Bloggercoaster

Software + Services: Taxonomy

Bloggercoaster — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:50:50 GMT

Moving forward within the software-platform continuum inevitably does (and will) involve taking a closer look at the implications of conceiving software as a service both on premise as well as on the cloud. As a software visionary it means thinking progressively about ways in which new solutions can be 'composed' from existing software assets as well as bringing onto the surface totally new, potentially outthought of, possibilities. As an software architect it means considering the impact on current and future architectures taking into account integration challenges, identity and access management, data 'flow', operational and 'infrastructural' requirements. As a software developer it means rethinking the crafting of software modules whereas the business or algorithmic logic may or may not reside locally; so that control is not necessary within the tight control of local instances defined within the context of environmentally reachable runtimes.

The following taxonomy enables a clear depiction of software plus services:

·Traditional software refers to applications installed in the infrastructure accessed exclusively by internal users.

·Building block services provide low-level capabilities that can be consumed by developers when building a composite application. These services exist in the cloud.

·Attached services provide a higher level of functionality compared with building block services. Applications leverage attached services to add functionality.

·Finished services are analogous to full-blown applications, delivered over the Internet using the SaaS model.

·S+S refers to the use of applications that consume attached services or one that is built with building block services.

To learn more about the implications Software +Services consumption for the Enterprise, please refer to this MSDN article which explores the areas of concern mentioned here and more: Implications of Software + Services Consumption for Enterprise IT

Joel

Reading MSDN the WPF Way - Download MSDN Reader Today!

Bloggercoaster — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:37:06 GMT

I may have posted about this before, but if you have not yet downloaded this amazing reader do it now... you will be Very Impressed and will find yourself reading MSDN more often than never before. Zero touch deployment makes it a breeze and it is a good showcase of our new UI technology... Enjoy it!

Download MSDN Reader

Joel

Webcast: Building Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2008

Bloggercoaster — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:39:54 GMT

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile 6,Compact Framework,Smartphone,PocketPC,WM6 SDK

The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework is a key part of realizing Microsoft's goal to provide customers with great experiences any time, any place, and on any device. The .NET Compact Framework's managed code and XML Web services enable the development of secure, downloadable applications on devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, and set-top boxes. During this webcast we will explore the productive integration offered by VS2008 to enable product development and testing of mobile applications as well as exploring new additions to the mobile development platform.

Please join me this coming Thursday, March 20th @ 2:00PM EST. I will build a mobile application that will allow us to explore the different device emulators, Cellular Emulator, WebServices consumption, SMS Message Interception, SMS logging into Windows Event Log, Sound, Battery level notification, Security, and more...

Start Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008 2:00 PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Joel Reyes

Windows Mobile 6: Configuration Steps to Test localhost Web-Services

Bloggercoaster — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:02:39 GMT

Windows Mobile 6 offers a great developer experience in Visual Studio 2008. The combined features of WM6 SDK + VS2008 provide excellent new ways for testing your applications for reliability and resiliency. Testing WebServices, however, is not an out of the box experience. So, developers have to take specific steps to make sure they can consume (test) the WebServices hosted locally in the development machine from the emulator.

Following is my suggested sequence of steps you should take to make this work:

1) FROM WITHIN VISUAL STUDIO:

The WebService proxy class will show localhost as the address for the service, if left unchanged the mobile application will never find the actual service as localhost then would be the device itself. Instead change the service URL to http://your-machine-IP-address:port#/service.asmx prior to calling into it.
F5
Activate the Device Emulator Manager (DEM)

2) FROM WITHIN THE DEVICE EMULATOR MANAGER

The device must be in Cradle mode. Right Click on the connected device (i.e. ) and select Cradle. -- Make sure to press Refresh (sometimes the DEM won't show which device is active)

3) FROM WINDOWS MOBILE DEVICE CENTER (WMDC) (This is required to make DMA the transport between the device and the host)

Run WMDC. (Upgrade to version 6.1.6965 if necessary). WMDC should automatically connect to the device. On the device you will see a progress notification similar to this
If WMDC doesn't connect, make sure to check that it is configured to use DMA (Mobile Device Settings | Connection Settings |. Also, you may want to check to make sure the Device transport property within Visual Studio is set to DMA (Tools | Options... | Device Tools | Devices ) , otherwise you should see on WMDC and be ready to go.
At this point you can proceed to trigger the WebServices call.

Good luck in your mobility journey!

Joel

Have you heard of Microsoft Sharedview?

