On Cloud Computing, Integration Technology, Mobility, RFID, ERP etc...
Sr, Program Manager at Microsoft and MBA from UNC Chapel Hill.My small world includes my beautiful wife Swati and our awesome twin boyz Arni and Abhi.
Kinect for Windows is now available. Below are details from the Kinect for Windows Blog …
On January 9th, Steve Ballmer announced at CES that we would be shipping Kinect for Windows on February 1st. I am very pleased to report that today version 1.0 of our SDK and runtime were made available for download, and distribution partners in our twelve launch countries are starting to ship Kinect for Windows hardware, enabling companies to start to deploy their solutions. The suggested retail price is $249, and later this year, we will offer special academic pricing of $149 for Qualified Educational Users. In the three months since we released Beta 2, we have made many improvements to our SDK and runtime, including: Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments. Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes More details can be found here. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, without many years of intense R&D efforts, including research investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and deep partnership between our research teams, software teams, hardware teams, manufacturing teams, and games studios, Kinect simply wouldn’t exist. Shipping Kinect for Windows was another cross-Microsoft effort: not only did the hardware and software teams work closely together to create an integrated solution, but our support, manufacturing, supply chain, reverse logistics, and account teams have all been working hard to prepare for today’s launch. As well, our research, speech, and Xbox NUI teams have contributed to making Kinect for Windows a better product. Microsoft’s ability to make these kinds of deep investments makes Kinect for Windows a product that companies can deploy with confidence, knowing you have our support and our ongoing commitment to make Kinect for Windows the best it can be
On January 9th, Steve Ballmer announced at CES that we would be shipping Kinect for Windows on February 1st. I am very pleased to report that today version 1.0 of our SDK and runtime were made available for download, and distribution partners in our twelve launch countries are starting to ship Kinect for Windows hardware, enabling companies to start to deploy their solutions. The suggested retail price is $249, and later this year, we will offer special academic pricing of $149 for Qualified Educational Users.
In the three months since we released Beta 2, we have made many improvements to our SDK and runtime, including:
More details can be found here.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, without many years of intense R&D efforts, including research investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and deep partnership between our research teams, software teams, hardware teams, manufacturing teams, and games studios, Kinect simply wouldn’t exist. Shipping Kinect for Windows was another cross-Microsoft effort: not only did the hardware and software teams work closely together to create an integrated solution, but our support, manufacturing, supply chain, reverse logistics, and account teams have all been working hard to prepare for today’s launch. As well, our research, speech, and Xbox NUI teams have contributed to making Kinect for Windows a better product. Microsoft’s ability to make these kinds of deep investments makes Kinect for Windows a product that companies can deploy with confidence, knowing you have our support and our ongoing commitment to make Kinect for Windows the best it can be
Kinect for Windows Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Great use of Azure platform for voting…
Democracy Live is playing an important role in the presidential primaries in Florida, Virginia and California by making it easier for American military personnel stationed overseas and other citizens living abroad to vote in U.S. elections. Since voting began, more than 1,200 Florida voters in 40 countries have accessed ballots using LiveBallot, a technology developed by Issaquah-based Democracy Live and hosted on Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.
Democracy Live is playing an important role in the presidential primaries in Florida, Virginia and California by making it easier for American military personnel stationed overseas and other citizens living abroad to vote in U.S. elections.
Since voting began, more than 1,200 Florida voters in 40 countries have accessed ballots using LiveBallot, a technology developed by Issaquah-based Democracy Live and hosted on Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.
With Microsoft backing, Democracy Live brings ballot box to G.I.s overseas
Good overview of SQL Azure Federation by Cihan Biyikoglu .
This is another great addition to this weeks releases. After we launched XBox live update and XBox companion app we now have IPhone and iPad app for XBox. It allows you to check out your XBox live points etc.. I installed it on my iPad yesterday and it is pretty cool…
By Christina Bonnington, WIRED updated 7:47 AM EST, Thu December 8, 2011 | Filed under: Gaming and Gadgets Windows Phone users have had Xbox Live services packaged into their mobile experience for a while now. STORY HIGHLIGHTS My Xbox Live lets users edit their 3-D avatars, chat with Xbox Live friends iOS users who download the app get a screen similar to Windows Phone-style interface My Xbox Live is available free for download on the iPhone and iPad in the App Store (WIRED) -- Microsoft released an Xbox Live app for iOS devices on Wednesday, bringing features of Microsoft's gaming service to Apple devices for the first time. My Xbox Live lets users edit their 3-D avatars, chat with Xbox Live friends and revel in their achievements. You can also check out more information about the newest apps and games on Xbox, as well as gaming tips and breaking news. Windows Phone users have had Xbox Live services packaged into their mobile experience for a while now, but now iOS users can get a piece of the action. And whether they like it or not, iOS users who download the app are also getting a screen similar to a Windows Phone-style user interface. The iPhone app features the horizontal bar across the bottom of the screen that houses the same sort of circular icons you'd find in a Windows Phone 7 app. Also included: a clever browser-based demo that lets you virtually explore the UI of a Windows Phone from your Android or iPhone handset. While you may already be on a phone of a different OS, it has potential to lure potential defectors over to Microsoft's mobile platform. It's been a good week for Microsoft. On Tuesday, the company unveiled the details of its upcoming Windows Store for Windows 8, the newest version of the world's most popular desktop platform. And on Monday, the company announced that the Xbox was getting a user interface refresh, with dozens of new content channels and the addition of a Windows Phone app you can use to control your Xbox. Microsoft's iOS apps are now icing on top of the cake. Now when are we going to get those Microsoft Office apps on the iPad? My Xbox Live is available free for download on the iPhone and iPad in the App Store.
By Christina Bonnington, WIRED
updated 7:47 AM EST, Thu December 8, 2011 | Filed under: Gaming and Gadgets
Windows Phone users have had Xbox Live services packaged into their mobile experience for a while now.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(WIRED) -- Microsoft released an Xbox Live app for iOS devices on Wednesday, bringing features of Microsoft's gaming service to Apple devices for the first time.
My Xbox Live lets users edit their 3-D avatars, chat with Xbox Live friends and revel in their achievements. You can also check out more information about the newest apps and games on Xbox, as well as gaming tips and breaking news.
Windows Phone users have had Xbox Live services packaged into their mobile experience for a while now, but now iOS users can get a piece of the action. And whether they like it or not, iOS users who download the app are also getting a screen similar to a Windows Phone-style user interface.
