Architecture + Strategy : Azure

Best Party at PDC09! Free Registration!

dachou — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:18:25 GMT

The Underground @ PDC 2009
CONGA ROOM | L.A. LIVE
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009 | 7:00PM to 1:00AM

See the future of Developer Technology at The Underground @ PDC 2009, sponsored by INETA, Microsoft and local Southern California partners.

The Underground will showcase the vision and roadmap of Microsoft’s Developer Platform and highlight newly released technical strategy & announcements direct from The Professional Developers Conference by Microsoft leaders and local community luminaries. Located at the world famous Conga Room in the new downtown Los Angeles’ entertainment district – L.A. LIVE, come to one of the hottest salsa destinations and experience the hip, exciting, authentic Latin Sabor!

Don't miss:

Feature Keynote, Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Platform
Newly released PDC 2009 announcements & technology roadmap
Network with hundreds of local developers, architects, designers & community
Signature savory pan Latin cusine & cocktails provided by the legendary Wolfgang Puck Catering
Chance to win prizes including: Windows Mobile Devices, XBOX System, Zune HDs & More

To register, visit http://undergroundatpdc.com/eventReg.aspx and use RSVP code: “wcqjrw”. Hope to see you there!

Architect Council | 2010: A Cloud Odyssey

dachou — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:39:00 GMT

The forecast for 2010 is looking very cloudy, with every technology company delivering some type of cloud offering, and analysts estimating that almost everyone will try some form of cloud computing. But from a practical stand point, how should organizations leverage cloud computing effectively? Is it to simply host existing and legacy assets somewhere else, or to create next-generation applications that enable differentiated capabilities? In addition, what role does SOA play in the age of cloud computing? And does this impact the way we manage and interact with data?

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this half-day event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies and insights with peers. This forum will provide first-hand experiences and best practices intended to help the community to collectively discover and generate knowledge. Please join us for this opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other thought leaders.

Event Summary

Provide a clear and profound understanding of Microsoft’s cloud strategy and roadmap, and latest updates on the Windows Azure Platform
Discuss the state of SOA, and its relevance in the age of cloud computing
Review case studies and models of cloud usage, and examine approaches to build next-generation capabilities leveraging the cloud
Explore trade-offs, best practices, and guidance on today’s myriad of data storage options
Explain the differences and patterns of using various data interaction frameworks

Who Should Attend

Technology and business stakeholders, including CTOs, CIOs, VPs, Directors, Program and Product Managers, Architects, Lead Engineers, and IT Managers

When & Where

12/01/09: Irvine, CA

12/02/09: Los Angeles, CA

12/03/09: Phoenix, AZ

12/08/09: Mountain View, CA

12/09/09: San Francisco, CA

12/10/09: Seattle, WA

12/15/09: Denver, CO

How to Attend

This is a FREE event; only an online registration is required. Please follow the links on the event page at http://blogs.msdn.com/sac/pages/council-2009q4.aspx

Architect Cafe | November 2009 Series | Online Webcasts

dachou — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:08:39 GMT

November 24, 2009 at 11:00am – 12:30pm PST
An Architect’s perspective on Silverlight 3
Tim Heuer
Many .NET developers are becoming more and more interested in the Rich Internet Application development space, and in particular Silverlight. In this session we will step back from a detailed implementation technology and take a higher level look at Silverlight from the architect’s perspective. We will discuss the types of applications where Silverlight makes sense and some scenarios where Silverlight may not be the appropriate technology. We will also delve into some of the architectural decisions that the architect must consider when writing applications for this platform and where some of the tradeoffs may lie.

Link to Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032432980&Culture=en-US

November 25, 2009, 11:00am – 12:30pm PST
Cloud-computing architecture – designing multi-tenant applications on Windows Azure
Joseph Hofstader
Cloud computing is one of the hottest topics in information technology today. With all the confusion surrounding acronyms ending in ‘aas’ like Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) it can be intimidating for even seasoned IT professionals. This presentation will briefly discuss the different types of cloud platforms and then address one of the key business scenarios for the cloud: Software as a Service.
Software as a Service is a business model for making applications available over the Internet. One of the key tenets of SaaS is multi-tenancy, or software designed to be used by multiple parties. Designing SaaS applications touches on many of the technologies that comprise the Azure platform: Processing, Storage, Workflow, Database and most importantly security. This presentation will discuss how each of technologies can be utilized to define a flexible architecture for multi-tenant solutions.

