Moving the Needle

SnapFlow Adopts Silverlight 4 - Keynotes at PDC09

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2010-01-17T20:15:13Z

In a previous post I covered SnapFlow, a tool that allows for a non-developers to easily define and deploy workflow applications. In short, SnapFlow leverages Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to define and power those workflows which, in turn, run in the cloud. The underlying workflows are defined by XML and this allows one to easily store a workflow definition (and resulting state) into a database store (like SQL Server). SQL Server allows you to natively store, query, and process XML.

Up until now, the SnapFlow tool has been a Silverlight 2 application. At PDC09 in Los Angeles, during the day 2 keynote (begins at 53:40) by Scott Guthrie, Silverlight 4 beta was announced. During Scott Guthrie’s session, SnapFlow founder Samad Wahedi spoke about the SnapFlow tool and how they are able to support Direct Buy and integration to their LOB systems. (Read more here about the SnapFlow announcement.)

“SnapFlow is the most sophisticated line of business application I’ve seen yet and demonstrates the rich internet applications that can be built with Silverlight ,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president, Microsoft Corp. “SnapFlow’s innovative architecture enables people to design, build and automate the workflow - whether as simple as an expense report process or as complex as order management from a legacy system - without any programming.”

At the heart of Silverlight 4 is ‘full trust’ and ‘offline’ RIA application support which allows for rich integration possibilities directly to and with local applications and other 3rd party LOB systems accessible via the local network. Some of the integration-specific capabilities specifically mentioned during the keynote include local file system access, cross-site networking, hardware device access, COM automation support, and (as you would imagine) Microsoft Office integration.

The ability for SnapFlow to take advantage of these new integration features is very compelling. It will take the SnapFlow tool to new heights, especially for those scenarios that require integration to other applications and systems. SnapFlow is in the process of developing a new Silverlight 4 release and anyone can sign-up for a free 90-day trial offering. The updated tool will be available at a date closely corresponding to Silverlight 4’s general availability. (a date is not available at this time but is expected in the coming months)

Incidentally, other Silverlight 4 capabilities mentioned during the keynote include media enhancements like webcam and microphone support, H.264 output protection, and offline DRM capabilities. Business application support like printing, rich textbox, direct clipboard access, mouse right click and wheel support, implicit styles, native drag-n-drop, improved controls, simple data binding, windowing APIs, notification pop-ups, and HTML support. (Please note that all of this is subject to change.)

Here is some specific content (and demos) available on Scott Guthrie’s blog that talk about some of the new Silverlight 4 capabilities mentioned during PDC09.

Partners Involved

Interknowlogy expertise and talent (led by Tim Huckaby) drove the pilot to upgrade the SnapFlow tool to Silverlight 4 for the PDC09 keynote demo.

SoftSource (led by Shaun McAravey) played an important role and led the port of SnapFlow to the Windows Azure platform for PDC09.

A big THANK YOU to both partners for thier great work ethic and professionalism through the PDC process.

To read more about SnapFlow’s involvement at PDC09 please refer to the following:

SnapFlow Unveiled in PDC09 Keynote
SnapFlow.com Front Page Feature (PDC)
Microsoft Showcases Developer Opportunities for Windows and the Web
Press Kit
Tim Huckaby Blog
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Microsoft In-Person Architect Councils in the West Region (December) ~ 2101: A Cloud Odyssey

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-11-25T23:55:35Z

Architect Council | 2010: A Cloud Odyssey

The forecast for 2010 is looking very cloudy, with every technology company delivering some type of cloud offering, and analysts estimating that almost everyone will try some form of cloud computing. But from a practical stand point, how should organizations leverage cloud computing effectively? Is it to simply host existing and legacy assets somewhere else, or to create next-generation applications that enable differentiated capabilities? In addition, what role does SOA play in the age of cloud computing? And does this impact the way we manage and interact with data?

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this half-day event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies and insights with peers. This forum will provide first-hand experiences and best practices intended to help the community to collectively discover and generate knowledge.

Please join us for this opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other thought leaders.

Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350831&Culture=en-US
(no referral code necessary)

Event Summary

Provide a clear and profound understanding of Microsoft's cloud strategy and roadmap, and latest updates on the Windows Azure Platform
Discuss the state of SOA, and its relevance in the age of cloud computing
Review case studies and models of cloud usage, and examine approaches to build next-generation capabilities leveraging the cloud
Explore trade-offs, best practices, and guidance on today's myriad of data storage options
Explain the differences and patterns of using various data interaction frameworks

Who Should Attend

Technology and business stakeholders, including CTOs, CIOs, VPs, Directors, Program and Product Managers, Architects, Lead Engineers, and IT Managers

Agenda

12:45PM: Introduction and Announcements
01:00PM: Windows Azure Platform - Overview of the Microsoft Cloud
01:30PM: SOA and Cloud Computing
02:00PM: Architecting Solutions Leveraging the Cloud
02:30PM: Making Sense of the Expanding Range of Data Storage Solutions
03:15PM: Best Practices with Data Interaction Frameworks
04:00PM: Groupthink

When & Where

(no referral code necessary for any registration)

Date: December 01, 2009
Location: Irvine, CA
Event ID: 1032350826
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350826&Culture=en-US

Date: December 2, 2009:
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Event ID: 1032350827
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350827&Culture=en-US

Date: December 3, 2009
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Event ID: 1032350828
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350828&Culture=en-US

Date: December 8, 2009
Location: Mountain View, CA
Event ID: 1032350833
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350833&Culture=en-US

Date: December 9, 2009
Location: San Francisco, CA
Event ID: 1032350830
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350830&Culture=en-US

Date: December 10, 2009
Location: Seattle, WA
Event ID: 1032350831
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350831&Culture=en-US

Date: December 15, 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Event ID: 1032350832
Event URL: http://wweventstest.one.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032350832&Culture=en-US

Hosts

David Chou
Architect, Microsoft
http://blogs.msdn.com/dachou

David Chou is a technical architect at Microsoft, focused on collaborating with enterprises and organizations in areas such as cloud computing, SOA, Web, distributed systems, security, etc., and supporting decision makers on defining evolutionary strategies in architecture. Drawing on experiences from his previous jobs at Sun Microsystems and Accenture, David enjoys helping customers create value from using objective and pragmatic approaches to define IT strategies, roadmaps, and solution architectures.

Joe Shirey
Architect, Microsoft
http://www.joeshirey.com

Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist for Microsoft based in the Denver area. In this role, Joe works closely with customers and the community to help them understand where Microsoft technologies fit into the architecture of their solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Joe was a Vice President at Interlink group where he was responsible for service and delivery for Interlink's Denver market. In the past, Joe was a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board, and sat on the .NET Partner Advisory Council. Joe has more than eighteen years of hands-on technical and functional experience in project management, systems analysis, design, development, and implementation. Joe attained his Microsoft Certified Architect award in 2005.

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December Architect Innovation Cafe Webcast - Securing REST Services with the Access Control Service

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-11-25T23:34:59Z

Each month through June 2010, we'll bring you a 90-minute Architect focused Webcast on the latest trends/topics and how new technologies can align with your business needs.

Date/Time: December 22, 2009 at 11:00am - 12:30pm PST

Title: Securing REST-Based Services with the Azure Access Control Service

Presenter: Michele Leroux Bustamante

Abstract: The Access Control Service (ACS), part of Windows Azure platform AppFabric, makes it easy to secure REST-based services using a simple set of standard protocols. In addition to enabling secure calls to REST-based services from any client, the ACS uniquely makes it possible to secure calls from client-side script, and enables federation scenarios with REST-based services. This webcast will provide a tour of ACS features and demonstrate scenarios where the ACS can be employed to secure REST-based WCF services and other web resources. You'll learn how to configure ACS, learn how to request a token from the ACS, and learn how applications and services can authorize access based on the ACS token.

Event ID: 1032435379

Link to Register: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032435379&Culture=en-US

