DevConnections Impressions

Rafik — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:49:00 GMT

As I am writing those lines, I am waiting for my flight to Seattle after attending DevConnections conference in Las Vegas. My flight is delayed for an hour; as usual, nothing new here. On-time flights are not common nowadays. I am trying not to complain though.. so let’s keep a positive attitude here :)

About 5,000 people attended the conference this year. For me, it is my first time to DevConnections. This one is so special for me since I was able to discuss openly, for the first time, the work we have been doing for quite some time now. It is great to see the project lunched to the public and start getting a feel of how people think; what do they like and what do they want us to improve. I am not sure how many times I check the forums, quite a few times indeed. Being in the conference limits my ability to respond to your questions though but I should be getting into the mood again soon … when I get home.

I can comfortably say that the product lunch was very successful, in Europe at TechEd as well as here in Vegas. Developers who were originally working in the sync area seemed very interested to learn more, they loved the fact the Microsoft is helping about and they won’t need to think about this sync problem by themselves. I also ran into developers and IT admin who were not sure what sync framework is for. Well, considering that the word ‘sync’ is commonly used in the ‘thread and process synchronization’ context, I find it understandable. With that in mind, I used to ask people who stops by Microsoft booth whether they are building offline, sharing, roaming or collaboration application, if the answer is yes.. I then introduce them the sync framework.

Toward the end of the conference I was able to attend few sessions from non-microsoft presenters. Getting a different prospective is very useful and I learned tons of new stuff.

Overall, I had great time and for all those who I've met: it was a my pleasure to meet you!

Update: Just to let you know, I left Microsoft to start a new company, Raveable Hotel Reviews. See examples: Romantic Hotels in Myrtle Beach, Best Hotels in Seattle,Top 10 Hotels in Miami, Hotels with in-room hot tub and Kid friendly hotels in San Francisco. Your feedback is welcome on twitter.com/raveable, raveable blog.

DevConn Sync Sessions ... and where you can find me!

Rafik — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:10:00 GMT

Well, I am back as married man … yes I know I joined the club now so I will quit making jokes :( Thanks a lot for the many best wishes I got from the blog fans .. It is good to feel supported at these times :)

Back to business, as you know I am going to Vegas next month for DevConnections conference. I’ve booked my flight, hotel and everything I need. It is going to be a lot of fun. So if you are going then make sure to stop by and say hello. If you are interesting in synchronization technologies or you are building offline or sharing application then be ready to be blown away, seriously!

Below is the list of sessions that focuses on sync and related technologies. I won’t be speaking in the conf but will hang out in these sessions and will be available to answer your questions ...

VDM305: Introduction to Microsoft Sync Framework – Synchronization Framework for enabling roaming, offline, and collaboration across devices, services and applications
Time: Tuesday Nov 6 at 2:15
Track: VS/Data Access
Speaker: Lev Novik, Architect, Data Replication and Synchronization

In this session we will introduce Microsoft Sync Framework. Attendees will learn about the capabilities of the sync platform and see a demonstration of multi-master synchronization across devices and services. We will use this demonstration to guide our walk through of the key components involved in building an application using Microsoft Sync Framework. Finally we will provide a glimpse into upcoming MS products which will ship with out of the box support for Microsoft Sync Framework.

VDM306: Implementing solutions that leverage Microsoft Sync Framework to provide synchronization capabilities across devices, services and applications
Time: Tuesday Nov 6 at 4:00
Track: VS/Data Access
Speaker: Lev Novik, Architect, Data Replication and Synchronization

This session will focus on the steps a developer needs to take to incorporate synchronization into their application or services. First we will demonstrate how an existing line of business application can easily add synchronization support to allow users to work offline. Next we will describe the steps involved in building a service which exposes synchronization over SSE using Microsoft Sync Framework. We will briefly describe how support for Microsoft Sync Framework has been added for applications or services using file system or Microsoft SQL Server.

VDM301: Optimizing Online, Enabling Offline with SQL Server Compact and Sync Services for ADO.NET
Time: Tuesday Nov 6 at 4:00
Track: VS/Data Access
Speaker: Sean Kelley, Program Manager, Data Replication and Synchronization

With Microsoft SQL Server Compact, developers can now easily cache data on the client in a compact, yet capable, transactional, queryable document-like database format. To maintain the cache, Sync Services for ADO.NET enables developers to easily cache data directly or over services using WCF. Visual Studio codename “Orcas” delivers new integrated, developer-oriented sync designers making caching an easy task to increase user productivity, decrease the server workload, and simplify data access. In addition to caching, you can use Sync Services for ADO.NET to enable full offline scenarios as well. Find out what SQL Server Compact and Sync Services for ADO.NET have to offer for the “edge of the network” clients.

VDM308: The future of Sync Services for ADO.NET: Best on Katmai and the Peer to Peer Provider
Time: Thursday Nov 8 at 2:00
Track: VS/Data Access
Speaker: Sean Kelley, Program Manager, Data Replication and Synchronization

This session will focus on the enhancements being made to Sync Services for ADO.NET. First, we will discuss how Sync Services for ADO.NET is being integrated with SQL Server Change Tracking to increase developer productivity by providing integrated change tracking and conflict detection and subsequently decreasing the barrier to entry associated with implementing 2-way synchronization. In addition, this session will discuss the performance gains associated with leveraging change tracking to support scenarios with a large number of client nodes. Finally, this session will discuss how Sync Services for ADO.NET has been built on top of the sync platform currently referred to as Microsoft Sync Framework. Among other things, this platform has allowed us to extend Sync Services for ADO.NET beyond the traditional hub-spoke topology to support peer-to-peer synchronization.

Update: Just to let you know, I left Microsoft to start a new company, Raveable Hotel Reviews. See examples: Top 10 Hotels in Myrtle Beach, Best Hotels in NYC,Romantic Hotels in Seattle, Kid Friendly Hotels in Orlando and Top 10 Hotels in San Diego. Your feedback is welcome on twitter.com/raveable, raveable blog.

The Synchronizer : DevConn

DevConnections Impressions

DevConn Sync Sessions ... and where you can find me!