Deven Kampenhout's Tech Blog

Microsoft Web Deployment Tool Sandbox

2008-10-30T03:40:29Z

At the Microsoft PDC today, I attended a talk entitled, "Web Application Packaging and Deployment". It went into detail about how the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool can significantly ease deployment for ASP.net applications onto a supporting Windows platform. The idea is that the tool will programmatically enable one to deploy all aspects of their application, which addresses some typical challenges of these deployment scenarios, such as configuration modifcations, GAC entries, etc. It will integrate into Visual Studio 2010, and as of Beta 2, now has the ability to create and manage application packaging, and integrates into the IIS7 manager.

During the presentation, Takeshi Eto from DiscountASP.net showed how they have created a developer sandbox for people to try out the new Microsoft Web Deployment tool. This is a great way to see how this technology will work, especially since it is deployed in a shared hosting environment. Anyone can sign up for the sandbox for free, but it is limited to the first 2000 participants. You can sign up at http://labs.discountasp.net.

Microsoft PDC 2008

2008-10-27T20:47:43Z

I'm attending the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference this week. If you're at the PDC or in the LA area, give me a shout out!

IIS7 URL-Rewrite Module go-live release

2008-09-23T23:50:34Z

As a Web Platform evangelist at Microsoft, I've had many conversations with individuals about the how we could improve Microsoft's IIS Web Server. I've often touted the modular architecture implementation of IIS7, and how it allows both Microsoft and other parties to easily enhance, tweak, and improve the functionality of the web server to meet the specific requirements of the job at hand. To date, many IIS7 modules have been released, both by Microsoft as well as third parties. When examining what kinds of functionality the Microsoft IIS product team should be spending cycles developing modules for, one of the most commonly requested modules was one implementing functionality similar to Apache's Mod-Rewrite.

Last week, the IIS7 team announced a go-live version of an IIS7 module to give this functionality. It's called URL-Rewrite, and you can find more information about it at http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2008/09/11/url-rewrite-module-go-live-release.aspx

At a high level, the Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 provides flexible rules-based rewrite engine that can be used to perform broad spectrum of URL manipulation tasks, including, but not limited to:

Enabling user friendly and search engine friendly URL with dynamic web applications;
Rewriting URL’s based on HTTP headers and server variables;
Web site content handling;
Controlling access to web site content based on URL segments or request metadata.

For a full list of features, usage scenarios, and download locations check out: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/460/using-url-rewrite-module/

CSS Editing is SOOO Much easier now!

2008-09-23T03:37:06Z

Any of my regular blog readers may note that I recently updated my blog design. I know it was long overdue.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to voice my opinion on how much easier it is to modify CSS settings now! Community Server (which is the software which powers MSDN blogs) gives me the ability to choose a CSS theme, but also to provide my own custom CSS overrides. Using Microsoft Expressions Web 2, I was easily able to suck in the code for my blog. I had to manually change the code from relative to absolute links for the CSS style-sheets that are provided with the MSDN blog site, but once that was done, all of the appearance within the tool looked exactly how it should. Then it was an easy matter to figure out what styles were applying to which piece of code. I could easily detect which rules were being applied and in what order. I'm so happy I didn't have to waste tons of time playing the "I wonder if I can guess which rule is being applied to this area" game. Kudo's to the Expression team for making a great web design product!

Hosting Transformation Summit, Part 2

2008-09-19T00:23:00Z

Today we're wrapping up the Tier1/451 Group Hosting Transformation Summit.

Here are my thoughts after attending the talks yesterday. Ultimately, it was a good way to get a financial analyst's perspective on concepts such as data center efficiency/real estate concerns, cloud computing, virtualization, and financial capitalization. I was disappointed that the virtualization talks were very vmware centric. In the virtualization panel, they had a rep from vmware, but didn't invite any representation from Microsoft. Perhaps this was because vmworld conference was in town this week. It would have been a much more interesting panel to have a different point of view. Furthermore, there seemed to be some confusion among some in the industry between cloud computing services and virtualization. Another blog to discuss the differences will be forthcoming.

I also felt that that the focus of the talks and panels was too narrow. While concepts such as capitalization and real estate are interesting, it shouldn't dominate the conference. Even the virtualization talks were very watered down. It was a 10,000 ft view of the topics, which is great way to start, but it would have been nice to follow it up with a bit more depth. Basically, they stated that virtualization will continue in importance of helping hosters to move their customers up the value chain as well as begin to attract enterprise business through cloud computing concepts. Data center efficiency is of importance, yet we face slowing of supply for data centers as the credit crunch makes building more difficult. Ultimately the conference talks should have been consolidated into 6 hours.

On a lighter note, Shaun Hirschman won the poker tournament last night, defeating the best that the Hosting Industry executives had to offer. Props to my fellow Web Platform Architect!!!

Hosting Transformation Summit 2008

2008-09-16T19:59:15Z

I'm in Las Vegas for the 2008 Hosting Transformation Summit, which is the 451 Group / Tier1 Research executive hosting summit. Here are some initial observations:

1. The summit has grown! Seems like there are twice as many attendees this year.

2. Still very much an executive level event.

3. I'm interested to see some of the more enterprise-focused hosters in attendance this year (i.e. Verizon and AT&T hosting have booths)

4. Broad, yet relevant topic set on the agenda. It should be interesting to see many of the thought leaders of the Hosting industry presenting over the next two days.

5. The conference is continuing the green conference trend. There was literally no paper handed out with event materials... conference badge is a USB stick with agenda and conference materials.

Stay tuned for more observations.

What would you like to do with Windows Server 2008 Core?