Link to Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032432981&Culture=en-US

For session recordings and content from the November 2009 series, please visit http://blogs.msdn.com/sac/pages/cafe-2009-11.aspx.

For information on other events part of the Architect Cafe series, please visit http://blogs.msdn.com/sac/pages/architect-cafe.aspx.

CloudCamp Los Angeles

dachou — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:03:16 GMT

I had the opportunity to speak at the CloudCamp Los Angeles event last week. It had a turnout of more than 200 people (223 registered attendees on eventbrite). We also had nice support from the local Microsoft team, including Daniel Egan, Woody Pewitt, Lynn Langit, and Jason Campbell. Many of our friends also turned up, such as David Pullman from Neudesic.

Similar to the CloudCamp Las Vegas event I also spoke at, the attendees brought many different perspectives and questions about cloud computing. Questions ranged from “what is cloud computing”, “what does cloud computing mean in business terms”, to really specific questions such as security, management, and how to design applications that can achieve both scale and availability (while not sacrificing much data consistency).

I did one of the 5-minute lightning talks at the start of the CloudCamp unconference. The deck I used is shown below.

Microsoft Cloud Lightning Talk at CloudCamp Los Angeles -

Lastly, just want to take the opportunity to list available learning resources, which also shows how anyone can deploy an application and provision a website in Windows Azure Platform in a matter of minutes.

GET a free Windows Azure CTP account in minutes

JOIN the Azure Community

Talk Azure with your local user group colleagues

LEARN more about Azure

Download the Azure Training Kit
View a 15 minute screencast on deploying your first app in Azure
Check out the Azure “How do I…” Videos
View Azure Webcasts
Sample Projects; search for “Azure”
Code Samples & Snippets; search for Azure
What is Software-plus-Services

Cloud Computing and Azure Presentation at South Bay .NET User Group

dachou — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:24:30 GMT

I had the privilege of speaking to the community at the South Bay .NET User Group again, on March 12, 2009; onsite at the Honda campus in Torrance, California. Thanks to everyone who made the time to attend!

For those who are interested, the slide decks I used can be found via the links below.

Architect Council - Irvine 2008.12.11

dachou — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 06:38:23 GMT

Here are the content for the Architect Council event at Microsoft's Irvine campus on Thursday, December 11, 2008. We would like to thank everyone who made the time to attend, and sharing your feedback. We appreciate the kind comments, as well as areas we need to improve upon. If you have any further questions and/or comments, please feel free to reach out to us (via blogs listed on this site, our email addresses, or other information contained in the slide decks).

Microsoft And Cloud Computing

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture platform)

A Lap Around The Mesh Services Woodyp

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture framework)

Azure Services Platform

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture computing)

And a couple of upcoming events:

SOA & Business Process Conference 2009 - Jan. 27-30 – Redmond, WA

http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=628664

MSDN Developers Conference 2009 - Feb. 19 – San Francisco, CA

http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/SanFrancisco.aspx

MIX 2009 - Mar. 18-20 – Las Vegas, NV

http://2009.visitmix.com/

Tech•Ed 2009 - May 11-15 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2009/

Professional Developers Conference 2009 - Nov. 17-20 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

Architect Council - Los Angeles 2008.12.04

dachou — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:50:52 GMT

Here are the content for the Architect Council event at Microsoft's Los Angeles campus on Thursday, December 4, 2008. We would like to thank everyone who made the time to attend, and sharing your feedback. We appreciate the kind comments, as well as areas we need to improve upon. If you have any further questions and/or comments, please feel free to reach out to us (via blogs listed on this site, our email addresses, or other information contained in the slide decks).