The iPhone app features the horizontal bar across the bottom of the screen that houses the same sort of circular icons you'd find in a Windows Phone 7 app. Also included: a clever browser-based demo that lets you virtually explore the UI of a Windows Phone from your Android or iPhone handset.
While you may already be on a phone of a different OS, it has potential to lure potential defectors over to Microsoft's mobile platform.
It's been a good week for Microsoft. On Tuesday, the company unveiled the details of its upcoming Windows Store for Windows 8, the newest version of the world's most popular desktop platform.
And on Monday, the company announced that the Xbox was getting a user interface refresh, with dozens of new content channels and the addition of a Windows Phone app you can use to control your Xbox. Microsoft's iOS apps are now icing on top of the cake.
Now when are we going to get those Microsoft Office apps on the iPad?
My Xbox Live is available free for download on the iPhone and iPad in the App Store.
Microsoft launches Xbox Live app for iPhone, iPad - CNN.com
Just downloaded and started playing with XBox Companion App which we launched today. It is really amazing. I loved the ability to search for movies on the phone and then directly play on the TV through XBox. Really cool stuff… Good reason to buy a Windows Phone if you are a XBox fan.
From: Xbox Facebook Page - The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. The Xbox update is currently on its way to all 35 million Xbox LIVE members around the world. We apologize for today’s delay and hope that you will be thrilled with your new Xbox experience and the new apps launching in the coming weeks! http://xbx.lv/uxmHet
Good to see Azure picking up with environmental agency.
Cloud computing can be a powerful tool for scientists and researchers sharing massive amounts of environmental data. At the United Nations climate conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa this week, The European Environment Agency, geospatial software company Esri and Microsoft showed off the “Eye on Earth” network. The community uses Esri’s cloud services and Microsoft Azure to create an online site and group of services for scientists, researchers and policy makers to upload, share and analyze environmental and geospatial data. While the Eye on Earth network has been under development since 2008, the group launched three services for different types of environmental data at COP 17, including WaterWatch, which uses the EEA’s water data; AirWatch, which uses the EEA’s air quality data; and NoiseWatch, which combines environmental data with user-generated info from citizens.
Cloud computing can be a powerful tool for scientists and researchers sharing massive amounts of environmental data. At the United Nations climate conference (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa this week, The European Environment Agency, geospatial software company Esri and Microsoft showed off the “Eye on Earth” network. The community uses Esri’s cloud services and Microsoft Azure to create an online site and group of services for scientists, researchers and policy makers to upload, share and analyze environmental and geospatial data.
While the Eye on Earth network has been under development since 2008, the group launched three services for different types of environmental data at COP 17, including WaterWatch, which uses the EEA’s water data; AirWatch, which uses the EEA’s air quality data; and NoiseWatch, which combines environmental data with user-generated info from citizens.
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/microsoft-cloud-to-power-environmental-big-data/
Amazing News!!! Almost million consoles sold.
Entering the seventh year of its lifecycle, Xbox 360 just closed the biggest sales week in the history of the hit digital entertainment system, selling more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday. Sales highlights in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday include: · Xbox 360 sold more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. alone, with more than 800,000 sold within a period of 24 hours. · More than 750,000 Kinect for Xbox 360 sensors were sold in the U.S. – standalone and bundled. Xbox 360 has a growing Kinect portfolio of more than 75 new Kinect for Xbox 360 titles – four times more than last holiday season. New titles include sequels to best sellers, including “Kinect Sports: Season Two” and “Dance Central 2.” Xbox 360 also released exclusive games this holiday season with titles like “Gears of War 3,” “Forza Motorsport 4” and “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.” Below is a screenshot of “Kinect Sports: Season Two”: In addition to games, on Dec. 6th, the next generation of TV entertainment will begin with the availability of a new Xbox 360 experience, and the launch of the first group of custom entertainment apps on Xbox LIVE. By the end of the year, nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers, including Comcast and HBO GO, will be available on Xbox LIVE. Xbox 360 should deliver its eleventh straight month as the number one console in the US. Given the robust holiday portfolio and the new Xbox LIVE dashboard going live on Dec. 6th, Microsoft expects holiday momentum to continue, driving Xbox 360 to finish the year as the number one console in the U.S. Posted by Jeff Meisner Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog
Entering the seventh year of its lifecycle, Xbox 360 just closed the biggest sales week in the history of the hit digital entertainment system, selling more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday.
Sales highlights in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday include:
· Xbox 360 sold more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. alone, with more than 800,000 sold within a period of 24 hours.
· More than 750,000 Kinect for Xbox 360 sensors were sold in the U.S. – standalone and bundled.
Xbox 360 has a growing Kinect portfolio of more than 75 new Kinect for Xbox 360 titles – four times more than last holiday season. New titles include sequels to best sellers, including “Kinect Sports: Season Two” and “Dance Central 2.” Xbox 360 also released exclusive games this holiday season with titles like “Gears of War 3,” “Forza Motorsport 4” and “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.” Below is a screenshot of “Kinect Sports: Season Two”:
In addition to games, on Dec. 6th, the next generation of TV entertainment will begin with the availability of a new Xbox 360 experience, and the launch of the first group of custom entertainment apps on Xbox LIVE. By the end of the year, nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers, including Comcast and HBO GO, will be available on Xbox LIVE.
Xbox 360 should deliver its eleventh straight month as the number one console in the US. Given the robust holiday portfolio and the new Xbox LIVE dashboard going live on Dec. 6th, Microsoft expects holiday momentum to continue, driving Xbox 360 to finish the year as the number one console in the U.S.
