Girish Raja's Dynamic(s) Thoughts : PDC

PDC - Phone Company CRM & Azure Demo

girishr — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:18:00 GMT

Here is the full video of the “Phone Company” demo that shows the integration of Dynamics CRM “5”, AppFabric Service Bus and Windows Azure.

View & comment on Channel9

Note: Updated video (audio issue fixed) posted as a Channel9 screencast. To download this video, right click and download here. For better viewing experience, view this video in full screen.

3 xRM sessions at PDC09

girishr — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:53:00 GMT

Just found out that Barry Givens and Nikhil Hasija are doing another xRM session at PDC09. So that brings the total tally of xRM sessions to three! It might sound very low but this year PDC is only 3 days and almost the entire mornings on Day1 and Day2 will be spent in keynotes. Considering that, it’s a lot of sessions.

BTW if you are not at PDC, don’t worry, you can still catch all the actions online. The keynotes will be streamed live and all breakout sessions will be available on-demand for free within 24 hours.

So here is the final list of xRM sessions:

Managing the Solution Lifecycle for xRM Applications on Tuesday at 12:30 PM
Developing xRM Solutions Using Windows Azure on on ~~Wednesday at 1:30 PM~~ Thursday at 3:00 PM
Build a .NET Business Application in 60 Minutes with xRM and SharePoint on Thursday at 12:45 PM

If you are at PDC, don’t forget to check out the hands on lab area for CRM ‘5’ labs. Near by, we’ll also have the xRM/CRM booth, so please feel free to swing by and chat with one of the product team members.

Dynamics CRM at PDC09

girishr — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:26:00 GMT

On November 17 the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) kicks off in Los Angeles and xRM & Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be there to make sure you have a good show.

For those who don’t know what PDC is, it is the definitive Microsoft conference that showcases and gives you a roadmap of what’s coming out in the future from Microsoft.

This year xRM/CRM will be highlighted in the keynote speeches and in ~~two~~ three break-out sessions.

Andrew Bybee is presenting a session on Developing xRM Solutions Using Windows Azure, Nirav Shah is presenting on Managing the Solution Lifecycle for xRM Applications and Barry/Nikhil team will Build a .NET Business Application in 60 Minutes with xRM and SharePoint

If you’re involved with CRM & xRM in any capacity, you must hear Andrew Bybee (a.k.a Andy) speak. Both Andy and Nirav work in the R&D team and are responsible for the core features of the platform, so make sure you come with your list of questions.

During one of the sessions, you’ll be able to catch a really cool demo that I’ve been working on recently . It is a demo that integrates CRM, Azure & .NET Services together and I’ll spare the details for later.

You will also have the first opportunity to touch and play with CRM ‘5’ at PDC09. That’s right! At the hands on lab section in the Expo hall, my team has been working hard to have two hands on lab showcasing the Visualizations and Solutions packaging feature of CRM ‘5’.

Of course I’ll be there at PDC with a camera for Channel9 interviews. So if you have some interesting development work to show, make sure you flag me down.

See you in LA!

PDC 09 is on. And yes, xRM will be served!

girishr — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:15:43 GMT

Get ready for the coolest developer event on the planet. Coming to Los Angeles again, PDC09 will be held from Nov 17th – 19th 2009.

I had a blast at last PDC and I really look forward for this year’s event. One of the reasons I really look forward is because we’ll definitely be talking about xRM. Titles of a few talks this year are published on the site’s ‘Sessions’ area. Note that we’ve only published a sub-set of ‘Sessions’ and there is many more to come. So stay tuned.

Developing xRM Solutions Using Windows Azure

You might ask how you can keep up with all the updates and sessions announcements. We’ve got an answer for you in feeds. When you’re on http://microsoftpdc.com make sure, to check out the RSS/ATOM feeds and subscribe to the ones that you’re interested in.

http://microsoftpdc.com/WhatsHappening/RSS

http://microsoftpdc.com/BehindTheScenes/RSS

http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/RSS

Registration for PDC 09 is now open. Register by September 15th at http://microsoftpdc.com/ and get a $500 early bird discount. Not bad, huh.

We’ll see you soon in LA.

PDC2008 sets benchmark for Wireless Connectivity

girishr — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:30:23 GMT

Many of you who were there at the PDC keynote room might have missed the UFO style devices (in the picture below) from Xirrus. But several of these devices were silently (perhaps a little flashy) and dutifully doing their job in the keynote room.

Pardon my lazy blogging for not saying enough about it at the event as I promised earlier. But this press release from Xirrus will fascinate you.

An industry record was made at PDC as we connected 2,890 concurrent users in a 100,000 square foot keynote hall through Wi-Fi. You can read more on this and the other records that were set by Xirrus here:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Ultra-High-Density-Wi-Fi/story.aspx?guid=%7B74E21C5A-BA6C-4AD1-BABD-376A3C9AE814%7D

We had over 2,000 connections pretty much during every keynote. With such large number of connections, attendees might have noticed how much bandwidth was eaten up. We didn’t use up the entire bandwidth but were over 90% of the capacity most of the times throughout the week. Hopefully that explains why you were getting a slower connection at times, as it was not just you, but thousands of other people on the same network around you.

Our priority was to make sure nothing catastrophic happens as we also had a backup wireless solution if the high-density solution didn’t work out. Thankfully we didn’t ever have to go to our backup Wi-Fi.

Next stop, we’ll think about scaling out High Density devices throughout the conference center and more bandwidth (of course) to make your conference experience better. Now you have one more reason to attend PDC 2009 and other future Microsoft events. So what are you waiting for?