Microsoft And Cloud Computing

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture platform)

A Lap Around The Mesh Services Woodyp

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture framework)

Azure Services Platform

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture computing)

And a couple of upcoming events:

Architect Council - Dec. 11 - Irvine, CA

http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032393294

SOA & Business Process Conference 2009 - Jan. 27-30 – Redmond, WA

http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=628664

MSDN Developers Conference 2009 - Feb. 19 – San Francisco, CA

http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/SanFrancisco.aspx

MIX 2009 - Mar. 18-20 – Las Vegas, NV

http://2009.visitmix.com/

Tech•Ed 2009 - May 11-15 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2009/

Professional Developers Conference 2009 - Nov. 17-20 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

Multi-Enterprise Business Applications (MEBA) as Cloud-Based Next-Generation B2B Business Processes

dachou — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:47:00 GMT

Multi-Enterprise Business Applications (MEBA) are a new class of applications that can be used to support business processes that span enterprise and organizational boundaries. MEBAs leverage best practices and patterns from service-oriented architecture (SOA) techniques and technologies, and specifically cloud-based platforms, to facilitate the next-generation B2B (or multi-enterprise) collaboration.

This is a project I had the privilege to participate in for the past few months, along with my esteemed colleague, Wade Wegner, and under Jack Greenfield's leadership, as part of Microsoft's Platform Architecture Team. This project was just highlighted at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC2008) in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, as the RedPrairie keynote demos that showcased Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, and discussed in more depth in one of its breakout sessions (see Wade's blog for more info).

And more recently, we took a more architectural look at MEBA's at Microsoft's Strategic Architect Forum 2008 (SAF08).

Multi-Enterprise Business Applications

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: architecture multi-enterprise)

So what do we mean by “multi-enterprise business applications”? They are a new class of applications, different from the traditional data-driven applications that focus on managing data and resources and providing access to end users. They are more focused on implementing business processes that span enterprises, such as traditional B2B integration and collaboration scenarios. They leverage and build upon message-based integration and use well-defined protocols and roles, such as fundamental approaches and technologies used in enterprise service-oriented architecture initiatives. Actually, in a way, they represent an approach of extending enterprise SOA beyond the four walls of each enterprise, to integrate and work more seamlessly with other enterprises.

At the same time, multi-enterprise business applications also have some differentiating requirements. Scenarios may include participants distributed throughout different parts of the world. And since they are intended to support mission-critical business activities, we need to have a very robust architecture that can ensure high availability, high reliability, a high-level of security; plus the need to have auditing, reporting, regulatory compliance, and so on; not significantly different from our enterprise IT architecture concerns from that perspective.

And unlike traditional SOA applications that are more focused on functional capabilities within one enterprise, MEBAs extend the SOA concepts and technologies to business processes that span multiple enterprises. In addition, because MEBAs operate between organizations, their primary concerns are also different – community management, identity management, process execution management, multi-enterprise governance, etc.

Moreover, unlike incumbents in the B2B software and service providers spaces where implementations today consist mostly of customizing proprietary products and services; MEBA defines an architecture in which foundational, common services should be implemented, and how they can composited into applications that define business processes. The evolution and maturity model of MEBAs are also more dependent on the community, than any one vendor maintaining a solution. MEBAs are a new class of applications; not a new class of products or solutions.

Thus MEBA’s can be used across many different industries, especially ones that, from a traditional B2B perspective, tend to have a lot of cross-organizational collaboration needs. During this phase of the MEBA project, we attempted to take a more detailed look at the supply chain industry. And a more detailed view found many capabilities, within the supply chain industry, that today leverage various forms of technologies and implementation approaches to facilitate communication and integration across multiple partners on supply chain networks, or in a way, multiple enterprises. And for our project, we chose just one specific area, supply chain orchestration, to investigate further to evaluate how MEBA’s can be used to meet its specific requirements. So at the next lower level of detail, we have identified a set of common scenarios in supply chain orchestration. And then we chose just a few to prototype out, such as search for capacity, product recall, etc.; by building with Microsoft's Azure Services Platform.