SPEAKER BIO

Michele Leroux Bustamante

Michele Leroux Bustamante brings a well-rounded skill set to the IDesign, including expertise not just in architecture and technology but also in interoperability, management, and operations. Michele is not only an IDesign Chief Architect, she is also Microsoft Regional Director for San Diego, Microsoft MVP for Connected Systems and a BEA Technical Director. In addition, Michele is a member of the board of directors for the International Association of Software Architects (IASA). With over 15 years of experience designing enterprise systems, prior to IDesign Michele has held senior executive positions at several corporations. She has assembled and organized software development teams from the ground up, implemented processes for all aspects of the software development lifecycle, and facilitated many successful large-scale enterprise application deployments, including capital fund raising, sales, and business development efforts. Michele specializes in training, mentoring and high-end architecture consulting services focusing on Web services, scalable and secure architecture design for .NET, federated security scenarios, web services, interoperability and globalization architecture. She participates in Software Design Reviews for products in the Microsoft roadmap, including WCF and CardSpace. During the Beta 1 phase Michele participated in prototyping elements of the CardSpace technology for the product team. Michele has been advisor to University of California, San Diego Extension since 1994, establishing several successful certificate programs. Michele is a member of the International .NET Speakers Association (INETA); a frequent conference presenter at major technology conferences such as Tech Ed, PDC, SD and Dev Connections. Michele is the conference chair for SD's Web Services/SOA and Web Development tracks; and she regularly publishes in several technology journals. Michele's latest book is Learning WCF (O'Reilly, 2007). Visit her book blog at www.thatindigogirl.com or her main blog at www.dasblonde.net..

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WEBCAST Architect Council | Innovation is the Name of the Game

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-08-21T23:01:58Z

ARCHITECT COUNCIL | Innovation is the Name of the Game

Architects: Adverse times are also best times for innovation! Choosing the right battles to fight, and reinventing ourselves with less resources are par for the course today. However, not all innovation needs to be revolutionary or transformative. In fact, in the current economic crisis, opportunities for innovation can be found in aspects of our core competencies, and implemented as incremental and iterative changes.

For this series of Architect Council live webcasts on August 24 and 25, we will discuss two of the many ways architects can innovate by recognizing the impact to architects, and learning how to effectively leverage cloud computing beyond just another place to host existing assets.

DAY 1 – August 24, 2009 at Noon PST

Role of the Architect in Turbulent Times -- Event ID: 1032423112

Miha Kralj – Architect, Microsoft

With faltering economies and the resulting shift of priorities - architects must be ready for change in their role. Innovative new technologies such as Cloud Based Computing, Software as a Service and Virtualization open up new and exciting opportunities for architects to show value in their organizations. In this session we will discuss how the role of the architect has changed, introduce new architectural patterns, and show how to "do more with less".

Link to Register: ARCHITECT COUNCIL | Innovation is the Name of the Game Day 1 Live Meeting

DAY 2 – August 25, 2009 at Noon PST

A Closer Look at an Internet Service Bus -- Event ID: 1032423113

Clemens Vasters – Program Manager .NET Online Services, Microsoft

Look under the hood of the Microsoft .NET Services service bus - the protocols we use- and how to use the services from non-Microsoft platforms and languages. Learn which part of the messages and requests the Building Block service inspects, which parts are not inspected, and how you can verify this. Also, learn how to work through NAT and Firewall limitations. Lastly, hear about architecture on the Data Center side that enables "Internet scale”.

Link to Register: ARCHITECT COUNCIL | Innovation is the Name of the Game Day 2 Live Meeting

SPEAKER BIOS

Miha Kralj

As a senior architect on the Microsoft Platform Architecture Team, Miha Kralj is responsible for leading architectural communities, helping the architectural profession to mature and grow, and coordinating activities within professional architectural organizations and bodies. Miha is a Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA), Project Management Professional (PMP), and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). He was also a founding member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) chapters in Slovenia and Yugoslavia.

Clemens Vasters

Clemens Vasters is a Principal Technical Lead in the .NET Services team, working in an architect role on the 'Service Bus' feature area and acting – more behind the scenes – as the architect for the Billing feature area and as the architect/lead developer for the internal Provisioning infrastructure of .NET Services. Before joining Microsoft some 3 years ago, Clemens spoke at many conferences, taught technology, and helped companies with software architecture in over 35 countries.

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Silverlight 3 FireStarter | Thursday, September 17th, 2009 - Live Meeting Available

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-08-21T22:46:25Z

This summer, Mithun Dhar is at it again with a Silverlight 3 FireStarter event to take place in Redmond, WA on September 17^th, and you can attend the event via Live Meeting.

There are some terrific speakers lined-up. Scott Guthrie will keynote the event followed by presentations from Tim Heuer, Brad Abrams, Karl Shifflett and others. For this particular FireStarter, we will focus on three areas:

We’ll give you a “latest and greatest” overview of the recent Silverlight 3 release
We’ll catch you up with what’s happening in the world of Expression 3, and
We’ll give you a run down on .NET RIA Services, associated Toolkits, and more.

