The Liquidator

This blog is moving ..........

2009-06-18T06:07:00Z

The Liquidator blog is moving - go check out http://markcarrollnz.wordpress.com/

For those of you who don’t know as a result of Microsoft’s steps to manage costs announced in January 2009 the role I have filled for the last five and a half years from the Wellington office was disestablished about a month ago. I elected to make today ,18 June, my last day at Microsoft now that I have completed a couple of projects I had on the go.

I want to take this opportunity to thank every one of you who subscribed to this blog and those in the MS architect community for your contribution. I have totally enjoyed sending out the architect newsletter, hosting both the Architect forums and Architect councils as well as working with a number of you individually on various projects. There has been some lively debate and discussion generated at times and as a huge bonus a number of you have become good friends.

If you have any questions about the areas I have been engaged in for Microsoft going forward please don’t hesitate to contact Scott Wylie at Microsoft.

New Zealand Sharepoint Community Conference 2009 , 2 – 3 July 2009

2009-06-15T03:22:00Z

Wow – talk about value for money !

This conference is being organised by the NZ Sharepoint user group community – for a two day conference it represents incredible value at only $500 per head.

Highlights;

- 36 Sessions including 3 streams;

- 7 International Speakers - Excellent Line up of Local Experts across multiple industries

- Conference sessions are grouped into three tracks of Business (B), Technical (T) and Voice of a Customer/ Vendor (V) that indicate the target audience for those sessions

For more details and to register use this link.

Coming events .... May - June 2009 UNPLUGGED Roadshow

2009-05-01T06:04:00Z

Mike Zeff, Nigel Parker and Nathan Mercer are hitting the road again to bring you the latest and greatest around Windows 7, Windows server 2008 R2 and Silverlight. There are two streams for this roadshow – The Technet Stream and the MSDN Stream.

Locations are Palmerston North, Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland, Chsritchurch, Dunedin and Wellington.

Get into it – should be awesome – more details including registration are here.

Upcoming sessions - How to become a software architect (or: What do software architects do?) by Amir Shevat

2009-04-15T01:47:00Z

Every year we run a series of architect forums for folk who are interested in getting some basic insights into developing their skills so as they can either become an architect or develop their existing architect skills.

The sessions are being held in Auckland (April 23), Wellington (April 30) and Christchurch (April 21) and will last about an hour. This is a great chance to spend an hour in 'self development' so please take a look at the invitation below or encourage your staff / peers to do so.

Please do use the appropriate RSVP link if you intend coming along.

Title: How to become a software architect (or: What do software architects do?) by Amir Shevat

Software architecture is a critical, complex and exciting role that bridges between business and technology. Software architecture is also one of the roles that arguably is less understood then other roles in software development. In this session we will talk about what it means to be an architect. We will understand how architects contribute to the business and to the development process. We will also review the major challenges and software aspects an architect is responsible for, and explore the ways one becomes a successful architect.

About Amir Shevat:

Amir Shevat is a senior architect in Datacom Systems in New Zealand with over 10 years experience in software development and architecture. Previously, Amir served as an Architect Advisor at Microsoft working with enterprise and startup companies, helping them to utilized and develop software over the Microsoft stack. Amir also held the position of a Software Architect in Comverse as well as several other technical roles in startups worldwide. Amir believes in the “keeping it simple” approach to software architecture and development rather than complex and cumbersome solutions. He tries to keep is designs as simple and as close to the business domain as possible.

Venues and Dates – see Under Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington

Christchurch - 1:00pm Tuesday April 21 2009

Where is the Event: Telecom Customer Briefing Centre, Ground Floor, Telecom House, 109 Hereford Street, Christchurch

When do I need to RSVP by: Friday 17 April 2009;

How to RSVP for Christchurch: To accept click on this accept email link and send the email created with the accept subject line.

Auckland - 12 Noon Thursday April 23 2009

Where is the Event: Microsoft’s Auckland offices – MPC Room, Level 5, 22 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Auckland (next door to Vodafone, the building is bounded by Halsey St and Viaduct Harbour Drive))

Where to Park: There is a Wilson car park which you can access from Halsey or Gaunt Streets (turn off Fanshawe at Halsey and head towards the harbour, Gaunt St is first on left)

From Rail (Brittomart): Allow 15 minutes for the walk – Head down Customs St West towards the Harbour Bridge – Custom St West changes into Viaduct Harbour Drive – keep going until you see the large Vodofone sign just before Halsey St;

When do I need to RSVP by: Tuesday 21 April 2009

How to RSVP for Auckland: To accept click on this accept email link and send the email created with the accept subject line.