Bloggercoaster — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:26:09 GMT

This is a handy little free tool for sharing documents and screen views with your team, close friends and family from anywhere. It is called Microsoft Sharedview! You can download it here. You can initiate a session directly from Live Messenger or send invitation via email. It is basically a lightweight cousin of Live-Meeting. It requires a Windows Live™ ID.

Enjoy it!

Joel Reyes

Get On The Bus!!! - The Microsoft Enterprise Services Bus (ESB)

Bloggercoaster — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:20:01 GMT

Join us this Friday, Feb 29, to explore the Microsoft Enterprise Services Bus (ESB)!!!

Microsoft provides a comprehensive ESB offering through its Application Platform including Windows Server 2003, Windows Communication Foundation (.NET 3.0), and BizTalk Server 2006 R2. This platform delivers an infrastructure that enables the flexible and secure reuse of infrastructure and business services and the ability to orchestrate existing services into new end-to-end business processes. This session explores the rationale and techniques used to build an ESB on the Microsoft platform as well as demonstrating its core components in action.

Please click on the following link for more information regarding this Webcast: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032366276&Culture=en-US

Joel Reyes

Webcast: What is New for Data Access in Visual Basic 9

Bloggercoaster — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:36:49 GMT

Please join us this coming Friday when Mike Benkovich from MSDN will explore the exciting new Data Access features added to Visual Basic 9.

When: Friday, December 7^th 2:00pm – 3:30pm EST

Target: Public Sector Developers/Architects

Event Description: Visual Basic continues to be an exciting and powerful language! Equality enabling the enterprise professional developers as well as individual programmers… innovation in the language continues. In this Webcast we will explore the new data access capabilities brought into VB9 via LINQ. There are features of LINQ specific to Visual Basic, a testimony of the commitment to innovation in the language of generations. Come learn about simplifying querying data via integrated query and transform operations, as well as simplifications in working with XML, like imposing structure on XML w/no schema… and more…

Joel

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit

Bloggercoaster — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:37:38 GMT

This link contains an excellent resource: Visual Studio 2008 training kit available from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7602397 - I referenced this in my last two talks...

Enjoy!

Joel

VS2008 (Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation) - Silver

Bloggercoaster — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:42:54 GMT

This Friday @ 2pm EST: Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation are two very relevant technologies within .NET 3.x for Public Sector applications. WCF represents a total unification layer for building connected systems and WF provides a powerful foundation for process reengineering. Combine them and you have an unbelievable set of capabilities for building robust enterprise application that involve both process automation as well as human and machine to machine workflow and process communication. Come learn the basis of how to build WCF services using workflow foundation in the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2008.

Registration: Please click on the following link for more information regarding this Webcast: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032356918&Culture=en-US

Joel

Austin Dev Conf... PPTs and Samples

Bloggercoaster — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:46:05 GMT

If you attended this weeks' conference in Austin you can download the material here !!

Thank you for attending we hope you found it useful...

Joel Reyes

Compuware IT Exchange Event (Raleigh, NC)

Bloggercoaster — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:12:46 GMT

Please find the deck + demos from the event in this link. Thank you for attending and for asking many good questions.

Good Luck!

Joel

The Role of Cardspace, Identity Metasystem, in IT Consolidation

Bloggercoaster — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:07:31 GMT

Please join me tomorrow Friday, October 5th @2:00PM EST to my Webcast where we will discuss these topics within the context of IT consolidation. The title "Cardspace Heading Up! Are You Ready"... perhaps doesn't do any justice to the context, possible evidence that I should stay away from being a marketing person... Marc, you win! :-) *for now*

We will also discuss resources from Microsoft that are available to you today to start exploring the identity management future... namely Windows Live ID and the Biztalk Lab.

Be ready to engage in a conversation about how these technologies could assist State Agencies in their effort to consolidate IT and the requirement for Identity management... there will be more to come on this...

Joel Reyes

Technorati Tags: Cardspace , Identity Metasystem , IT Consolidation , Identity Management

Answer to questions from Webcast (What's new in WCF+WF in Visual Studio 2008 -> Workflow Services)

Bloggercoaster — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:46:11 GMT

1. "Context Exchange Protocol" slide, an instanceID is returned to client. How to deal with load balanced services in that case if the client tries to access service instance on another server?