Challenges Today

So now taking a few steps back up. Let’s talk about how some of these scenarios and capabilities are implemented today across the various industries. First of all we have multiple protocols that are intended to standardize the interaction models and data being exchanged. Some are more industry specific, such as RosettaNet, HL7 for healthcare, and FIX for financial services. While some are designed to be more general purpose, such as ebXML, WS-BPEL or BPEL4WS, and many others such as WS-Choreography, Java Business Integration (JBI), etc.

But this at the same time also hints at some challenges we have today, as in a way, there are just too many standards. And many organizations are in the process of developing more standards to define how multi-enterprise collaboration should be facilitated in their industries. For example, automotive, auto parts distribution, etc.; just to name a few.

And the observation today, is that, B2B, or integration or collaboration between multiple enterprises, or inter-enterprise SOA, is still relatively complex and difficult to implement and manage.

For example, we have a very diverse set of technologies, collected from the past 25 years or so in various attempts at optimizing or streamlining communications between multiple organizations. Everything from EDI, FTP, on-premises software, integration service providers, B2B gateways, to the current class of SOA solutions that can be extended to support B2B scenarios.

And not just the underlying technologies used, enterprises have very sophisticated needs and concerns in many areas, such as security, data ownership, management, and governance, etc. What’s more here, is that these needs and concerns are in a way, amplified or more complex when we look at them from a cross-organizational perspective.

Why MEBA?

So integration and enabling business processes across organizational boundaries, have been complex and difficult to accomplish, for many years. Why do we think now we may have a better chance at simplifying and streamlining efforts in this area, and moreover, why do we think MEBA’s, as a new class of applications may have a better chance at doing so?

Traditional B2B or multi-enterprise communication and collaboration were complex to implement and often unreliable and error-prone. Organizations had to deal with a multitude of technologies, standards, and additional sets of technologies and implementations with each partner organization on a one-to-one basis. MEBAs aim to streamline and simplify these inherent complexities, by providing an architecture that builds on existing technologies and abstracts infrastructural concerns.

From a timing perspective, the growing inter-dependence and always-connected environment for businesses, and availability of key new technologies (Web services, SOA, cloud computing, etc.), are showing signs that the time is right to take a new approach at multi-enterprise (or B2B) interactions. MEBAs build on the best practices and proven technology models of today, and offer the potential to greatly streamline and simplify efforts of implementing business processes that span multiple enterprises.

And in general, by leveraging many of the best practices and building on many of the latest trends, such as the concept of an “Internet Service Bus” (ISB) providing an architecture and platform, upon which multi-enterprise business applications can be constructed, that simplify and streamline many aspects of B2B integration today, while meeting the needs of the organizations and participants involved. We think, this concept of the ISB, will significantly transform the architecture, and how we design and implement approaches to facilitate multi-enterprise business applications.

And of course, this doesn’t mean we intend to replace the work organizations have already done with protocols and standards (such as RosettaNet, ebXML, HL7, FIX, etc.). In fact we think we can leverage those work, and use MEBA’s to provide implementations of these protocols, as well as an environment / platform to facilitate their orchestration and management.

Thus MEBAs provide the potential of these high-level benefits:

Business benefits – improve business agility, bottom-line revenue (reduced errors and cost, and faster response), and top-line revenue (higher automation, improved relationships with partners and customers)

Technical benefits – simplify and streamline connectivity, improve visibility and governance, higher quality of service, focus on delivering business processes instead of infrastructure, leverage standards-based technologies, bridge multiple and disparate identity systems, etc.

MEBA Reference Architecture

Now let us show you what a reference architecture for multi-enterprise business applications may look like. Just as you would expect, there are many layers of capabilities from this perspective. Basically, these applications will need to have a foundational services layer, which provides some core infrastructure capabilities such as compute or runtime environment, identity management system, workflow execution and management, robust messaging infrastructure, data management solution, and operational management services. On top of that, we can then build a layer of higher-level services, which are considered more functional, and provides capabilities such as community management (extending from trading party management in a traditional B2B perspective), services orchestration, business process management, party management, and so on. Then finally, we can build various types of communities, or partner networks, that define working relationships between multiple organizations. For example, each organization can belong to multiple communities, or as administrators to a particular community, can invite and add new partners, and so on. We would also like to use model-driven techniques to define business processes, and to be able to provision one or more instances of a given business process, each supporting a specific community of trading partners.

