Rob Tiffany's Windows Mobile Accelerator : Book

See you in Barcelona for Tech Ed EMEA Dev

robtiffany — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Looking forward to seeing lots of familiar faces and meeting new ones starting December 10th at Tech Ed EMEA! While I ran the Windows Mobile track for Tech Ed North America last June in Orlando, this time around I'll just be delivering a couple of presentations and spending most of my time helping empower delegates to create incredible mobile applications. I'll be delivering the following breakout sessions:


	MBL301	What's New in the Windows Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator 2008	November 10 16:00 - 17:15	Room 121
This session walks through the new features that we have added to the Windows Mobile Line of Business Accelerator 2008; features such as adapting your application to any device or screen size with a single binary, sync services, store and forward, and advanced data access objects with Microsoft .NET CF 3.5.


	MBL310	Mobilize your Enterprise and Achieve Global Scalability with Windows Mobile and SQL Server Compact	November 11 15:15 - 16:30	Room 121
With the world's largest organizations rolling out tens of thousands of Windows Mobile devices to empower their respective workforces, the ability to create mobile line-of-business solutions that can support large user populations is critical. Based on his third book on Windows Mobile development, Rob Tiffany shows you how to take the Microsoft SQL Server data you use to run your organization and make it available to all your mobile employees. Utilizing the performance, scale-out, and filtering capabilities of Merge Replication Republishing, Rob shows you how to build an n-tier mobile synchronization architecture designed to scale to hundreds of thousands of devices. Take the guesswork out of mobilizing your enterprise by tapping into the experience of one of the world's foremost authorities on Windows Mobile infrastructure and development.

See you there!

- Rob

Chapter 1 of my new Book is Ready!

robtiffany — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:12:00 GMT

Mobile Data Synchronization with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact > Second Edition

Achieving Global Scalability via Merge Replication Republishing

Download and review the PDF from my Windows Live SkyDrive @

http://cid-8b9c82da88af61fc.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Sync/Ch%201.pdf

The new book shows you how to scale out your Merge Replication Architecture with Republishing. It's chock full of new insight to show you how to get the most performance and scalability out of your system. It also shows you how to make replication Subscriptions available to the Internet via ISA Server 2006 or System Center Mobile Device Manager.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Best Regards,

Rob

My New Book is Now Available!

robtiffany — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:12:00 GMT

"Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1" is now available in print! Those of you in the continental U.S. can just buy it directly from the Hood Canal Press site at http://www.hoodcanalpress.com/catalog.htm and get free ground shipping. It's on Amazon in the U.S. so you can order it at http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Mobile-Synchronization-Server-Compact/dp/0979891205/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199744085&sr=1-13 as well. At Amazon UK you can find it here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-Mobile-Synchronization-Server-Compact/dp/0979891205/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199744162&sr=1-7.

Go buy it and start building large-scale line of business and consumer applications for Windows Mobile!

-Rob

Windows Mobile Partner Summit Day 1

robtiffany — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:16:00 GMT

The Windows Mobile Partner Summit is going great and the event looks to be twice as big as last year. It's always nice to reconnect with our partner community. Steve Hegenderfer was kind enough to allow me to bring my rack of servers to his event. This time, I have a much lighter, 24U half rack which is much easier to move around. At the Dev Connections conference, I used a new stress test designed to push the number of row changes per sync. At that event, I used 300 concurrent Subscribers to perform 23,330 syncs per hour and make changes to 7,000,000 rows per hour. Each complete row change consisted of 116 bytes of data which meant I changed and replicated 812 MB of data per hour.

This time around I decided to double the number of concurrent Subscribers to 600. Keep in mind that each Subscriber is equivalant to a Windows Mobile device. I used 6 servers running 100 Subscribers each to create client load, 3 load-balanced IIS servers, and a separate SQL Server Distributor and Publisher. With 600 concurrent Subscribers contending for resources, I managed to perform 22,401 syncs per hour which is slightly fewer syncs than I saw when running only 300 Subscribers back in Vegas. The important story here is that I almost doubled the number of rows I changed and replicated per hour:

Rows changed: 13,440,600 per hour | 322,574,400 per day
Data replicated: 1.45 GB per hour | 34.8 GB per day

Just like in Vegas, the IIS and SQL Servers where just chilling out throughout this test:

IIS1: CPU: 7% | Mem: 188 MB | Network Utilization: .69%
IIS2: CPU: 8% | Mem: 187 MB | Network Utilization: .88%
IIS3: CPU: 5% | Mem: 185 MB | Network Utilization: .95%
SQL Distributor: CPU: 5% | Mem: 994 MB | Network Utilization: .77%
SQL Publisher: CPU: 36% | Mem: 4.11 GB | Network Utilization: 1%

This is truly incredible and further proves that SQL Server 2005 + SQL Server Compact 3.1 + Merge Replication is the most powerful data sync technology on the market today.