Posted by Jeff Meisner Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2011/11/29/xbox-360-sells-nearly-1m-consoles-in-biggest-week-in-xbox-history.aspx
Microsoft Acquires Video Content Discovery Company VideoSurf VideoSurf's technology will enhance video discovery capabilities for Xbox LIVE. REDMOND, Wash., and SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Microsoft Corp. has announced the acquisition of California-based video discovery technology company VideoSurf Inc. Founded in 2006, VideoSurf offers a back-end computer vision technology that "sees" frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate. Over time, Microsoft will integrate this technology across its entertainment platform to augment the Xbox 360 ecosystem and evolve search and discovery of entertainment content on Xbox LIVE. "VideoSurf's content analytics technology will enhance the search and discovery of entertainment content across our platform," said Alex Garden, director of Xbox LIVE for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "This holiday we will launch voice search across our entertainment partners on Xbox LIVE. Over time, as we integrate VideoSurf's technology into our system, we are excited about the potential to have content tagged in real time to increase the speed and relevance of the search results." "Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division is at the leading edge of connected entertainment," said Lior Delgo, CEO and co-founder of VideoSurf. "We are incredibly excited to be working together on our mutual passion for creating amazing consumer experiences and reinventing how consumers search, discover and enjoy content on their televisions." In the coming months, Microsoft will bring nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers to Xbox LIVE, including Bravo, Comcast, HBO GO, Verizon FiOS and Syfy in the U.S.; BBC in the U.K.; Telefonica in Spain; Rogers On Demand in Canada; Televisa in Mexico; ZDF in Germany; and Mediaset in Italy. This acquisition will also make it easier for world-class video partners to take full advantage of advanced features such as voice search enabled by Kinect for Xbox 360. With Kinect, users will be able to easily search and discover content across multiple entertainment providers within Xbox LIVE and then interact with and enjoy content in extraordinary ways using voice search powered by Bing on the Xbox 360. About Xbox LIVE Xbox LIVE is the online entertainment service for your Xbox 360, connecting you to an ever-expanding world of games, movies, TV, music, sports and social entertainment. Xbox LIVE lets you play the best games, enjoy one of the world's largest on-demand libraries on any console, listen to millions of songs and share the fun with friends around the world. Xbox LIVE is also the exclusive home of controller-free online entertainment through Kinect, making your Xbox 360 more intuitive and interactive than ever before. With an active community of nearly 35 million people across 35 countries, Xbox LIVE, together with Xbox 360, provides you with instant access to the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, wherever you are. More information about Xbox LIVE can be found online at http://www.xbox.com/live . About Xbox 360 Xbox 360 is a premier home entertainment and video game system. Thanks to the addition of Kinect, Xbox 360 will forever transform social gaming and entertainment with a whole new way to play -- no controller required. Xbox 360 is also home to the best and broadest games as well as one of the world's largest on-demand libraries of music, standard- and high-definition movies, TV shows and digital games, all in one place. The entertainment center of the living room, Xbox 360 blends unbeatable content with a leading social entertainment network of nearly 35 million Xbox LIVE members to create a limitless entertainment experience that can be shared at home or across the globe. More information about Xbox 360 can be found online at http://www.xbox.com . About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. SOURCE Microsoft Corp. Copyright (C) 2011 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
REDMOND, Wash., and SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Microsoft Corp. has announced the acquisition of California-based video discovery technology company VideoSurf Inc.
Founded in 2006, VideoSurf offers a back-end computer vision technology that "sees" frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate. Over time, Microsoft will integrate this technology across its entertainment platform to augment the Xbox 360 ecosystem and evolve search and discovery of entertainment content on Xbox LIVE.
"VideoSurf's content analytics technology will enhance the search and discovery of entertainment content across our platform," said Alex Garden, director of Xbox LIVE for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "This holiday we will launch voice search across our entertainment partners on Xbox LIVE. Over time, as we integrate VideoSurf's technology into our system, we are excited about the potential to have content tagged in real time to increase the speed and relevance of the search results."
"Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division is at the leading edge of connected entertainment," said Lior Delgo, CEO and co-founder of VideoSurf. "We are incredibly excited to be working together on our mutual passion for creating amazing consumer experiences and reinventing how consumers search, discover and enjoy content on their televisions."
In the coming months, Microsoft will bring nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers to Xbox LIVE, including Bravo, Comcast, HBO GO, Verizon FiOS and Syfy in the U.S.; BBC in the U.K.; Telefonica in Spain; Rogers On Demand in Canada; Televisa in Mexico; ZDF in Germany; and Mediaset in Italy. This acquisition will also make it easier for world-class video partners to take full advantage of advanced features such as voice search enabled by Kinect for Xbox 360. With Kinect, users will be able to easily search and discover content across multiple entertainment providers within Xbox LIVE and then interact with and enjoy content in extraordinary ways using voice search powered by Bing on the Xbox 360.
About Xbox LIVE
Xbox LIVE is the online entertainment service for your Xbox 360, connecting you to an ever-expanding world of games, movies, TV, music, sports and social entertainment. Xbox LIVE lets you play the best games, enjoy one of the world's largest on-demand libraries on any console, listen to millions of songs and share the fun with friends around the world. Xbox LIVE is also the exclusive home of controller-free online entertainment through Kinect, making your Xbox 360 more intuitive and interactive than ever before. With an active community of nearly 35 million people across 35 countries, Xbox LIVE, together with Xbox 360, provides you with instant access to the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, wherever you are. More information about Xbox LIVE can be found online at http://www.xbox.com/live .
About Xbox 360
Xbox 360 is a premier home entertainment and video game system. Thanks to the addition of Kinect, Xbox 360 will forever transform social gaming and entertainment with a whole new way to play -- no controller required. Xbox 360 is also home to the best and broadest games as well as one of the world's largest on-demand libraries of music, standard- and high-definition movies, TV shows and digital games, all in one place. The entertainment center of the living room, Xbox 360 blends unbeatable content with a leading social entertainment network of nearly 35 million Xbox LIVE members to create a limitless entertainment experience that can be shared at home or across the globe. More information about Xbox 360 can be found online at http://www.xbox.com .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
Copyright (C) 2011 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
Microsoft Acquires Video Content Discovery Company VideoSurf - MarketWatch
This is pretty cool. Maybe I should start playing with Kinect on Windows.
Posted by Janet I. Tu Last month, Microsoft announced it would be launching a program for more established businesses to develop commercial uses for Kinect for Windows. Now, Microsoft, teaming up with TechStars, has launched Kinect Accelerator, a program for startups with ideas for commercial applications using Kinect's motion- and voice-sensing technologies. Applicants, who must be prepared to relocate to Seattle, have until Jan. 25 to apply for one of 10 spots in a three-month incubation program running March to May 2012. The 10 companies will each receive an investment of $20,000, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect software development kit, office space, the resources of BizSpark (Microsoft's program to aid startups), technical training and support, and mentorship from entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives, according to Microsoft's posting. The program uses startup accelerator TechStars' mentoring method. (The Seattle Times recently wrote about TechStars here.) According to the program rules, in exchange for the program and seed funding, TechStars will receive six percent equity in each of the companies chosen, in the form of common stock. Microsoft does not retain equity in the participating companies, nor does it retain intellectual property developed during the program. In the meantime, PCWorld has an entertaining list of some Kinect hacks it's written about recently. (Photo of Kinect sensor from Microsoft)
Last month, Microsoft announced it would be launching a program for more established businesses to develop commercial uses for Kinect for Windows.