Azure Services Platform

When we saw the plans for the Azure Services Platform, we studied them to understand the kinds of applications it would support. Our conclusion was that it will spawn a second generation of B2B applications. We then coined the name MEBA to describe this new class of applications. Our focus here is to talk about MEBAs and how they can leverage this Azure Services Platform. So we will not get into the details of the Azure Services Platform, but we do want to articulate specifically how some of its components help support the MEBA concept.

Windows Azure – the cloud compute platform, provides the underlying runtime environment for the foundational services and MEBA implementation. It offers high scalability and reliability, and global reach to partners across the world

.NET Services – with its Service Bus, Access Control Services, and Workflow Services, provides the fundamental “Internet Service Bus” that can effectively address common concerns around identity and security, connectivity, and service orchestrations between multiple organizations

SQL Services – provides the scalable and reliable cloud-based database solution, which helps to establish databases in the cloud to manage the data that is shared across the multiple organizations, and especially data that support the communities and their interactions

Live Services – provides capabilities to connect to end users and support many aspects of human interaction needs

Food for Thought

MEBAs have the potential of completely changing the way enterprises interact with each other. If we further extend the MEBA vision and how it continues to simplify and streamline infrastructure concerns in facilitating business processes across organizations, we may see a world where business networks can be quickly and dynamically constructed to deliver business capabilities, simply by being able to connect the dots (or building with blocks). Business results delivered by the collective resources and capabilities from a network of multiple enterprises will become true differentiating factors, and more significant than any one enterprise can deliver alone. New business models may also emerge, as increasingly enterprises can participate in the larger scheme of things, and sometimes be a part of the process that span industries. The control of processes may begin to shift away from being enterprise-centric, to community-centric. Ultimately, enterprises can create new, more diverse, and more differentiating business offerings by being able to leverage the community of partners.

This post is part of a series of articles on cloud computing and related concepts.

Architect Council - Mountain View 2008.11.18

dachou — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:19:00 GMT

Here are the content for the Architect Council event at Microsoft's Mountain View campus on Tuesday, November 18, 2008. We would like to thank everyone who made the time to attend, and sharing your feedback. We appreciate the kind comments, as well as areas we need to improve upon. If you have any further questions and/or comments, please feel free to reach out to us (via blogs listed on this site, our email addresses, or other information contained in the slide decks).

Looking forward to another set of events next quarter!

Microsoft And Cloud Computing

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: microsoft cloud)

Azure Services Platform

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: microsoft azure)

A Lap Around The Mesh Services Woodyp

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: services mesh)

Announcements (PPTX):

Microsoft and Cloud Computing (PPTX):

A Lap Around the Mesh Services (PPTX):

Azure Services Platform (PPTX):

And a couple of upcoming events:

XAMLFest - Dec. 16-18 – Mountain View, CA

http://www.isvconcierge.com/Lists/Articles/DispForm.aspx?ID=335

Architect Council - Dec. 18 - San Francisco, CA

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-9F-C0-E7-E4-23-88-67-BE&Culture=en-US

SOA & Business Process Conference 2009 - Jan. 27-30 – Redmond, WA

http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=628664

MSDN Developers Conference 2009 - Feb. 19 – San Francisco, CA

http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/SanFrancisco.aspx

MIX 2009 - Mar. 18-20 – Las Vegas, NV

http://2009.visitmix.com/

Tech•Ed 2009 - May 11-15 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2009/

Professional Developers Conference 2009 - Nov. 17-20 – Los Angeles, CA

http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

TechDays08 Talk - Microsoft Cloud Services Architecture

dachou — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:48:11 GMT

Here are the slides for my talk at the TechDays08 event in Costa Mesa on Thursday, November 13, 2008. I'd like to thank everyone who made the time to attend. Personally I really enjoyed the interactive questions and was glad to share this information with the community, even though I wasn't able to go through the content, and that my demo crashed! :) Lots of interest and questions in this area; please feel free to reach out if you have any as well.