Mithun has blogged about the event specifics, and he also covers the registration process. Hope to see you there in person or virtually.

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Startups Cootendy and Overcast Media Adopt Silverlight

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-06-19T23:11:23Z

Two very interesting startups in the Seattle area have adopted Silverlight, Cootendy’s WaresDinner site for foodies and Overcast Media’s new overcast player.

WaresDinner offers exotic dinner party experience kits containing fair trade wares. They establish a fair trade US market for World artists through a dinner party kit featuring the tableware and culinary traditions of the artist’s country. Customers buy an “experience kit” containing all the components needed to create an exotic culinary experience, including hand-made table linens, menus, shopping list, wine pairing advice, indigenous music, invitations, country and artist profiles, and on-line support and suppliers. Since the consumer acquires collectible table ware, Cootendy’s goal is to make the investment and dinner experience lasting. Bringing people together to share both the cooking and the experience of new cuisines, capitalizes on the demand for unique culinary experiences, the expanding global market for ethnic items, and the desire to support a socially conscious business.

Overcast Media is enabling a new shared entertainment experience through the interplay of user-generated content and professional digital media. They allow any user to augment media, like television shows and movies, with audio commentary, Web links, and ‘pop-up video’ style text and graphics. This is fondly called “overcasting”. Overcasts can be shared on the Web and are distributed independently from the video. Recently, they have developed a Silverlight player to generate and play user-generated overcast content.

Worth noting, Overcast Media has developed a patent-pending ‘Relative Timeline Technology’ that enables an “author once, sync everywhere” media playback capability. The technology normalizes for file format and timing variances found across video sources. Overcasting provides incentive for viewers to become deeply involved in a show’s community and gives them a reason to watch a show (or portion) more than once. This translates to increased advertising opportunities and better audience data by drawing users to online content.

IdentityMine is a design and development partner that assisted Overcast Media in building the Silverlight player for overcasting.

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John L. Scott Real Estate Enables Online Social Networking with Live Services and Silverlight

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-05-26T16:25:52Z

John L. Scott Real Estate (JLS) is delivering a unique social networking solution, called JLSconnect, that makes it easier for buyers to shop for a home and it will help JLS agents win new business and keep customers. By building this new solution using Microsoft software and a Software+Services approach, John L. Scott was able to deliver unique customer value quickly and cost-effectively. The company has easily repackaged existing Web functionality, combined it with new capabilities provided by Microsoft Live Services, and delivered it all through a user experience powered by Silverlight and optimized for the task at hand: collaborating with family, friends, and a John L. Scott agent when shopping for a home.

In previous posts [1][2][3], I’ve talked about real examples of S+S and how this new and emerging pattern of computing is helping businesses to meet demands, to support customers in new ways, and to differentiate themselves from the competition.

A History of Innovation

The JLS Web site receives more than one million visitors and produces more than nine million listing views each month, and was one of the first real estate sites to use the Microsoft Virtual Earth service to provide rich online mapping capabilities.

“We’re an early adopter of new technology because it enables us to meet new customer needs,” says Pat Giles, Vice President of Marketing and IT at John L. Scott. “Fifteen years ago, potential home buyers first found an agent, who then used a printed copy of the Multiple Listing Service book to help them find a home. Today, the average home buyer goes online to look at homes before ever talking with an agent. Given that customers today expect to be able to go to our Web site and get all the information they need, the challenge we face is ‘How do we exceed those expectations?’”

This leads the discussion to what John L. Scott Real Estate is doing with JLSconnect, a new offering that facilitates social networking during the home shopping process.

Ideas around JLSconnect began in mid-2008 when John L. Scott began looking at how to improve online collaboration when buyers are searching for a home. “Purchasing a home is a social, collaborative event that often involves more than two people,” says Giles. “For example, the main person an agent is working with may want to share properties and get input from his or her spouse, other family members, and so on. Given that 44 percent of buyers already use social networking tools, and that online behavior in general is continuing to move that way, we knew that we had to support the trend.” Additionally, JLS wanted to do so in a way that would make their Web site ‘stickier’ and capture buyers earlier in the home-search process, thereby benefiting their agents.