Now, Microsoft, teaming up with TechStars, has launched Kinect Accelerator, a program for startups with ideas for commercial applications using Kinect's motion- and voice-sensing technologies.
Applicants, who must be prepared to relocate to Seattle, have until Jan. 25 to apply for one of 10 spots in a three-month incubation program running March to May 2012.
The 10 companies will each receive an investment of $20,000, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect software development kit, office space, the resources of BizSpark (Microsoft's program to aid startups), technical training and support, and mentorship from entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives, according to Microsoft's posting.
The program uses startup accelerator TechStars' mentoring method. (The Seattle Times recently wrote about TechStars here.)
According to the program rules, in exchange for the program and seed funding, TechStars will receive six percent equity in each of the companies chosen, in the form of common stock. Microsoft does not retain equity in the participating companies, nor does it retain intellectual property developed during the program.
In the meantime, PCWorld has an entertaining list of some Kinect hacks it's written about recently.
(Photo of Kinect sensor from Microsoft)
Microsoft Pri0 | Microsoft and TechStars launch Kinect Accelerator incubation program | Seattle Times Newspaper
I was never a huge gamer but I still remember playing Halo when it first came out. It is amazing to see the new version.
Forbes Article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/11/20/halo-remake-honors-xbox-10-year-anniversary/
This week was 10th anniversary of Xbox and it was my 1st week anniversary at Xbox engineering. Yes you heard me right. I moved to Xbox live team and will be working on content services. Content services are web services that power your Xbox console. My area of focus will be content discovery and search. It is a fascinating space and am sure tons for me to learn. Super excited to go from team that build cloud computing platform to team that is building one of the most saleable cloud application that powers millions of devices.
I enjoyed every bit of my time in Windows Azure Product Management especially working with the team to deliver Windows Azure Marketplace in 26 countries. Will miss my team but am looking forward to my time in Xbox now.
Xbox Turns Ten!
Ten years ago, we launched the first Xbox console. Since then, we’ve launched Xbox LIVE, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 S, Kinect, and lots more. We couldn’t do this without you! Thank you for the first ten years and more to come!
Ten Years of Fun with Xbox - Xbox.com
As Promised at Build conference Windows Azure Marketplace is now live in 26 countries with support for 17 currencies. With this release we have delivered on a promise to our ISVs to have a global marketplace for cloud applications and data with secure commerce platform.
Benefits to ISVS:
Countries(26) Supported: US, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore
Currencies(17) Supported: USD, EUR, CAD, CZK, DKK, HUF, NOK, PLN, SEK, CHF, GBP, AUD, HKD, JPY, MXN, NZD, SGD
Marketplace already has 500+ apps and 100+ datasets. This is great time for partners with Azure apps to get them on Windows Azure Marketplace. Please see more details on publishing here.
Yesterday at BUILD, Microsoft Server and Tools Business President, Satya Nadella made two announcements around the Windows Azure Marketplace and shared details on how Ford Motor Company and eBay are using the Marketplace to add further value to their business. This post will dive deeper into both of these announcements.
International Availability
Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of the Windows Azure Marketplace in 25 new markets around the world, including: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Singapore. Customers in these new markets will be able to discover, explore and subscribe to premium data and applications on the Marketplace starting next month.
Starting today, partners can submit their applications & datasets to publish on the marketplace. Interested partners can learn how to get started here.
Microsoft also announced the coming availability of a number of exciting data offerings on the Windows Azure Marketplace. The first of these, the Microsoft Translator APIs are available today, along-side a fast-growing collection of data sets and applications, with more being introduced through the remainder of the year. The Microsoft Translator APIs, which were previously available here, allow developers and webmasters to provide translation and language services in more than 35 languages, as part of their applications, websites or services. This is the same cloud service that delivers translations to millions of users every day via Bing, Microsoft Office and other Microsoft products.
Through the Windows Azure Marketplace, Microsoft will make available both a free, limited throughput version of the Microsoft Translator APIs, as well as a number of paid, higher throughput versions of the APIs. Starting today, Microsoft is offering customers a 3 month promotional period during which the higher throughput versions of the APIs will be available free of charge.
Developers can now start using Microsoft Translator APIs through Windows Azure Marketplace in web or in client applications to perform machine language translations from or to any of the following languages (list updated regularly).
How are others using the Windows Azure Marketplace?
Ford Motor Company
Ford will launch its first battery-powered electric passenger vehicle at the end of the year. Fully charging the vehicle at home or a business should take just over 3 hours to complete, however as the cost of electricity can vary by the time of day, when you charge the vehicle can have an important impact on costs of ownership. So, every new Focus Electric will offer the Value Charging system powered by Microsoft, to help owners in the US charge their vehicles at the cheapest utility rates, lowering cost of ownership. To do this, Ford will rely on an electric utility rates dataset on the Windows Azure Marketplace that currently has information from 100 utilities covering more than 10,000 US zip codes and 1,500 Canadian Postal Codes.
eBay
eBay has a popular mobile application on Windows Phone 7 called eBay mobile, with more than 300k downloads to date. In the coming weeks, eBay will release a major update including faster payment flows and selling capabilities as well as the ability to have listing details automatically translated to and from 37 different languages. This is accomplished by leveraging the Microsoft Translator API, which is now available in the Windows Azure Marketplace. By leveraging the Translator API, eBay is able to create a more global product - delivering product listings in multiple languages to a broad global audience.
ESRI
Esri, a leading provider of geospatial software and services, is extending their ArcGIS system to Windows Azure Platform. With ArcGIS Online customers can create “intelligent maps” (starting with Bing, topography, ocean and other base maps) to visualize, access, consume and publish data-sets from Windows Azure Marketplace and their own data services. This will make a rich set of geographic tools, once only available to geographic information professionals, broadly available to anyone interested in working with geospatial data e.g. environmental scientists interested in visualizing air quality metrics against specific geographies. These maps can then be served up to the cloud and shared between individuals and their defined groups, across organizations and devices. This solution is available today, and can be accessed here.
To read more about all of the Windows Azure-related announcements made at BUILD, please read the blog post, "JUST ANNOUNCED @ BUILD: New Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8, Windows Azure SDK 1.5, Geo-Replication for Windows Azure Storage, and More". For more information about BUILD or to watch the keynotes, please visit the BUILD Virtual Press Room. And follow @WindowsAzure and @STBNewsBytes for the latest news and real-time talk about BUILD.
Visit the Windows Azure Marketplace to learn more.