Make sure you check out presentations from my fellow teammates:

SQL Server 2008 for Developers - Lynn Langit
Parallel Programming and F# - Lynn Langit
VSTO App with LINQ - Daniel Egan
ASP.NET 4.0 - Daniel Egan

And also my friend and esteemed colleague Mike Vincent who delivered the presentation on "The Role of an Architect".

Microsoft Cloud Services Architecture

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: services azure)

Architect Council - Cloud Computing and Impact on Architecture

dachou — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:34:53 GMT

Cloud computing is a disruptive force that has the potential to change everything, but how do we take advantage of it? At Microsoft, cloud computing is a major component of our technology strategy and platform, and a rich and massively scalable cloud platform called the Azure Services Platform was just unveiled at PDC by Ray Ozzie (Ray’s keynote). Come for a discussion on how Microsoft’s platform can be leveraged to create a new class of applications that are more connected, dynamic, and can extend existing IT investments towards cloud computing.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this group is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers. This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

EVENT SUMMARY

Microsoft and Cloud Computing – Cloud computing represents the new wave of innovation that will significantly transform many aspects of computing as we know today. During this session, we will discuss Microsoft’s outlook and strategy in moving towards cloud computing, providing the next-generation cloud-based platform for building services in the cloud. We will also take discuss what cloud-based applications may look like, and how they need to be architected differently from today’s on-premise enterprise applications in various scenarios.

Live Services Platform – A deeper look into the Live Services component of the Azure Services Platform, designed to combine the world of the web and the world of digital devices. We will discuss the underlying service architecture behind this mass-scale cloud service and client platform, and how to build applications using Live Identity Service, Synch Service, Resource Model Service, Device Management Service, Notification Service, and Presence Service.

Azure Services Platform – Discussion on the enterprise-class components of the Microsoft Azure Services platform, with an overview of .NET Services (Access Control Service, Workflow Service, and Service Bus), SQL Services (SQL Data Services, SQL Reporting Services, and SQL Data Analysis Services), and Windows Azure (Compute Service, Management Service, and Storage Service). We will take a look at what these services provide, their long-term roadmaps, and discuss guidance on how they can used.

AGENDA

11:45 AM Arrival

12:00 PM Lunch and announcements

01:00 PM Microsoft and Cloud Computing

02:00 PM Live Services Platform

03:15 PM Azure Services Platform

04:30 PM Open discussion

05:15 PM Raffle and close

REGISTER

Register for a date and location near you! To register, please click on the link below (note - referral code not required to register) or call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368).

November 18, 2008 | Mountain View, CA
Microsoft Corporation
1065 La Avenida, Building 1
Mountain View, CA 94043
Main: 650.693.4000
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-F3-EE-3A-14-5E-8B-0D-10&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393291

December 4, 2008 | Los Angeles, CA
Microsoft Corporation
333 S. Grand Avenue, Suite 3300
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Main: 213.807.7300
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-B5-BB-D8-65-4B-00-E3-8D&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393292

December 9, 2008 | Phoenix, AZ
Microsoft Corporation
2929 N. Central Avenue, Suite 1400
Phoenix, AZ 85012
Main: 602.280.8600
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-F7-7B-61-77-D0-0E-22-EC&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393293

December 11, 2008 | Irvine, CA
Microsoft Corporation
1800 Park Plaza, Suite 1600
Irvine, CA 92614
Main: 949.263.3000
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-68-F5-7D-59-6B-E7-02-AB&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393294

December 16, 2008 | Bellevue, WA
Microsoft Corporation
Civica Office Building
205 108th Avenue NE, Suite 400
Bellevue, WA 98004
Main: 425.705.1900
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-9E-26-99-66-72-50-7D-10&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393295

December 18, 2008 | San Francisco, CA
Microsoft Corporation
835 Market Street, Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94103
Main: 415.972.6400
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-9F-C0-E7-E4-23-88-67-BE&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032393296

Event - TechDays 08 Orange County

dachou — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:31:56 GMT

If technology is the backbone of your business, you won’t want to miss out on the TechDays ’08 event in Costa Mesa, CA. Filled with exclusive product information presented by insider experts, TechDays ’08 will show developers, IT professionals, IT executives, and partners how Microsoft technology can take their business to the next level.

