IT Architecture summit - Auckland NZ - 15 thru 16 March 2007

I presented on Web services specification developments, mainly W3C Oasis based, at the IT Architecture summit in Auckland last week. Thanks to Brighstar for doing a great job in organising this conference.

Two of the key questions people kept asking me were

1.     Is this 'stuff' (WS-*) for real now - are people actually using it productively in NZ ?: The answer to this question is YES absolutely – this Kiwibank case study is a great example of Web services standards implementations being used effectively;

2.     Are there any good examples / SDK’s / Toolkits etc of doing this stuff using Microsoft’s WCF and WF ? The answer is YES again – I have put some links below.

One of the key things I noticed this year was the increased interest in Enterprise architecture as a discipline, I felt that last years summit was more solutions architecture focused and it is good to see the different architectural disciplines (Enterprise/Strategic, Solutions, Infrastructure) being represented at these types of events here in New Zealand.

Useful WCF / WF links;

Basic WCF programming : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731067.aspx

WCF and Cardspace samples : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0043041F-95D6-4EB7-966A-C21A737E193A&displaylang=en

Excellent article Jeremy Boyd, Wellington based Architect / Developer and principal of Mindscape:

An article on MSDN by Jeremy Boyd provides an overview of how workflows that are built by using Windows Workflow Foundation can be hosted inside services that have been created by using Windows Communication Foundation. The article also describes how we can make use of some of the broad capabilities that are provided by WCF to facilitate client-event callbacks by making use of a duplex channel.

If you are currently using WCF and WF or considering doing it in the near future - this article can be very useful.

The .NET Framework 3.0 training kit for WF, WCF, and CardSpace

This includes a set of hands-on-labs, demos, and presentations. The content was originally designed as part of the Windows Server Ascend training and has been used several times for training classes. Consequently, the content is organized into a four day agenda. You can also browse this content by technology.

To use the training kit:

1. Download the training kit.
2. Run the downloaded application to extract the files to your local machine.
3. View the additional setup steps on the default page in the training kit.  This page should be displayed automatically after extracting the files.

Note:  If you do not use the default path when extracting the files, then some of the demos will need to be changed to utilize the new path.