At Build we announced support for geo replication which I think is the key differentiator in the industry. You want to store you data in the cloud and make sure it will be highly available and we now geo replicate your data for disaster recovery scenarios. More details below…
During the BUILD Day two keynote, we announced the release of geo-replication and a new version of the REST API to enable functionality improvements for Windows Azure Blobs, Tables, and Queues. At this time we are now geo-replicating all Windows Azure Blob and Table data between two data centers. Geo-Replication Customers have continually emphasized the importance of Disaster Recovery capabilities in Azure as well as other cloud platforms. Wednesday’s announcement on Geo-replication helps in this area and does so without increasing costs to our customers. Geo-replication replicates your Windows Azure Blob and Table data between two locations that are hundreds of miles apart and within the same region (i.e., between North Central and South Central US, between North Europe and Europe West, and between East and South East Asia). We do not replicate data across different regions. Geo-replication is now turned on for all Windows Azure Storage accounts for Blobs and Tables. Note that there is no change in existing performance as updates are asynchronously geo-replicated. New Blob, Tables and Queue features For REST API improvements, we have just released the new version (“2011-08-18”), which contains: Table Upsert – allows a single request to be sent to Windows Azure Tables to either insert an entity (if it doesn’t exist) or update/replace the entity (if it exists). Table Projection (Select) – allows a client to retrieve a subset of an entity’s properties. This improves performance by reducing the serialization/deserialization cost and bandwidth used for retrieving entities. Improved Blob HTTP header support – improves experience for streaming applications and browser downloads. Queue UpdateMessage – allows clients to have a lease on a message and renew the lease while it processes it, as well as update the contents of the message to track the progress of the processing. Queue InsertMessage with visibility timeout - allows a newly inserted message to stay invisible on the queue until the timeout expires Table Upsert The Table Upsert allows a client to send a single request to either update or insert an entity; the appropriate action is taken based on if the entity already exists or not. This saves a call in the scenario where an application would want to insert the entity if it doesn’t exist or update it if it does exist. This feature is exposed via the InsertOrReplace Entity and InsertOrMerge Entity APIs. InsertOrReplace Entity – inserts the entity if it does not exist or replaces the existing entity if it does exist. InsertOrMerge Entity – inserts the entity if it does not exist or merges with the existing one if it does exist. Table Projection (Select) Table Projection allows you to retrieve a subset of the properties of one or more entities, and only returns those properties/columns from Azure Tables. Projection improves performance by reducing latency when retrieving data from a Windows Azure Table. It also saves bandwidth by returning only the properties of interest. Improved Blob Download Experience We have added additional HTTP header support to Windows Azure Blobs to improve the experience for streaming applications and resuming download. Without this support, some browsers would have to restart reading a blob from the beginning if there was an interruption in the download. Queue UpdateMessage With the current Queue API, once a worker retrieves a message from the queue, it has to specify a long enough visibility timeout so that it can finish processing the message before the timeout expires. In many scenarios, the worker may want to extend the visibility timeout if it needs more time to process the message. This new UpdateMessage API enables such scenarios. It allows the worker to use the visibility timeout as a lease on the message, so that it can periodically extend the lease and maintain the ownership of the message until the processing completes. The UpdateMessage API also supports updating the content of the message. This allows the worker to update the message in the Queue to record progress information. Then if the worker crashes, this allows the next worker to continue processing the message from where the prior worker left off. This functionality enables worker roles to take on longer running tasks than before. It also allows faster failover time, since the leases can be set at fairly small intervals (e.g. 1 minute) so that if a worker role fails, the message will become visible within a minute for another worker role to pick up. Queue InsertMessage with Visibility Timeout We have added support in the InsertMessage API to allow you to specify the initial visibility timeout value for a message. This allows a newly inserted message to stay invisible on the queue until the timeout expires. This allows scheduling of future work by adding messages that become visible at a later time. For more information see our BUILD talk or one of the following blog posts Windows Azure Storage BUILD talk Geo-replication New Table Features New Queue Features New Blob Features To read more about all of the Windows Azure-related announcements made at BUILD, please read the blog post, "JUST ANNOUNCED @ BUILD: New Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8, Windows Azure SDK 1.5, Geo-Replication for Windows Azure Storage, and More". For more information about BUILD or to watch the keynotes, please visit the BUILD Virtual Press Room. And follow @WindowsAzure and @STBNewsBytes for the latest news and real-time talk about BUILD.
During the BUILD Day two keynote, we announced the release of geo-replication and a new version of the REST API to enable functionality improvements for Windows Azure Blobs, Tables, and Queues. At this time we are now geo-replicating all Windows Azure Blob and Table data between two data centers.
Customers have continually emphasized the importance of Disaster Recovery capabilities in Azure as well as other cloud platforms. Wednesday’s announcement on Geo-replication helps in this area and does so without increasing costs to our customers. Geo-replication replicates your Windows Azure Blob and Table data between two locations that are hundreds of miles apart and within the same region (i.e., between North Central and South Central US, between North Europe and Europe West, and between East and South East Asia). We do not replicate data across different regions. Geo-replication is now turned on for all Windows Azure Storage accounts for Blobs and Tables. Note that there is no change in existing performance as updates are asynchronously geo-replicated.
For REST API improvements, we have just released the new version (“2011-08-18”), which contains:
The Table Upsert allows a client to send a single request to either update or insert an entity; the appropriate action is taken based on if the entity already exists or not. This saves a call in the scenario where an application would want to insert the entity if it doesn’t exist or update it if it does exist. This feature is exposed via the InsertOrReplace Entity and InsertOrMerge Entity APIs.
Table Projection allows you to retrieve a subset of the properties of one or more entities, and only returns those properties/columns from Azure Tables. Projection improves performance by reducing latency when retrieving data from a Windows Azure Table. It also saves bandwidth by returning only the properties of interest.
We have added additional HTTP header support to Windows Azure Blobs to improve the experience for streaming applications and resuming download. Without this support, some browsers would have to restart reading a blob from the beginning if there was an interruption in the download.
With the current Queue API, once a worker retrieves a message from the queue, it has to specify a long enough visibility timeout so that it can finish processing the message before the timeout expires. In many scenarios, the worker may want to extend the visibility timeout if it needs more time to process the message. This new UpdateMessage API enables such scenarios. It allows the worker to use the visibility timeout as a lease on the message, so that it can periodically extend the lease and maintain the ownership of the message until the processing completes.
The UpdateMessage API also supports updating the content of the message. This allows the worker to update the message in the Queue to record progress information. Then if the worker crashes, this allows the next worker to continue processing the message from where the prior worker left off.