Whether you attend just one day or all three, you’ll walk away with a greater understanding of the business value of Microsoft’s technology solutions. Plus, you’ll have the chance to take a closer look at Microsoft’s latest development tools. Check out the tracks below and register for these exciting sessions today!

TECHDAYS - ORANGE COUNTY, CA

November 11-13, 2008
Hilton Orange County / Costa Mesa
3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, CA 92626

WHAT'S NEW FOR DEVELOPERS
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 | REGISTER >

Join us for this free, live session designed to enhance your coding skills and make your life a little easier. By attending you’ll get up –to-the-minute technology delivered by seasoned developers and have lots of time to network and ask questions. Chat with your fellow developers get the latest coding tools and tips and learn how to create rich new applications. LEARN MORE >

SILVERLIGHT 2.0, SQL SERVER 2008 AND VSTO
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 | REGISTER >

Join us for the latest tips, tools and technical information you need to build powerful applications and engaging user experiences. We’ll show you how SQL Server 2008 delivers new development capabilities, including support for Spatial Data types, a fresh storage mechanism and more. You’ll also learn how to leverage the Silverlight platform to build next generation applications for consumers and business, and how Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO) addresses some of the toughest challenges facing today’s Office solution developers. Don’t miss these free, live sessions near you. LEARN MORE >

Topic 1: What’s New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers
Topic 2: Power up your Office applications with VSTO
Topic 3: Build next generation applications with Silverlight 2.0

THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT: TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE
Thursday, November 13, 2008 | REGISTER >

In this session, we’ll take a look at the strategy behind the new Microsoft Cloud Services platform, provide an overview of building block services, and show how to facilitate cloud-based transactions that connect multiple organizations. We’ll also discuss the role IT architects play in the success of IT projects. The skill sets and certifications required to be a professional IT architect are still being defined, and we’ll have a panel discussion with local architects on how you can get involved and contribute to the process. LEARN MORE >

Topic 1: Microsoft Cloud Services Architecture
Topic 2: The Role of an Architect, Experiences and Our Profession
Topic 3: Local Architect Panel Discussion

SQL SERVER 2008 ROADSHOW
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 | REGISTER >

Learn more about SQL Server2008 and its new features and capabilities the new enhanced capabilities of the product. We’ll be exploring security and database management, how to best manage your data, and what’s new in business intelligence with SQL Server 2008. Don’t miss this half day event that will give you a better understanding of what SQL 2008 has to offer and how you can best put it to use at your company. LEARN MORE >

Topic 1: Database Management and Security
Topic 2: Data warehousing
Topic 3: Integrated Business Intelligence

WINDOWS VISTA, POWERSHELL AND GROUP POLICY
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 | REGISTER >

Get the latest tips and tools from Microsoft that will make your life as an IT Professional a lot easier. First, we'll dispel some Windows Vista myths and address the top deployment blockers that have been reported. Then, we'll show how you can automate system administration tasks and increase your productivity using Windows PowerShell™. Finally, you'll get the inside track on Group Policy preferences, a new feature in Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 that will help you better deploy and manage Windows Vista and application settings. LEARN MORE >

Topic 1: Why Windows Vista with SP1?
Topic 1: Managing Windows Vista with Windows PowerShell
Topic 1: Group Policy Preferences, Templates and Scripting

VIRTUALIZATION AND ENTERPRISE SEARCH
Thursday, November 13, 2008 | REGISTER >

Join us for a series of demonstrations and technical discussions about virtualization and enterprise search. We’ll explore the powerful new Windows Server 2008 virtualization platform and data center management solutions, while covering the benefits of Microsoft’s integrated Hyper-V and System Center product families. We’ll also look at how to help information workers find, use and share the critical data they need to boost productivity and success. You’ll see how Microsoft’s robust platform of business-ready search solutions can quickly, securely and seamlessly connect people with the information they need – when they need it. LEARN MORE >

Topic 1: Virtualization
Topic 2: Enterprise Search