Inside The Lab : Web Services

Video Clip - Interop Panel at TechEd IT Pro

gregleak@microsoft.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:16:00 GMT

Just in case you missed it last month at TechEd IT Pro, here’s a video clip of the Interop panel that I participated in with our industry partner, WS02, and moderated by Burton analyst, Chris Haddad. The main discussion points are interop topics that have affected all of us like, interoperability through SOA, WS-* standards and how they facilitate interoperability and common problems with interoperability. Worth taking a peek and let me know what you think.

.NET StockTrader 2.0 Demo at TechEd IT Pro

gregleak@microsoft.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

What a crazy couple of weeks in Orlando! I was at TechEd Developer last week doing a couple of sessions on my app, .NET StockTrader 2.0, and still here this week to do a .NET StockTrader 2.0 demo during Bob Muglia’s keynote at TechEd IT Pro. I will also have our partner, WS02, joining us on stage during the demo to showcase the interoperability on an Apache platform. Part of Bob’s keynote address, the .NET StockTrader and Configuration Service 2.0 will show how a composite application, running across Windows-, IBM WebSphere- and Apache-distributed components, could dynamically virtualized against physical resources on-premises and across the cloud.

New interoperability features demonstrated with WS-* Advanced Web Service Security are below:

· Message level security interoperability with WSO2 open-source based Web Services Application Server (Java)

· Message level security interoperability with WSO2 open-source Web Services Framework for PHP

· Interoperability across three distinct platforms (Microsoft, PHP, Apache Axis2/C) via Advanced WS-* protocols and X.509 certificates on service clients and service hosts.

Also, this demo shows that interoperability is real and ready for customers to leverage today. .NET StockTrader and Configuration Services 2.0 let customers to take advantage of their existing services and applications while enabling them to easily scale out by automatically detecting when you’ve added new computing nodes to the network and take advantage of scaling out with greater power. Real-world IT environments are a mix of technologies and we continue to prioritize to help customers achieve interoperability between systems for the benefit of sharing information across organizational and corporate boundaries.

There’ll also be a TechEd Online Interop panel discussion on Tuesday, June 10 at 2:00-3:00 pm ET with WS02, Sun and TIBCO to discuss how interoperability is important today and the role it plays for customers in the future. The panel will be held in the TEO are by the Microsoft store so if you have free time then, you should come by and watch the panel. It’ll be moderated by Burton analyst, Chris Haddad, and will be discussing the importance of interoperability today in our industry. The panel will also be taped so if you can’t make it, you can also check it online on the Tech·Ed Online Web site.

What is Configuration Services 2.0?

gregleak@microsoft.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:36:00 GMT

Last week, I presented at different types of user group sessions including the .NET Connected Systems Group in NYC and the Scalability Group in Boston. I showed a new feature of my StockTrader app, Configuration Services 2.0, which makes it easier to build services easier with .NET Framework 3.5 and WCF, and you may have read more here, Microsoft Continues Its Work On Oslo -- SOA for Windows.

Here are a few of the main objectives of the Configuration Services 2.0 and this will all be posted in the white paper on MSDN on the .NET StockTrader site:

1. Make it easier to build services with .NET 3.5 and WCF

o Includes template bindings, security examples, interoperability examples with Java

o Manages host process, endpoints, connections between services automatically

o Designed for high-performance

2. Provide centralized configuration management of service nodes

o Move host and application-specific settings from config files to a repository approach

o Provide Web-based management UI

o Provide way to automatically update settings without host restarts

3. Provide these capabilities via easily re-usable shared libraries

o Easy for customers to implement in their own applications and services

o Provides base classes, uses .NET reflection

o ~20 lines of code and not much time investment for customer to implement!

You can also call this something like a distributed “Service Network” and is one of the first examples of a general purpose Service Network built using .NET managed code. These code libraries can be leveraged as part of your SOA projects to develop new composite application that mix/match services across both .NET and Java. The Service Network should be able to automatically detect when you’ve added new computing nodes to the network and take advantage of scaling out with greater power without requiring complex setup or configuration – it should auto-detect that more resources are available for use. You can read more about Service Network on Steven Martin’s blog.

Below is also a diagram that might make more sense. Let me know what you think and would love your thoughts on this.