That instance ID is the instance ID of the workflow. There are two things that can happen if a subsequent request with that context token arrives at a different server in a farm. If the workflow has unloaded, then the workflow will be requested from the persistence store and restored just fine. If the workflow is still loaded by the other host, you will get a "workflow locked by another workflow runtime..." exception which should get sent back to the caller. This points to the need to be a little more sophisticated in your routing, if you are going to be consuming the service from the same client, that can be accomplished with a session-ful load balancing arrangement. If they could come from multiple consumers, you have a timing issue that you will need to work out. You can also set UnloadOnIdle to true in order to eliminate any time delay between a workflow being ready to receive another message and unloading itself. Note that UnloadOnIdle increases the number of times you will unload and reload the workflow, at the advantage of increased durability.

2. Is Microsoft going to provide WCF activities for BPEL?

Paul Andrew discussed this in his blog check it out

3. Send and Receive activities – where do I get more info on these two activities?

There is ton of content here "content summary blog post" which links to a number of things that Matthew Winkler has put out on the topic recently. Additionally, he also wrote an intro to the Send and Receive activities in Chapter 6 of Windows Communication Foundation Unleashed which you may want to check out.

4. Info on HttpTransferContract working with XP sp 2?

HttpTransferContract has been replaced by WebGetAttribute and WebInvokeAttribute in the RTM version of .Net Framework 3.5. These two attributes are supported on all OS’s that are supported by .Net Framework 3.5 (including XP sp2).

Hope this helps!

Joel Reyes

Visual Studio 2008 Primary Pillars & Technology Areas

Bloggercoaster — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:04:17 GMT

Visual Studio 2008 delivers key advances for developers in three primary pillars:

Improve Developer Productivity
Manage the Application Life Cycle
Employ the Latest Technologies

The developer advancements delivered on these three pillars are achieved through seven different technology areas:

· Develop Smart Client Applications

Visual Studio 2008 delivers new and easy ways for developers to build smart clients by providing a comprehensive set of tools and classes that simplify integrating smart clients with new or existing web applications, and by handling local caching of data for disconnected scenarios.

· Create Microsoft Office applications

Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) is now fully integrated into Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition. Visual Studio enables developers to customize various Office applications, such as Outlook® and PowerPoint®, to improve user productivity and simplify deployment.

· Build Windows Vista Applications

Developers will be able to easily leverage new platform technologies, and deliver more compelling applications to their customers, by effortlessly incorporating new Windows Presentation Foundation features into both existing Windows Forms applications and new applications.

· Handle Data More Productively

The introduction of Language Integrated Query (LINQ), and various other data access improvements, now enable developers to deal with data using a consistent programmatic approach, perform data access with new data design surfaces, and use built-in classes for the occasionally connected design pattern.

· An Improved Developer Experience Overall

Visual Studio 2008 delivers a better developer experience overall through the combination of significant product quality improvements, changes to the way the most popular design surfaces return errors to the user, and simplifying the user’s ability to adopt the toolset and framework separately.

· Enable New Web Experiences

Beyond the secure, reliable and extensible infrastructure of IIS, developers can easily create efficient, interactive Web applications. The seamless integration and familiar programming model of ASP.NET AJAX enables more efficient client-side execution to deliver end-users a more responsive Web interface.

· Improves Application Life-cycle Management (ALM)

ALM provides great support, not only for managing the entire software development life cycle but also for the critical interaction with the final end-users and IT stakeholders of an enterprise application.

Fine out more here http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/f/d/bfdb8b1b-323a-435e-b328-cadc8b67bbee/An%20Overview%20of%20Visual%20Studio%202008.xps

Joel Reyes

Did You Know? Microsoft leverages Windows Workflow Foundation Technology in 6 Mayor Product Releases

Bloggercoaster — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:55:00 GMT

These are six products for which Microsoft is leveraging the power of the Workflow Foundation Engine:

BizTalk Server: Next Major Version - known internally as V.Next will use the WF runtime.
Office SharePoint Server 2007: Now includes workflow in document libraries and lists.
1. Workflow History Entry, Audit Entry
2. Create Task, Complete Task, On Task Change, Delete Task
3. Review Task, Approval Task, Client-side scrub task
4. Update Item, Copy/Delete Item, On Item Change
5. and much more...
Speech Server 2007: Now using workflow to model IVR calls, release in 2007.
1. Leverages he WF designer
2. Facilitates Voice Response application authoring
3. Dialog API object as Activities
4. Integrated Debugging
Microsoft Identity Integration Server: Providing workflow for MIIS 3.5 to manage user account provisioning.
Microsoft Dynamics products are building on Windows Workflow Foundation for future releases.
System Center “Service Desk”: Joins the product family including SMS & MOM.
1. Enable Cross Discipline Workflow Development
2. Ability to visualize Execution flow
3. Assemble workflow from existing activities
4. Ease of management, versioning and deployment by simply managing XAML files

Joel Reyes