JLSconnect uses a Silverlight client to combine existing Web site features and several Live Services into an integrated collaboration experience.

The Solution

John L. Scott is leveraging Microsoft cloud services to encourage buyers to collaborate directly with friends, family, and agents on the company’s main Web site, which provides increased convenience for all parties while helping the company and its agents further differentiate themselves from the competition. JLSconnect, uses a software-plus-services approach in which software running on user desktops integrates with centralized, Web-based services hosted by John L. Scott and Microsoft to provide entirely new capabilities through a combination of existing, familiar tools.

This might a good point to backup slightly and to talk about the Azure Services Platform, of which Live Services is one of a growing number of building block components contained therein.

Live Services is highlighted in red as one of the major components of the cloud platform. The other components are out of scope to this post, so (for now) I will concentrate on the Live Services and those constituent building blocks used in JLSconnect.

The solution uses Microsoft Silverlight to enrich the collaboration experience provided by the company’s existing Web site, pulling together preexisting Web site features—the ability for individuals to log in and save “favorite” properties—with new functionality that makes it possible for people to easily share and exchange comments on those properties with others.

The Live Services that JLSconnect takes advantage of include:

• Windows Live ID, a hosted cloud service which provides single sign-on capabilities across the company’s Web site and growing ecosystem of Live Services by allowing users to login to the John L. Scott Web site using the same online ID that they use for Messenger and other Live services.

• Windows Live Contacts, a service that contains ‘contacts’ for every user identified by a Live ID. Live Contacts offers a foundation to social networking activities because it all starts with the ability to identify and track friends and family, namely—your contacts.

• Windows Live Messenger, a client and hosted chat service, which users can launch from within the Silverlight client to chat with others (your Live Contacts) in real time.

• Windows Live Presence, a service which enables users to see which of their Messenger contacts are online and available to chat.

• Microsoft Virtual Earth, a service which enables users to easily visualize the locations of their favorite properties in a rich online map.

“A software-plus-services approach helped us to take existing features of our Web site, add collaboration and single sign-on capabilities to cloud services, and deliver all that functionality through a new and exciting user experience,” says Giles.

Work on the project began in June 2008, when John L. Scott began speaking with a local Microsoft field evangelist about how it could allow users to sign in to the company’s Web site—and thus take advantage of existing features like favorites lists—using a Windows Live ID rather than a separate user name and password. “As we started to educate ourselves on the possibilities, we realized that also integrating with Windows Live Messenger would be fairly easy—and that it would give us a lot bigger return in terms of business value,” says Giles.

Development and Architecture

Having minimal hands-on experience with some of the technologies it wanted to use, JLS enlisted the aid of SharpLogic and nsquared Solutions, Microsoft Certified Partners with proven expertise in Silverlight and Live services. “By assembling a team consisting of both our own developers and Microsoft partners, we were able to accelerate solution development and quickly bring our own people up-to-speed,” says Giles. “We now have new technology skills that we can apply to other projects as well.”

After a few meetings to discuss the envisioned solution, the project team began development. A designer used Microsoft Expression Design software to come up with a compelling user experience, while developers used Microsoft Expression Blend and the Visual Studio 2008 Professional development system to build the Silverlight client in which that user experience would reside. Other developers began working on what would need to happen behind the scenes—such as which new Web services John L. Scott would need to expose, and how to associate Windows Live IDs with existing Web site user names and passwords.

“By using the Expression and Visual Studio 2008 tools, both of which are based on Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), the team’s designer and developers were able to easily share projects, code, and UI designs—the end result being an improved ability to deliver the desired user experience,” says Giles.

The following high-level architecture diagram depicts the major building block components of the application and how the software-plus-services vision from Microsoft comes into play:

The high-level architecture of JLSconnect and how it enables S+S.

The JLSconnect experience is powered by Silverlight 2.0, which enables it to provide interactivity to the HTML markup. The Silverlight application uses the Live Presence service to show which other users are online, the Live Messenger client running on user desktops for online chat, and the Messenger service hosted by Microsoft to deliver those messages. Web services at the John L. Scott data center that the Silverlight client calls are based on .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Compelling User Experience

With its new collaboration solution, John L. Scott is providing increased customer value during the process of shopping for a home. Users can log in to the realtor’s Web site using their Windows Live ID, save homes they like to their favorites, and then easily share those favorites with others. Users can also see others’ favorites that they have been invited to view, and can post and view comments on individual properties in both their own and others’ favorites lists. Users can see which of their contacts are online through integration with Windows Live Presence and can initiate a Windows Live Messenger session to collaborate with them at any time.