Wellington – 1pm Thursday April 30 2009

Where is the Event: Microsoft’s Wellington offices, Mana Room - Level 12 Vodafone on the Park (formerly Mobil House), 157 Lambton Quay (the building behind Midland Park)

When do I need to RSVP by: Tuesday 28 April 2009;

RSVP Details:

How to RSVP for Wellington: To accept click on this accept email link for 1.00pm session and send the email created with the accept subject line;

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Catalyst Live Workshops

2009-03-31T07:48:00Z

If your into Visual Studio Team system or thinking about it then check out this link to the free ALM Catalyst Live Workshops series.

These workshops consist of four two-hour interactive workshops that are repeated over a period of sixteen weeks (starting last week and running through the end of the FY), which gives customers the flexibility to fit it within their schedules.

Topics cover different roles (eg: Project Management, Testers) and facets (eg: quality, deployment).

Some are scheduled at times convenient for a NZ audience (PDT is one day behind and 4 hours ahead before NZ Daylight savings finish and then PDT is one day behind and 3 hours ahead ) - simpler than saying 21 and 20 hours behind I reckon.

TechNet UNPLUGGED Event: Windows 7 Technical Overview and Installfest - April 2009

2009-03-18T00:21:00Z

Heads up ! - the excellent Mr Nathan Mercer is doing the rounds again this time focusing on Windows 7.

This is a must if your into all things Tech Net and comes highly recommended for developers and architects as well. Lets face it most of us will using this technology or at least touching it within the next 12 months so here is a chance to get up to speed earlier rather than later. If you are not in Auckland, Wellingon or Christchurch then there is a live meeting option so you dont miss out entirely whereever you are.

TechNet UNPLUGGED Event: Windows 7 Technical Overview and Installfest - April 2009

Come along and learn about Windows 7 and get the opportunity to install the beta on your PC too.

Windows 7 Technical Overview for IT Pro’s – 90 minutes

The Windows 7 beta is out and everyone is excited about it. In this TechNet UNPLUGGED update we’ll feature what the new Windows 7 release means for the IT Pro in NZ. We will cover off both the new business and consumer technologies in this jam-packed-demo-filled session including: the new UI, taskbar and shell, Federated Search, BranchCache, DirectAccess, UAC, IE8, AppLocker, BitLocker To Go, the new Problem Steps Recorder as well as the updated Management, Compatibility and Deployment tools.

At the end of the learning session, stay around and load Windows 7 beta onto your machine -

Windows 7 Installfest – 60 minutes

This is your opportunity to install the Windows 7 beta on your own machine. You bring your computer - we bring the Windows 7 installation and a Microsoftee to help.

A test PC for the Windows 7 Beta should meet these minimum hardware recommendations:

· 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor

· 1 GB of system memory

· 16 GB of available disk space

· Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (in order to enable Aero theme)

· DVD-R/W Drive or machine that supports booting from USB

Please bring a spare, non-production computer to install the beta software onto. We will help with loading Windows 7 onto your machines, and will have wired or wireless Internet connections available for drivers and updates. If for some reason, Windows 7 does not have the appropriate driver for your computer hardware, we will do our best to download drivers off the Internet and get them onto a USB key for you. We won’t be able to provide “support” afterwards, but we’ve created an online forum where you can ask questions.

If you didn’t get a chance to download your own copy of Windows 7 beta we will have a supply of Windows 7 DVDs.

What you need to know before installing the Beta

Presented by Microsoft Technical Advisor, Nathan Mercer. This is a Level 300 event for IT Pros. Registration is free, dates and locations below.

AM Sessions: 9 - 11.30am

Wellington 2 Apr: Register
Auckland 14 Apr: Register
Christchurch 16 Apr: Register

Live Meeting 9 - 10.30am 21 Apr: Register

PM Sessions: 4 - 6.30pm

Wellington 2 Apr: Register
Auckland 14 Apr: Register
Christchurch 16 Apr: Register

March 2009 – TechNet UNPLUGGED Update

2009-03-02T05:02:00Z

Data Protection Manager 2007 Technical Briefing

This technical briefing focuses on Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 – a member of the Microsoft System Centre family of management products. If you are an IT Administrator that works with Microsoft Technologies or simply looking to understand how Microsoft is addressing the demands from our customers and partners for greater manageability and protection of IT infrastructure – this is the technical briefing for you.

Peter Niven – Microsoft’s Regional Specialist on DPM – will be helping attendees understand how DPM can better protect your Microsoft IT investment and elaborate on the wider opportunities to design a more resilient infrastructure. See below for our proposed agenda:

· Why Microsoft developed Data Protection Manager

· Brief DPM 2007 overview

· Specific Workloads (with demos)

o Exchange

o SQL

o SharePoint

o Virtualised environments

· What about non Microsoft Workloads?

· Sizing and Deployment

· Architecting for Disaster Resilience

· Service Pack 1 (released December 2008)

· Roadmap

Note: This is a Level 300 Event for IT Professionals

Registration is free. Dates and locations below. Full details here.