2007-08-29T18:04:00Z

Lately there has been a great deal of discussion about WS2008 Core amongst the Web Platform Architect Evangelists and several of the great people in the IIS and Commerce/Hosting product teams. Ever since I first learned of LongHorn Core (now Windows Server 2008 Core), I was very excited about the possibilities that such a concept presented in a web hosting scenario.

For any not familiar with Server Core, it is designed to be minimal environment, or in other words, only running exactly what is needed in order to support a specified server function. One of the most visible manifestations of this concept shows itself in the lack of a Graphical User Interface. If you log into a Server Core box, your session will just look like a command prompt. Beyond the lack of a GUI, the minimalist approach of Server Core limits installed binaries to only the subset of the binaries that are required by the supported server roles. Sound familiar to anyone?

My question is, why do you really need a GUI for a web server? Apart from a manual initial configuration, how often do you really need the GUI elements to manage your web server? And even then, it is so easy to automate a build/install of a server, you shouldn't even need a GUI for that. Most people use some kind of web-based control panel anyway, by which the GUI portions of administrations are accomplished via a web site. In my opinion, that is where the GUI belongs, on the Web. Most administrative tasks that you want to do should be programatic, scripted, and automated. In my years of running and administering Unix and Linux-based web servers, I can honestly tell you that I never once used a console/terminal based GUI to manage anything about that environment. I'm glad that Microsoft has finally created a product that fits this model.

Almost.

You see, the current thinking for Server Core is that it will only support specific, pre-defined, server roles. While there are a variety of roles that can be utilized, there are a number of scenarios that aren't supported in server core. For example, as of today, you can implement Server Core with a Web Server role (IIS). Unfortunately not all of the features of IIS are supported on Server Core. Most prominent among these unsupported features is the .Net CLR. Whoops!

There have been many among the IIS product team and hosting focused folks at Microsoft that have been pushing hard to have this fixed. I can't say for sure that we'll be successful, but I have good hopes here :) As I've had some interesting internal discussions about how something like the .Net CLR could be left out of Server Core, I've certainly made my opinion about the matter known. Now I'm sharing it with you, my readers so that I can garner your comments on this matter. I am one voice, but I hope that I can hear from those of you who feel similarly so that we can really draw attention to the importance of this.

Basically, my opinion is that if Server Core is truly a minimalistic install, it should support ANY role that can be run independently of a GUI. A GUI should depend on the platform, not the other way around. There isn't any reason that something running on a server should require a graphic interface to configure something. As long as there is an API or script-based way to accomplish a task, I should be able to push the administration for such a service to a centralized, off-server approach that wouldn't require any type of GUI-based shell on the server itself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pessimist. I believe that we'll get there some day. But we need to broaden the definition of Server Core.

I'm really curious what you think. Here is a list of all of the supported roles for Server Core as of today. Check it here to see updates.

•	Active Directory Domain Services
•	Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)
•	Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server
•	DNS Server
•	File Services
•	Print Server
•	Streaming Media Services
•	Web Server (IIS)

The following optional features are also supported:

•	Microsoft Failover Cluster
•	Network Load Balancing
•	Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications
•	Windows Backup
•	Multipath I/O
•	Removable Storage Management
•	Windows Bitlocker Drive Encryption
•	Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
•	Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)
•	Telnet client
•	Quality of Service (QoS)

So my question to you all is this. What is missing from this list? Are there any other glaring holes that will affect the hosting industry?

Coming to a City Near You!!! Windows Server 2008 Hosting Roadshow

2007-08-02T17:46:00Z

Many of you know that I've been talking about IIS7 in road shows, talks, demonstrations, and training labs since I first started working as a Hosting Evangelist in January 2005. This fall, for the first time I'll not be talking about "this cool up-coming technology for you to preview", but delivering labs on how to be prepared for the actual product launch of Windows Server 2008 (with IIS7), which occurs in February 2008. I'm really excited for this opportunity to help you prepare for the most compellig web platform Microsoft has ever created. There are so many benefits of WS2008/IIS7 that directly benefit Hosters, I believe that it will quickly be the de-facto platform for web site hosting.

What does this mean to you? We're going to be launching a 40 city road show to get you ready to launch Windows Server 2008. We've created over 7 technical labs which will train you on the different aspects of Windows Server 2008 and IIS7. If you are a Windows Sysadmin, Engineer, Architect, or just want to be, you won't want to miss us as we're near your city. This is a golden opportunity for Hosting companies to get their tech people ready. Even if you're not hosting Windows today, send your technical people so they can see what Windows Server 2008 is all about. It doesn't matter if your technical background is in Unix, Open Source, or the MS platform, you will find this technology compelling for Hosting.

You can find more information about the Windows Server 2008 Hosting roadshow from our Registration Site. Hope to see you there!

One more time: Come to the Microsoft Web Experience events in LA and Denver!

2007-06-05T22:36:00Z

Microsoft is hosting free Microsoft Web Experience events at the Los Angeles Microsoft office
on June 8th and the Denver Microsoft office on June 15th. They will be presenting information
on building the next generation user experience on the web.

They are providing breakfast and lunch, hosting a reception with beer and wine, and attendees are
automatically registered in a drawing for an XBox 360 and a Zune that will be given away at
each event. For more information, visit
http://kaevans.sts.winisp.net/Shared%20Documents/webexperience.aspx

IIS7 now part of Windows Server 2008 "server core"

2007-06-05T18:06:00Z

I'm really excited that Microsoft announced yesterday that IIS7 will now be a server role option as part of Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as longhorn) "server core". This means that you'll be able to install a minimalistic footprint for your server (i.e. without a gui shell) and run IIS7. In the past, it was deemed that IIS7 was too large to be put into server core due to its dependence on the .NET CLR, mainly because of the integrated pipeline with ASP.Net.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this means now that IIS7 will be part of server core, but I can tell you that I'm really excited that we've taken this step. Stay tuned for more info about this.