This functionality enables worker roles to take on longer running tasks than before. It also allows faster failover time, since the leases can be set at fairly small intervals (e.g. 1 minute) so that if a worker role fails, the message will become visible within a minute for another worker role to pick up.
We have added support in the InsertMessage API to allow you to specify the initial visibility timeout value for a message. This allows a newly inserted message to stay invisible on the queue until the timeout expires. This allows scheduling of future work by adding messages that become visible at a later time.
For more information see our BUILD talk or one of the following blog posts
Now Available: Geo-Replication and new Blob, Table and Queue features for Windows Azure Storage - Windows Azure - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
We are excited to announce the release of Windows Azure Storage Analytics. This feature offers developers and operations the ability to track, analyze, and debug usage of Windows Azure Storage (Blobs, Tables and Queues). You can use this data to analyze storage usage to improve the design of your applications and their access patterns to Windows Azure Storage. Analytics data consists of: Logs Provide trace of executed requests for Blobs, Tables and Queues Metrics Provide summary of key capacity and request statistics for Blobs, Tables and Queues Logs This feature provides a trace of all executed requests for your storage accounts as block blobs in a special container called $logs. Each log entry in the blob corresponds to a request made to the service and contains information like request id, request URL, http status of the request, requestor account name, owner account name, server side latency, E2E latency, source IP address for the request etc. This data now empowers you to analyze your requests much more closely. It allows you to run the following types of analysis: How many anonymous requests is my application seeing from a given range of IP address? Which containers are being accessed the most? How many times is a particular SAS URL being accessed and how? Who issued the request to delete a container? For a slow request –where is the time being consumed? I got a network error, did the request reach the server? Metrics Provide summary of key statistics for Blobs, Tables and Queues for a storage account. The statistics can be categorized as: Request information: Provides hourly aggregates of number of requests, average server side latency, average E2E latency, average bandwidth, total successful requests and total number of failures and more. These request aggregates are provided at a service level and per API level for APIs requested in that hour. This is available for Blob, Table and Queue service. Capacity information: Provides daily statistics for the space consumed by the service, number of containers and number of objects that are stored in the service. Note, this is currently only provided for the Windows Azure Blob service. All Analytics Logs and Metrics data are stored in your user account and is accessible via normal Blob and Table REST APIs. The logs and metrics can be accessed from a service running in Windows Azure or directly over the Internet from any application that can send and receive HTTP/HTTPS requests. You can opt in to store either the log data and/or metric data by invoking a REST API to turn on/off the feature at a per service level. Once the feature is turned on, the Windows Azure Storage stores analytics data in the storage account. Log data is stored as Windows Azure Blobs in a special blob container and metrics data is stored in special tables in Windows Azure Tables. To ease the management of this data, we have provided the ability to set a retention policy that will automatically clean up your analytics blob and table data. Please see the following links for more information: MSDN Documentation Logging: Additional information and Coding Examples Metrics: Additional information and Coding Examples Windows Azure Storage Team
We are excited to announce the release of Windows Azure Storage Analytics. This feature offers developers and operations the ability to track, analyze, and debug usage of Windows Azure Storage (Blobs, Tables and Queues). You can use this data to analyze storage usage to improve the design of your applications and their access patterns to Windows Azure Storage. Analytics data consists of:
Logs
This feature provides a trace of all executed requests for your storage accounts as block blobs in a special container called $logs. Each log entry in the blob corresponds to a request made to the service and contains information like request id, request URL, http status of the request, requestor account name, owner account name, server side latency, E2E latency, source IP address for the request etc.
This data now empowers you to analyze your requests much more closely. It allows you to run the following types of analysis:
Metrics
Provide summary of key statistics for Blobs, Tables and Queues for a storage account. The statistics can be categorized as:
All Analytics Logs and Metrics data are stored in your user account and is accessible via normal Blob and Table REST APIs. The logs and metrics can be accessed from a service running in Windows Azure or directly over the Internet from any application that can send and receive HTTP/HTTPS requests. You can opt in to store either the log data and/or metric data by invoking a REST API to turn on/off the feature at a per service level. Once the feature is turned on, the Windows Azure Storage stores analytics data in the storage account. Log data is stored as Windows Azure Blobs in a special blob container and metrics data is stored in special tables in Windows Azure Tables. To ease the management of this data, we have provided the ability to set a retention policy that will automatically clean up your analytics blob and table data.
Please see the following links for more information:
Windows Azure Storage Team
Announcing Windows Azure Storage Analytics - Windows Azure - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Very good article showing how to access SQL Azure from Ruby.
Connecting to SQL Azure from Ruby Applications This article discusses the methods of connecting to SQL Azure from the Ruby language. While this article discusses several gems that can be used to connect to SQL Azure, it is by no means a comprehensive listing of all gems that provide this functionality. NOTE: The procedures listed in this article may not work on all operating systems due to availability of ODBC drivers, differences in compilation process, etc. Currently this article contains information based on the Windows 7 operating system and the Windows Azure web or worker role hosting environment. Table of Contents Initial Preparation Ruby Database Connectivity Using Ruby ODBC To Configure ODBC on Windows 7 To Connect to SQL Azure using Ruby ODBC Using TinyTDS To Build FreeTDS on Windows 7 To build FreeTDS with OpenSSL support To build tiny_tds using the local FreeTDS library To connect to SQL Azure using TinyTDS Using Ruby OData To configure SQL Azure for OData To connect to the OData service using Ruby OData References See Also
This article discusses the methods of connecting to SQL Azure from the Ruby language. While this article discusses several gems that can be used to connect to SQL Azure, it is by no means a comprehensive listing of all gems that provide this functionality.
NOTE: The procedures listed in this article may not work on all operating systems due to availability of ODBC drivers, differences in compilation process, etc. Currently this article contains information based on the Windows 7 operating system and the Windows Azure web or worker role hosting environment.