“We’re making it extremely easy for someone to find a property they like, share it with others, and get feedback—without having to cut and paste or share the same user name and password,” says Giles. “Not only does this provide increased convenience, but it can help buyers to make faster decisions—potentially enabling them to find the right house and make an offer on it before someone else does. And although the solution is optimized for buyers, it’s useful to sellers as well, in that they can use it to keep an eye on other homes that are on the market.”

By building on top of Live services, John L. Scott is delivering its new capabilities through tools with which users are already familiar. “Lots of Web sites have built their own instant messaging clients, but many of them are quite primitive and/or have major latency problems,” says Giles. “By integrating with Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live ID, we’re avoiding all those issues while enabling customers to use tools that they already know and trust.”

Bring Back Customers

For John L. Scott, the company’s main motivation for developing its new solution is an increased ability to attract customers to its Web site—and keep them coming back. “To successfully compete, we need to delight users instead of delivering the same mundane stuff as everyone else—and Microsoft software helps us do that,” says Giles. “Our new collaboration tool helps us to capture buyers earlier in the process, creates ‘stickiness’ on our Web site, and promotes customer loyalty—with a built-in social marketing aspect that drives friends and family to our Web site as well.”

John L. Scott also expects its new solution to help the company attract and retain agents. “We compete for three types of customers: buyers, sellers, and agents—and the reality is that we have a solution that people want,” says Giles. “I anticipate that some people with agents who work for other real estate companies will take advantage of our tools and invite their own agents to our site, and some of those agents may realize that working for JLS enables them to offer tools that their own companies can’t match. Other Web sites will probably copy us, but by that time we’ll have figured out yet another way to offer unique customer value.”

Low Development Costs and Rapid Time-to-Market

With a software-plus-services approach based on Microsoft software and services, JLS was able to deliver its unique customer solution and begin realizing the corresponding business benefits with minimal investment and effort. “A software-plus-services approach enabled us to focus on the user experience, letting services ‘in the cloud’ do all the ‘heavy lifting’ with respect to security, reliable messaging, and so on,” says Giles. “In fact, we probably wouldn’t have taken on delivering such a rich solution if we had to develop it entirely from scratch. Many companies today are avoiding all software development, whereas our philosophy is to spend wisely, continue to innovate, and take advantage of the opportunity to pull further ahead of the competition.”

Increased Visibility as an Industry Leader

John L. Scott’s new JLSconnect solution further reinforces the company’s position and visibility as an industry leader, and a visionary in the use of technology to connect with customers in new and innovative ways. What makes this so interesting is that John L. Scott is composing four ‘cloud’ building block services—Live ID, Live Contacts, Live Presence, Live Messenger, and Virtual Earth—into its on-premises powered Web site, all powered by a Silverlight interface to glue the experience together. JLS is the first real estate company to embrace social networking in such a way. They’re targeting their Gen X and Gen Y agents with this solution to begin the process of reinventing how consumers and agents can collaborate around the home buying experience. It represents the most advanced thinking to date in the real estate industry.

To see a short interview on JLSconnect with Pat Giles, please hit the play button below:

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Architect Council (Webcasts): Pragmatic Patterns for Architects

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-05-23T13:33:49Z

“Cloud computing will supersede traditional IT”, “SOA will enable business agility”, “my way or the highway”, etc. We’ve all heard this type of proclamation before, as many look to the “next big things” in technology to exact sweeping changes and solve many issues; truth is, technologies and tools aren’t as instrumental in influencing progress, as the design and discipline in applying them to specific issues. When used appropriately, technologies and tools can be powerful enablers that bring about change.

One of the things we hear a lot working with the community is a desire for more guidance about how to use the technology instead of just talking about features and functions. To address this, our team has put together a series of live webcasts on June 9-11 which will focus on guidance and patterns for some of today’s hottest topics.