- Rob

What can we learn from the new Amazon Kindle?

robtiffany — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:18:00 GMT

As an author and admirer of iconic mobile devices, I’m totally jazzed by Amazon’s new Kindle device. For those of you who haven’t read about this, Amazon just launched its own mobile reading device today that uses a high-resolution, electronic paper display to read books, newspapers, blogs and magazines on-the-go. Obviously, we’re not strangers to the ebook business since we equipped our earliest Pocket PCs with Microsoft Reader and ClearType technology. Unfortunately, the ebook marketplace just never took off. How is Kindle different and why might it succeed where so many others have failed?

Electronic Ink

The Kindle’s new electronic paper and ink technology looks just like you’re reading real paper and ink and doesn’t require a backlight. You can even read books on this device in direct sunlight which doesn’t work very well with computer screens (with the exception of the OLPC XO laptop). Not requiring a backlight means that this device and last for a week without a recharge.

Wireless Everywhere

The Kindle comes equipped with built-in EV-DO wireless so you can download a book, newspaper or magazine in less than a minute no matter where you are. You don’t have to hunt down a Wi-Fi hotspot. What’s more, there’s no monthly subscription, service plans, commitments or bills to deal with for this wireless data access.

No PC Required

Since the Kindle is a wireless device, it doesn’t require a computer and you don’t have to hassle with cables or synching. You don’t have to download content to your computer and then copy it over to your device.

Bookstore Included

The Kindle includes a built-in store that allows you to purchase content OTA from Amazon directly from your device. Books cost just $9.99 and you can sample the first chapter for free.

Content Push

Your magazine, blog and newspaper subscriptions are pushed to you. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll find that your New York Times, Wall Street Journal or other morning papers have been pushed to you overnight and are waiting for you. Magazines arrive on Kindle before they show up at the newsstand.

Check out the details and launch videos at the link below:

http://amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_5873612_3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway-center-column&pf_rd_r=049SQ69H0WEFBSX1P9N1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=329252801&pf_rd_i=507846

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Rob

New Mobile Merge Replication Benchmarks

robtiffany — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:02:00 GMT

I just finished up a week of teaching attendees at the Dev Connections conference how to setup and use mobile merge replication to sync data between their Windows Mobile devices and SQL Server 2005. As usual, I brought along my favorite teaching tool, my portable data center, to take attendees on deep dives of the 4 different tiers of my replication architecture. This time around, I changed the way my stress test harness works. In the past, my goal has always been to see how many Subscribers I could connect to the system at the same time. With the new test, I'm stressing the system to a much greater degree with my software to push the envelope in regards to how many table row changes I can make per hour.

With an eye towards the stress testing system that has helped give iAnywhere's ASA database and MobiLink replication server a dominant market position, I built a similar test where the amount of data in each row changed is exactly 116 bytes each time. I think the iAnywhere stress test used 92 byte rows. I used 3 servers to create client load, 3 load-balanced IIS servers, and a separate SQL Server Distributor and Publisher. The results I got from my test harness performing 23,330 syncs per hour are nothing short of spectacular:

Rows changed: 7,000,000 per hour | 168,000,000 per day
Data replicated: 812 MB per hour | 19.4 GB per day

Now check out how the IIS and SQL Servers where just chilling out throughout this test:

IIS1: CPU: 5% | Mem: 216 MB | Network Utilization: .44%
IIS2: CPU: 7% | Mem: 147 MB | Network Utilization: .13%
IIS3: CPU: 8% | Mem: 170 MB | Network Utilization: .42%
SQL Distributor: CPU: 5% | Mem: 2.15 GB | Network Utilization: .58%
SQL Publisher: CPU: 17% | Mem: 4.25 GB | Network Utilization: 1%

Not bad! Thanks to Loke Uei, we were also able to give away 300 copies of my new book that walks you through the construction of this scalable mobile merge replication system. Lots of Windows Mobile developers and IT Pros are now empowered to "mobilize" their organization's data out to mobile field personnel. Just as important, they can take the proof back to their respective organizations that this technology is build to perform and scale!

I'm just getting started with this new test harness. Come to the Windows Mobile Partner Summit in December to see me push this system even further and break new replication records!

- Rob