Connecting to SQL Azure from Ruby Applications - TechNet Articles - Home - TechNet Wiki
The Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games allows you to quickly get started building new social games in Windows Azure. The social gaming market continues to grow and become more profitable, and eMarketer predicts it will increase to $1.32 billion in revenues by 2012 (up from $856 million in 2010). To help you quickly tap into this market, the toolkit includes accelerators, libraries, developer tools, and samples that you can use in your own .NET or HTML5 game. The toolkit also enables unique capabilities for social gaming prerequisites, such as storing user profiles, maintaining leader boards, in-app purchasing and so forth. Windows Azure The Windows Azure platform provides game developers with on-demand compute, storage, content delivery and networking capabilities so that they can focus on development as opposed to operational Windows Azure is a cloud-computing platform that lets you run applications and store data in the cloud. Instead of having to worry about building out the underlying infrastructure and managing the operating system, you can simply build your application and deploy it to Windows Azure. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute, storage, networking, and content delivery capabilities. For more information about Windows Azure, visit the Windows Azure website. For developer focused training material, download the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit or view the online Windows Azure Platform Training Course. Tankster The Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games also comes with a new proof-of-concept game called Tankster from industry innovator Grant Skinner and his team at gskinner.com. Tankster is built with HTML5 and comes complete with reusable server side code and documentation. It also supports a variety of social interactions including messaging, wall posts, and comments while player achievements and game stats are presented on a live leaderboard so gamers can interact with each other—what’s a social game without being able to talk trash?
The Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games allows you to quickly get started building new social games in Windows Azure. The social gaming market continues to grow and become more profitable, and eMarketer predicts it will increase to $1.32 billion in revenues by 2012 (up from $856 million in 2010). To help you quickly tap into this market, the toolkit includes accelerators, libraries, developer tools, and samples that you can use in your own .NET or HTML5 game. The toolkit also enables unique capabilities for social gaming prerequisites, such as storing user profiles, maintaining leader boards, in-app purchasing and so forth.
Windows Azure
The Windows Azure platform provides game developers with on-demand compute, storage, content delivery and networking capabilities so that they can focus on development as opposed to operational
Windows Azure is a cloud-computing platform that lets you run applications and store data in the cloud. Instead of having to worry about building out the underlying infrastructure and managing the operating system, you can simply build your application and deploy it to Windows Azure. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute, storage, networking, and content delivery capabilities. For more information about Windows Azure, visit the Windows Azure website. For developer focused training material, download the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit or view the online Windows Azure Platform Training Course.
Tankster
The Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games also comes with a new proof-of-concept game called Tankster from industry innovator Grant Skinner and his team at gskinner.com.
Tankster is built with HTML5 and comes complete with reusable server side code and documentation. It also supports a variety of social interactions including messaging, wall posts, and comments while player achievements and game stats are presented on a live leaderboard so gamers can interact with each other—what’s a social game without being able to talk trash?
Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games
Found this good article on Windows Azure Storage Architecture. Good read if you are planning use storage in cloud.
In this posting we provide an overview of the Windows Azure Storage architecture to give some understanding of how it works. Windows Azure Storage is a distributed storage software stack built completely by Microsoft for the cloud. Before diving into the details of this post, please read the prior posting on Windows Azure Storage Abstractions and their Scalability Targets to get an understanding of the storage abstractions (Blobs, Tables and Queues) provided and the concept of partitions. 3 Layer Architecture The storage access architecture has the following 3 fundamental layers: Front-End (FE) layer – This layer takes the incoming requests, authenticates and authorizes the requests, and then routes them to a partition server in the Partition Layer. The front-ends know what partition server to forward each request to, since each front-end server caches a Partition Map. The Partition Map keeps track of the partitions for the service being accessed (Blobs, Tables or Queues) and what partition server is controlling (serving) access to each partition in the system. Partition Layer – This layer manages the partitioning of all of the data objects in the system. As described in the prior posting, all objects have a partition key. An object belongs to a single partition, and each partition is served by only one partition server. This is the layer that manages what partition is served on what partition server. In addition, it provides automatic load balancing of partitions across the servers to meet the traffic needs of Blobs, Tables and Queues. A single partition server can serve many partitions. Distributed and replicated File System (DFS) Layer – This is the layer that actually stores the bits on disk and is in charge of distributing and replicating the data across many servers to keep it durable. A key concept to understand here is that the data is stored by the DFS layer, but all DFS servers are (and all data stored in the DFS layer is) accessible from any of the partition servers. These layers and a high level overview are shown in the below figure: Here we can see that the Front-End layer takes incoming requests, and a given front-end server can talk to all of the partition servers it needs to in order to process the incoming requests. The partition layer consists of all of the partition servers, with a master system to perform the automatic load balancing (described below) and assignments of partitions. As shown in the figure, each partition server is assigned a set of object partitions (Blobs, Entities, Queues). The Partition Master constantly monitors the overall load on each partition sever as well the individual partitions, and uses this for load balancing. Then the lowest layer of the storage architecture is the Distributed File System layer, which stores and replicates the data, and all partition servers can access any of the DFS severs.
In this posting we provide an overview of the Windows Azure Storage architecture to give some understanding of how it works. Windows Azure Storage is a distributed storage software stack built completely by Microsoft for the cloud.
Before diving into the details of this post, please read the prior posting on Windows Azure Storage Abstractions and their Scalability Targets to get an understanding of the storage abstractions (Blobs, Tables and Queues) provided and the concept of partitions.
The storage access architecture has the following 3 fundamental layers:
These layers and a high level overview are shown in the below figure:
Here we can see that the Front-End layer takes incoming requests, and a given front-end server can talk to all of the partition servers it needs to in order to process the incoming requests. The partition layer consists of all of the partition servers, with a master system to perform the automatic load balancing (described below) and assignments of partitions. As shown in the figure, each partition server is assigned a set of object partitions (Blobs, Entities, Queues). The Partition Master constantly monitors the overall load on each partition sever as well the individual partitions, and uses this for load balancing. Then the lowest layer of the storage architecture is the Distributed File System layer, which stores and replicates the data, and all partition servers can access any of the DFS severs.
Windows Azure Storage Architecture Overview - Windows Azure Storage Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Article in Windows 7 News on Light Switch. Light Switch is really awesome…
Microsoft’s LightSwitch to Launch on July 26. This program will give developers a simpler and faster way to create high-quality business applications for the desktop and the cloud. LightSwitch is a new addition to the Visual Studio family. Create Custom Business Applications Microsoft may not be winning the Mobile Phone war, but it is certainly on top of the PC war. With LightSwitch Microsoft hopes to let developers build custom applications that rival off-the-shelf solutions. In this way, when developers want to pursue more serious applications that are not “Apps” Microsoft shows a way to do this. There will be pre-configured screen templates that give your application a familiar look and feel. There is prewritten code and other reusable components to handle routine application tasks, along with step-by-step guidance tools. However, if you need to write custom code, you can use Visual Basic .NET or C#. You can deploy to the desktop, browser, or cloud to share your application with others more easily without the cumbersome installation processes. System Data Access LightSwitch supports exporting data to Excel, and you can also attach your application to existing data sources like SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Azure, SharePoint, Microsoft Office Access (post-Beta), and other third-party data sources. Lightswitch will also allow developers to create custom applications in tune with the way you do business. This will let developers build a scalable application that matches your current needs now and in the future. This doesn’t tie developers down to current technologies. Indeed, applications can grow to meet the technical demands of applications using the Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Hosting option. Extend Applications The development environment for LightSwitch is Visual Studio. With this tool LightSwitch includes a lot of pre-built components . LightSwitch applications will support extensions for templates, data sources, shells, themes, business data types and custom controls. Get extensions from component vendors or develop them yourself using Visual Studio Professional, Premium or Ultimate. You can compare Lightswitch with Visual studio. You can download the Lightswitch Beta Version.
