their grid technologies.

We’re actively working to provide more public facing data and tools for OData. For now, be sure to check out www.odata.org. As we progress we’ll be sure to post our thoughts and ideas for your feedback. We look forward to your feedback and participation in this effort.

-Mike Flasko

Lead Program Manager, Microsoft

Simplifying our n-tier development platform: making 3 things 1 thing

dpblogs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:39:00 GMT

As you’ve probably observed, we’ve been working hard over the past year or so to grow our application stacks to better support the types of applications (Silverlight, rich desktop, AJAX, etc) and services (SOAP, REST, etc) that are required to build modern, robust solutions. At present, a few of the technologies we have to help in building services & n-tier applications are: Windows Communication Foundation, .NET RIA Services and ADO.NET Data Services.

We’ve been very pleased to see each of these stacks be well received in the community and, given that positive feedback, we’ve been eagerly working on expanding each based on your comments. While today these stacks target different application scenarios and/or levels of abstraction, we see opportunities to align their foundations by building the concepts shared in each stack (authentication, conventions for business logic, logging, configuration, etc) on a single foundation. Additionally, we’ve heard your feedback that traversing our offerings in this space is, at times, too complicated.

So, with the goal of simplifying our platform by aligning common components, we’d like to announce a few changes we’ll be making to achieve our goals….

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) == your “one stop shop” for building services and n-tier applications

Since .NET Fx 3.0, WCF has been the place to go to in the .NET Framework to rapidly build service-oriented applications that communicate across the web and the enterprise. As we’ve developed the product roadmaps for .NET RIA Services and ADO.NET Data Services we’ve found they complement the core WCF stack quite well as components/extensions for WCF or as new top-level layers of abstraction.

To formalize our direction in aligning these technologies, we’re making a few name changes in the .NET Framework 4 timeframe. ADO.NET Data Services will change its name slightly to be WCF Data Services and .NET RIA Services will be known as WCF RIA Services. We’ll be talking about our alignment of these technologies starting at this PDC, so if you are attending, keep an eye out for sessions and information at the event.

We think of these name changes as a key first step in simplifying our offerings in this space. Starting at this PDC and continuing over the coming Silverlight & .NET Framework releases cycles, you’ll see us further bring together these applications stacks such that you can leverage key parts of each in one WCF-based application. As we progress along this path we’ll be sure to post our thinking to get your feedback.

Q&A

We thought this might generate a few questions, so here’s a couple Q&As on the topic that should help clarify this announcement…

Q: Now that the names are aligned, when will alignment occur in the products?

A: We’ll start aligning the technologies in the .NET Framework 4 and Silverlight 4 timeframes and, guided by your feedback, continue through subsequent release cycles as appropriate.

Q: Doesn’t ADO.NET Data Services and .NET RIA Services already use WCF?

A: They do, but we believe we can further their alignment & integration to provide a more seamless developer experience.

Q: Does this mean you are changing the direction of Data Services?

A: The vision we have for Data Services does not change with this announcement. We believe this announcement further solidifies our investment in the area of simple, standards-based communication on the web by (overtime) bringing support for the Data Services conventions directly into WCF. For further details, see this post on our future direction regarding data services and OData support: http://blogs.msdn.com/astoriateam/archive/2009/11/17/breaking-down-data-silos-the-open-data-protocol-odata.aspx

Q: How does this announcement affect the planned Data Services update for .NET Fx 3.5 SP1?

A: It doesn’t. The Data Services update for .NET Fx 3.5 SP1 will ship as planned this calendar year.

-Mike Flasko

Lead Program Manager, ~~ADO.NET~~ WCF Data Services

Data Services Content @ PDC

dpblogs — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:14:41 GMT

PDC is done for another year. We had a great time presenting and chatting everyone. Thanks for all your thoughtful feedback! If you didn't make it to all the data services PDC sessions....

First: Shame on you.

Second: Here is a summary (with links to recordings) of the data services focused sessions at PDC:

RTM or CTP (announced at PDC) technologies:

Developing Applications Using Data Services

See how to use common libraries and tools when building applications using on premises and/or cloud services (Windows Azure services, SQL Data Services, etc).

Programming Windows Azure Tables Using Data Services Client Libraries and Tools

Learn how to use the highly scalable, available and durable Windows Azure table storage service. This session presents a deep dive with demos (using ADO.NET Data Services clients & interaction conventions) showing in detail how to work with cloud storage.

Data Services Framework Futures:

Offline-Enabled Data Services and Desktop Applications : ("Astoria Offline")

Learn how to create offline-capable applications that have a local replica of their data, how to synchronize that replica with an online data service when a network connection becomes available, and how replicas can be used with the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

Stay tuned to this blog for details on an upcoming CTP of "Astoria Offline".

Mike Flasko

ADO.NET Data Services, Program Manager

See you at PDC

dpblogs — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:46:46 GMT

Technorati Tags: PDC2008

A few of us from the Astoria team will be at PDC this year. If you are heading to the conference and want to chat about data services, drop us a note or we'll likely bump into you in the lounge / discussion areas.

Below is a short video that talks about the data services sessions that will be at the conference. Pablo even hints at a "secret" session that he will be giving at the conference :). We hope to see you there!

Astoria Design Walkthrough: No design... just plugging our PDC talks!

Session Details:

- Developing Applications Using Data Services (on premises or cloud services): Tues, Oct 28 @ 1:45pm

- Offline Enabled Data Services and Desktop Applications: Wed, Oct 29 @ 3pm

- Unnamed third talk by Pablo: Wed, Oct 29 @ 1:15pm

See you there,

Mike Flasko -- ADO.NET Data Services, Program Manager