DAY 1 – June 9, 2009 at Noon PST

Patterns for Moving to the Cloud
Larry Clarkin & Wade Wegner

Everything that you read these days seems to suggest that you should be moving to the cloud. But where do you start? Which applications and services should be moving to the cloud? How do you build the bridge between on-premises and the cloud? And more importantly, what should you be looking out for along the way? In this session, learn architectural patterns and factors for moving to the cloud. Based on real-world projects, the session explores building block services, patterns for exposing applications, and challenges involving identity, data federation, and management. This session provides the tools and knowledge to determine whether cloud computing is right for you, and where to start.

DAY 2 – June 10, 2009 at Noon PST

Building Silverlight & WPF Applications with Prism
David Hill

Prism provides guidance, via design patterns, to help you build robust, flexible and modular Silverlight and WPF applications. These patterns support unit testing, separation of concerns, loose coupling and the ability to share application logic between Silverlight and WPF applications. Prism includes source code for the library itself, extensive documentation, and a sample application that shows how the patterns work together in a real-world application. It also includes a Visual Studio add-in to help you easily share code between WPF and Silverlight. This session provides an overview of Prism, and shows how you can use Prism to design and build composite Silverlight applications.

DAY 3 – June 11, 2009 at Noon PST

Patterns for Parallel Computing
David Chou

With recent advances in cloud computing, service-oriented architectures, distributed computing, server virtualization, multi-core processors; we are now seeing parallel computing techniques being implemented across the spectrum. It’s moving towards mainstream applications such as internet-scale web applications, massive data processing, graphics rendering, but the myriad of choices also present a number of questions on when and how to utilize parallel computing. This session explores the architectural patterns and trade-offs between different forms of parallel computing including: approaches for utilizing them to improve application performance, optimizing the use of existing infrastructure, and applying concurrency towards day-to-day enterprise information processing needs.

WEBCAST AGENDA

11:45 AM (PST)	Open for Dial-in
12:00 PM (PST)	Day’s Content
12:50 PM (PST)	Q&A
01:00 PM (PST)	Raffle and Close

REGISTER

To register, please click on the link below for each day:

	Title	Event ID	Link to Register
Day 1 6/9/09	Patterns for Moving to the Cloud	1032416875	http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032416875&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
Day 2 6/10/09	Building Silverlight & WPF Applications with Prism	1032416983	http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032416983&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
Day 3 6/11/09	Patterns for Parallel Computing	1032416984	http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032416984&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

We will email you with the LIVE MEETING information and log-in detail a few days before the actual event. We will use the email address you provide in the registration. Thanks!

SPEAKER BIOS

Larry Clarkin - SR ARCHITECT EVANGELIST, Microsoft
Wade Wegner - SR ARCHITECT EVANGELIST, Microsoft
Architect in the Developer & Platform Evangelism division at Microsoft, tasked to collaborate with organizations in the advanced and emergent areas of enterprise architecture, SOA, Web 2.0, and cloud computing, as well as to support decision makers on defining technology adoption strategies. You can reach Wade at his blog http://www.architectingwith.net/ or through twitter at http://twitter.com/wadewegner.

David Hill – PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT, Microsoft Patterns & Practices Team

David Chou – ARCHITECT, Microsoft
Architect in the Developer & Platform Evangelism organization at Microsoft, focused on collaborating with enterprises and organizations in many areas such as cloud computing, SOA, Web, RIA, distributed systems, security, etc., and supporting decision makers on defining evolutionary strategies in architecture. Drawing on experiences from his previous jobs at Sun Microsystems and Accenture, David enjoys helping customers create value from using objective and pragmatic approaches to define IT strategies, roadmaps, and solution architectures.

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SnapFlow Prefers Silverlight over Flash for their Workflow Tool

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-05-13T23:00:27Z

As far back as 2001 Samad Wahedi began to notice the gradual migration of work to the Web. He saw that people were doing more activities online, from banking to social networking, and people needed tools for performing certain tasks. Wahedi and his business partner Gopinath Dhanakodi knew that the traditional way for users to get software tools was through their company’s IT department, which usually involved a long wait.

Wahedi and Dhanakodi decided that there was a business opportunity in creating software tools that the average business user could use to create workflows, which are the key building blocks of most business processes. They reasoned that users should have an easy way to design and automate process workflows “themselves” rather than waiting for the IT department to build a specialized applications. In 2007, Wahedi launched SnapFlow, a Portland, Oregon-based based startup chartered with bringing workflow to the masses. Today, Wahedi is Chief Executive Officer of SnapFlow, and Dhanakodi is Vice President of Engineering. SnapFlow enables important elements Microsoft’s vision around Software-plus-Services (S+S), and they are an important actor in the broader cloud ecosystem.