Microsoft’s LightSwitch to Launch on July 26. This program will give developers a simpler and faster way to create high-quality business applications for the desktop and the cloud. LightSwitch is a new addition to the Visual Studio family.
Create Custom Business Applications
Microsoft may not be winning the Mobile Phone war, but it is certainly on top of the PC war. With LightSwitch Microsoft hopes to let developers build custom applications that rival off-the-shelf solutions. In this way, when developers want to pursue more serious applications that are not “Apps” Microsoft shows a way to do this. There will be pre-configured screen templates that give your application a familiar look and feel. There is prewritten code and other reusable components to handle routine application tasks, along with step-by-step guidance tools. However, if you need to write custom code, you can use Visual Basic .NET or C#. You can deploy to the desktop, browser, or cloud to share your application with others more easily without the cumbersome installation processes.
System Data Access
LightSwitch supports exporting data to Excel, and you can also attach your application to existing data sources like SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Azure, SharePoint, Microsoft Office Access (post-Beta), and other third-party data sources.
Lightswitch will also allow developers to create custom applications in tune with the way you do business. This will let developers build a scalable application that matches your current needs now and in the future. This doesn’t tie developers down to current technologies. Indeed, applications can grow to meet the technical demands of applications using the Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Hosting option.
Extend Applications
The development environment for LightSwitch is Visual Studio. With this tool LightSwitch includes a lot of pre-built components . LightSwitch applications will support extensions for templates, data sources, shells, themes, business data types and custom controls. Get extensions from component vendors or develop them yourself using Visual Studio Professional, Premium or Ultimate.
You can compare Lightswitch with Visual studio.
You can download the Lightswitch Beta Version.
Lightswitch, a developers tool, will launch on July 26
Are you a SQL Express user? We would like to understand your usage of SQL Express database and your interest in cloud through a very short and simple survey. Survey Link: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/580520/sql-express-customer-market-research
If you are not a SQL Express customer just blog/tweet/facebook the above link and help us reach as many folks as you can.
Thanks a lot for your help.
Another great solution build on BizTalk RFID by S3Edge.
BloodCenter of Wisconsin Blood Center Expects to Automate Product Tracking, Cut Costs with RFID Solution BloodCenter of Wisconsin provides blood and blood products to hospitals for patients in need throughout the state. In consortium with partners, the center wanted to create an automated, efficient way to reconcile and track blood products and containers. It plans to deploy a radio frequency identification solution based on Microsoft BizTalk Server RFID 2010. Once the solution is implemented, the organization expects to streamline processes, reduce errors, lower costs, and improve efficiency.
BloodCenter of Wisconsin provides blood and blood products to hospitals for patients in need throughout the state. In consortium with partners, the center wanted to create an automated, efficient way to reconcile and track blood products and containers. It plans to deploy a radio frequency identification solution based on Microsoft BizTalk Server RFID 2010. Once the solution is implemented, the organization expects to streamline processes, reduce errors, lower costs, and improve efficiency.
Microsoft Case Study: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 - BloodCenter of Wisconsin
Support for DAC will make import export very easy for our customers. Every conversation I have with customers topic of import/export, backup and disaster recovery always comes up. This is great next step in our feature set in the space.
Database Import and Export for SQL Azure SQL Azure database users have a simpler way to archive SQL Azure and SQL Server databases, or to migrate on-premises SQL Server databases to SQL Azure. Import and export services through the Data-tier Application (DAC) framework make archival and migration much easier. The import and export features provide the ability to retrieve and restore an entire database, including schema and data, in a single operation. If you want to archive or move your database between SQL Server versions (including SQL Azure), you can export a target database to a local export file which contains both database schema and data in a single file. Once a database has been exported to an export file, you can import the file with the new import feature. Refer to the FAQ at the end of this article for more information on supported SQL Server versions. This release of the import and export feature is a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for upcoming, fully supported solutions for archival and migration scenarios. The DAC framework is a collection of database schema and data management services, which are strategic to database management in SQL Server and SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL Server “Denali” Data-tier Application Framework v2.0 Feature Pack CTP The DAC Framework simplifies the development, deployment, and management of data-tier applications (databases). The new v2.0 of the DAC framework expands the set of supported objects to full support of SQL Azure schema objects and data types across all DAC services: extract, deploy, and upgrade. In addition to expanding object support, DAC v2.0 adds two new DAC services: import and export. Import and export services let you deploy and extract both schema and data from a single file identified with the “.bacpac” extension. For an introduction to and more information on the DAC Framework, this whitepaper is available: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381683(SQL.100).aspx.
SQL Azure database users have a simpler way to archive SQL Azure and SQL Server databases, or to migrate on-premises SQL Server databases to SQL Azure. Import and export services through the Data-tier Application (DAC) framework make archival and migration much easier. The import and export features provide the ability to retrieve and restore an entire database, including schema and data, in a single operation. If you want to archive or move your database between SQL Server versions (including SQL Azure), you can export a target database to a local export file which contains both database schema and data in a single file. Once a database has been exported to an export file, you can import the file with the new import feature. Refer to the FAQ at the end of this article for more information on supported SQL Server versions. This release of the import and export feature is a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for upcoming, fully supported solutions for archival and migration scenarios. The DAC framework is a collection of database schema and data management services, which are strategic to database management in SQL Server and SQL Azure.
The DAC Framework simplifies the development, deployment, and management of data-tier applications (databases). The new v2.0 of the DAC framework expands the set of supported objects to full support of SQL Azure schema objects and data types across all DAC services: extract, deploy, and upgrade. In addition to expanding object support, DAC v2.0 adds two new DAC services: import and export. Import and export services let you deploy and extract both schema and data from a single file identified with the “.bacpac” extension. For an introduction to and more information on the DAC Framework, this whitepaper is available: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381683(SQL.100).aspx.
Database Import and Export for SQL Azure