Christchurch - 17 Mar 09: 1- 4pm Register
Christchurch Convention Centre, 95 Kilmore Street, Christchurch

Wellington - 18 Mar 09: 1- 4pm Register
Microsoft Wellington, Level 12, 157 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Auckland - 19 Mar 09: 1 - 4pm Register
Microsoft Auckland, Level 5, 22 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Auckland

April 1 2009 - Microsoft Tech Days - Be part of History

2009-02-26T01:36:00Z

OK OK I know April 1 is usually a day associated with making people look stupid (April fools and all that) but if you are a developer, have staff who are developers or want the anonymity of the web to brush up on some developer skills then Virtual Tech Day could be of interest to you.

It is a chance to participate in 95 live sessions over a 24 hour period and learn heaps.

If on the other hand you are too busy doing April 1 stuff (running about with armfuls of whoopy cushions and that sort of thing ... tsk tsk) then keep hold of the link anyway because the sessions will be recorded for later viewing.

MSDN UNPLUGGED Developer Event – South Island: Take your Applications to the Cloud and Beyond – PDC, Visual Studio, Azure, Office 14 and Windows 7

2009-02-09T23:49:00Z

MSDN UNPLUGGED continues in February 09 with South Island locations. We will be sharing principles, practices, patterns and tools announced at PDC in October. Come and join us to start your applications journey to the cloud and beyond. Presented by Microsoft Developer Advisor Mike Zeff and Microsoft Architect Mark Carroll. Click here for more information. We will be giving away PDC 2008 Top Session DVDs to attendees too.

Sessions from 4pm – 5.30pm

Registration is free. Location and dates below.

Invercargill 17 Feb: Register

Dunedin 18 Feb: Register

Christchurch 19 Feb: Register

Nelson 20 Feb: Register

Note: This is a 300 Level event for Developers

Susie Adams advice to the Obama Administration – cc NZ ?

2009-02-02T23:57:00Z

Susie Adams is the CTO of Microsoft's US federal arm.

In this short interview, published in Infoworld, Susie Adams makes a number of excellent points and observations that strike a chord for me personally having worked both alongside and inside public sector here in New Zealand.

Many of the issues she discusses I believe are applicable here.

Some examples;

Addressing the incoming US administrations emphasis on infrastructure issues including broadband;

Being careful to identify what the real ‘problems’ are across many public sector organisations IT implementations rather than trying to dismiss them as having ‘root causes’ , which IMHO inevitably leads to the silver bullet approach;

In conclusion – definitely worth a few minutes to take a read especially if you work inside or alongside public sector.

Big Deal #1 – Cloud computing - Announcements from PDC in Los Angeles – Oct 2008

2009-01-16T06:29:00Z

Speaking personally – ‘Big Deals for Me’ of 2008

I am starting the New Year with reflections on the year just gone in the form of three ‘big deals for me’ that came out of 2008. I’ll discuss each of these ‘Big Deals for Me’ , how they are inter-related and where I expect them to lead in 2009 over the next couple of weeks via this blog.

Big Deal #1 – Cloud computing - Announcements from PDC in Los Angeles – Oct 2008

Cloud computing platforms will not sweep all else before them.

We all know that cloud computing is going to factor a lot more in the future of IT and subsequently the future of all of us as IT professionals. I don’t believe cloud computing is the ‘next big thing that will sweep all else before it” - but I can see why some folk would want to believe this. What I believe is more likely is that there will be an incorporation of ‘the cloud’ onto existing platform models including Client and Server. This has always been the case in the past with major changes – for example mainframes and batch computing which by in large pre-dated ‘client’ and ‘server’ platform models still abound out there it is just that now a majority have switched to front to PC clients instead of using card readers and drum printers.

How platforms have become established in the past.

Market forces and ‘existing investments’ always dictate that new types of platforms first ‘attach’ themselves to existing models, then extend those existing models and finally subsume them if they are really that great. This more likely evolutionary rise to any prominence for the cloud is entirely consistent with the Software plus Services (S+S) strategic pattern that I have been talking about for the last couple of years. The announcement of Windows Azure (internet-scale cloud services platform which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together) combines with past experience to create a clear strategy for cloud computing platforms for architects. That clear strategy is to attach (the cloud) from existing assets on existing platforms (client, server) rather than consider a ‘rip and replace’ strategy. Given current economic conditions and the emphasis they will inevitably place on the protection of ‘existing investments’ that architectural strategy is also consistent with the experience of new platform technologies that I just outlined earlier. The first step is for new platform models to ‘attach’ to existing models. The cloud platform will be no different. S+S provides patterns for that ‘attach’ strategy when attaching the cloud to existing Client and existing Server applications.

Gartner’s platform triangle.