Wireless at PDC 2008

girishr — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:50:00 GMT

Update (10/28 12.30AM): Make sure to use MSFTINET as SSID when connecting to wireless network. It is an open network (does not require key or password).

A few months ago, I “signed up” to be part of the PDC virtual planning team and my role was to take care of wireless (802.11) experience for the several thousand PDC attendees. Given the geeky nature of the audience, it was a challenge that had to be taken very seriously.

So what does it mean for you, the PDC attendees? You can get to the wireless network and browse the internet from most locations within the Los Angeles Convention Center. “Most locations” means that you may not be able to browse from within the restroom :) but you can at common locations like keynote room, internet cafes, lounges, breakout rooms where people congregate.

The keynote room was the biggest puzzle we had to solve. More than ever, many people use their laptops, smart phones and other internet enabled devices these days during conferences. Having several thousand people in one big room and every person using their array of devices, actually pushes the limit of physics to a greater extent.

In order for our attendees to have the best possible wireless experience at keynote, we realized a conventional wireless deployment may not work and we’re trying some innovative hardware and scaling it for “PDC level” experience. Infact, on the keynote this morning, we had more than doubled our usual capacity!!! I’ll blog more about it as the event progresses.

Also don’t forget to check out the mobile PDC experience at http://m.microsoftpdc.com/

Keep browsing!

Meet me at PDC 2008

girishr — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:20:38 GMT

Enough has been said about PDC and all the good stuff you’re going to get.

If you’re attending PDC, make sure you read The Devil’s Field Guide to the PDC right now. I mean right this moment.

If you’re not going to PDC, I suggest that you setup a projector in your living room, grab enough caffeine and start watching the session recordings. There are over 240 hours (10 days non-stop!!!) of video content produced just from the sessions. Besides Channel9 will ensure that you have enough to watch through the end of the year.

I was fortunate to be part of the PDC virtual team and as a result, I am lucky that I get to goto PDC. It has been a very busy month so far and I hope all of the hard work will pay off next week at PDC.

If you’re an ISV or any general business developer interested in Dynamics CRM, I’d be more than happy to chat with you. Make sure you remember the thing about “evangelist” from the devil’s guide.

I’ll be posting my updates via Twitter and you can follow me here http://twitter.com/girishr. See you in LA!

Peek at what Live Mesh SDK can do

girishr — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:07:41 GMT

I've had the honor to play with Live Mesh and so far I'm very impressed.

Right now you only have the folder sharing scenario. Yet it was cool to have my Onenote notebooks synchronized across my tablet and workstation and share with other people.

For people that kept asking what the "Mesh Platform" can do, check out the below article to look at a simple yet powerful scenario.

Disclaimer: These postings are provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confer no rights. Information posted here is subject to change without notice.

Having a task tracker application that runs on all my mesh devices and synchronize their state: simple yet wicked cool.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080908/applications-coming-soon-to-a-mesh-near-you/

Come to PDC to learn more about the Mesh Platform, the SDK and make sure you do ask questions directly to the people who built this stuff. They'll all be at PDC!

Get Your Head above the Clouds at PDC2008

girishr — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:44:45 GMT

<marketing> If you're still thinking whether to attend PDC this year, remember that Early Bird Discount of $200 is ending in another 10 days. So hurry up and register. </marketing>

BTW, if you are really wondering what PDC is going to be all about and not sure if my marketing bling (yeah right!) is convincing enough, you have got to check out the new show "Countdown to PDC2008".

Countdown To PDC2008 : Producing a Ginormous Conference in 10 Minutes or Less!

Mike and Jennifer stick to the clock (analog buzzer!) and get it done in 10 minutes. No exceptions! Actually there are a series of videos on channel9 regarding PDC and you can view them all here http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/PDC08/

Truly any conference that Microsoft conducts is enormous and you'd be amazed at the amount of planning that goes on internally. I mean think about the fact that a geek like Mike Swanson's fulltime job now is to plan events like PDC!

BTW if you work for Microsoft, there is an internal countdown video series as well by Mike and Jennifer. Do check them out. Hold on, there is a lot of non-Microsoft people reading this post. Am I going off limits and crossing the corporate boundary out into the open clouds? Oh well, if my applications can do that, why not me ... Oops, I seem to have slipped a clue by accident.

Regsvr32.exe PDC2008

girishr — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:47:25 GMT

No, you can’t do it from command line. You have to use the GUI available at http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ to register for PDC 2008. I know, we’re working on it!

To be or not to be

If you’re sort of the developer looking out of for the next gen. stuff and an early adopter of technologies, PDC is the right place to be. On the other hand, if you’d prefer technologies that have only been released and out in the market, maybe TechEd is right place for you. FYI, there is a TechEd happening next week, so watch out for lots of pure refined content.

$2195 USD, yeah right

Undoubtedly many will feel that it is slightly higher. But consider this, Microsoft is not making even a single cent of profit out of this. In fact, we’re losing some which is compensated by the event sponsors. I’m volunteering for one of the event activities for PDC and I’m told that my budget is near to $0. It takes a lot to run a conference for 4 days and host around 8,000 geeks. So $2195 (includes $200 early bird discount) should be totally worth it. If you’re an early adopter anyways, why wait and pay an extra 200 bucks.

Personally, if I were to attend only one conference a year (or couple of years!), that would undoubtedly be PDC. Being a developer wouldn’t you want to goto the coolest conference and jell with all the other geeks!

What can one expect

Lots of good things around the Cloud. Many new “stuff” will be there. Of course, CRM will definitely be there. So I hope to see you there.

BTW, many bloggers have posted the “Brain in a can” picture for PDC. I kind of find that disturbing. Do you?

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