If you think of the existing mainstream platform models as being ‘Client’ and ‘Server’ then I agree with Gartner’s summation of the PDC announcements about Azure when they say that cloud based Windows Azure is the ‘completion of the Microsoft platform triangle’. That summary though does not entirely acknowledge the very important facts that the Azure architecture is designed to be compatible with both the .NET platform (which already underpins client and server platform models) and the existing development platform - Visual Studio. That means developers do not need to learn a whole new set of paradigms, libraries and development tools and can leverage both their existing knowledge and some of their existing building block ‘assets’.

Where to in 2009?

My own views are that , as it evolves, the addition of Cloud computing to the Microsoft platform triangle will drive two key thought processes in the coming year;

- A renewed interest in architecture and software development best practices;

- A whole new set of standards debates and standards initiatives.

Both of these ‘Driven thought processes’ feature in my in my other ‘big deals for 2008’ and I’ll explain the linkages when I outline those in the next couple of weeks in this blog.

December Unplugged - Thank you North Island we had a blast

2008-12-22T02:15:00Z

I Admit to ‘slackery’.

I know I’ve been a bit slack on the blogging lately – I’ve been really busy with a number of events and sessions for both our architect and developer community.

Wow !

I have to ‘call out’ the Unplugged sessions which myself, Mike Zeff and Dean Edwards did a couple of weeks back where we toured the North Island (Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay, Palmerston North, Wellington) giving our presentation on ‘Taking you Application to the cloud and beyond’. Folk gave us a great reception in Auckland and Wellington but I have to admit the provincial centres (Hamilton, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay, Palmerston North) absolutely blew us away – they were so friendly and enthusiastic. It is the first time I’ve spoken outside Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and I for one am hooked – I had no idea how healthy the .NET and MS developer community is out there or how enthusiastic you are.

South Island – Here we come.

Feedback from the NI event has been very positive and we plan to do the South Island leg once we return after Christmas so if you are a .NET or MS Developer in the South Island keep an eye on this blog and I will let you know as soon as registrations open. Current plans are to do these presentations in Invercargill, Dunedin, Christchurch and Nelson on the week starting 16 Feb 2009.

Unplugged - Take your Applications to the Cloud and Beyond

2008-11-24T01:15:00Z

MSDN UNPLUGGED Developer Event: Take your Applications to the Cloud and Beyond – PDC, Visual Studio, Azure, Office 14 and Windows 7

Today we will be sharing principles, practices, patterns and tools announced at PDC in October. Come and join us to start your applications journey to the cloud and beyond.

Using computers in the cloud can make a great deal of sense. Instead of provisioning part or all of your infrastructure you can instead exploit Internet-accessible servers and let others worry about keeping systems up to scratch. But why just stop at the cloud? Some applications may have their code and data both operating in the cloud, others may run inside an organisation storing data in the cloud or relying on other cloud infrastructure services. Applications that run on desktops and mobile devices can use services in the cloud to synchronise information across many systems or in other ways. Whatever approach makes sense exploiting and extending the cloud’s capabilities can open up new choices for applications hosting, storage and interoperability.

Presented by Microsoft Developer Advisor Mike Zeff and Microsoft Architect Mark Carroll. Click here for more information. We will be giving away PDC 2008 Top Session DVDs to attendees too.

Registration is free. Location and dates below.

Auckland 8 Dec: Register

Hamilton 8 Dec: Register

Tauranga 9 Dec: Register

Hawkes Bay 10 Dec: Register

Palmerston North 11 Dec: Register

Wellington 12 Dec: Register

Note: This is a 300 Level event for Developers

Just released - Patterns and practices Application Architecture Guide 2.0 Beta 2

2008-11-18T07:05:00Z

Just announced today - ...

Patterns & practices Application Architecture Guide 2.0 Beta 2. It’s our Microsoft Playbook for Application Architecture. This is our guide to help solution architects and developers make the most of the Microsoft platform. It's a distillation of many lessons learned. It’s principle-based and pattern-oriented to provide a durable, evolvable backdrop for application architecture. It's a collaborative effort among product team members, field, industry experts, MVPs, and customers. This is the guide that helps you understand our platform, choose among the technologies, and build applications based on lessons learned and proven practices.

Browse / Download the Guide

You can browse or get the guide here: http://www.codeplex.com/AppArchGuide

October Power Tools now available - Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008

2008-11-10T01:36:00Z

Following up on my Team system user group talk on Power Tools earlier this year I am stoked to see that the new edition of power tools previewed earlier in Brian Harry's blog here have now been released and are available for download here.

These Power tools just keep getting more and more useful – to me the main things in this release of interest are focused on Team member identification / collaboration, use of Power Shell and making installation easier. There is lots of other stuff.

IMHO the October power tools are well worth a quick download and checking out on a VPC TFS (either TFS eval or TFS workgroup edition are just fine for this ) before installing on your production TFS server.