SnapFlow uses the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) (tutorials) and the Microsoft Silverlight™ browser plug-in to create a Web-based workflow design tool called SnapFlow (see video tour). Business people use SnapFlow (the tool) to build simple or complex workflows online using simple point-and-click and drag-and-drop actions. Users visit the SnapFlow Web site and simply click the “Start a Flow” button to begin building a workflow for any business process, such as hiring a new person or purchasing supplies. Users can transfer completed SnapFlow workflows to a Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 site. They can also integrate forms created with the Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007 information-gathering program.

Traditional methods of creating workflows using business process management solutions can take three to six months; creating workflows with SnapFlow takes minutes or hours. Also, enterprise business process management software costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, making it “nearly impossible to realize a return on your investment [ROI],” Wahedi says. “Building workflows in SnapFlow provides an almost immediate ROI. Plus, nontechnical people can describe processes themselves, in a very visual way, so nothing gets lost in translation in working with technical folks.” Another savings comes from companies not having to pay expensive software engineers to create and modify workflows.

Broader Market Reach using Software-Plus-Services

Perhaps just as compelling as the capabilities of SnapFlow is the firm’s implementation method—over the Web. Users simply download a free copy of Microsoft Silverlight on their desktop or portable computer. All workflow data and the execution engine are stored in SnapFlow’s hosting infrastructure. Deploying its solution using a software-plus-services approach enables SnapFlow to minimize up-front investment for customers and maximize customer access. Traditionally, when customers want to try out a software program, they have to download and configure the program. It’s a huge time and resource commitment, especially if they need to configure servers first. With software-plus-services, customers can try our software in minutes rather than waiting a couple of weeks. Software-plus-services gives us the ability to reach a broad audience very inexpensively.”

The software-plus-services approach also gives independent software vendors like SnapFlow new possibilities for enriching their applications and broadening delivery models. “The combination of powerful client software, in this case, Silverlight, and a cloud-based service provides a powerful new software development and distribution model,” Wahedi says. “We can develop capabilities without concern for the back-end infrastructure required to run it, because there is infinite processing power in the cloud. But having powerful locally-installed software makes the user experience even better. We are now free to create solutions that take advantage of rich desktop software.” With software-plus-services, SnapFlow gets the richness of the desktop with the reach of the Web.

Silverlight over Flash for Faster Development

When it was time to design the interface that users would employ to design workflows, SnapFlow narrowed its development choices to Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, which Microsoft has just released in 2007. "Adobe Flash is widely used in many business applications, has a big user community, and has a fairly sophisticated feature set," Dhanakodi says. "Silverlight was very new, and we were concerned that we wouldn't find sufficient help in the development community." So SnapFlow committed to Adobe Flash to support the development of the SnapFlow user-interface.

A few weeks into prototype development, Dhanakodi and his team were disappointed with the progress that they had made. The user interface looked clunky, and even simple changes took a long time to implement. Around the same time, SnapFlow consulted SoftSource Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Portland, to validate its technology and design decisions. SoftSource was an avid proponent of Silverlight and offered to demonstrate the capabilities of that software by replicating SnapFlow’s Flash prototype. A few days later, SoftSource demonstrated how SnapFlow could build its workflow in Silverlight, and the SnapFlow team was impressed.

“We decided that Silverlight was worth investigating in more detail,” Dhanakodi says. “Within a month, our team had made huge progress using Silverlight. Our team was able to learn the new tools and build a fairly sophisticated prototype without any support.”

Shaun McAravey, Co-Founder and Chief Architect for SoftSource says, “Windows Workflow Foundation and Silverlight are sufficiently approachable technologies that a competent technical team can get up to speed and produce a remarkable product in very little time. SnapFlow really sped up its development using these tools.”

SnapFlow has a more detailed blog post discussing why they chose Silverlight over Flash.

I would like to thank Tim Heuer for his recent blog post on SnapFlow.

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Microsoft .NET Services Whitepapers Released

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-05-11T19:53:26Z

Microsoft .NET Services whitepapers are now available from the Microsoft download centers. Those whitepapers can be found at the following location:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5057e2b3-c8e5-4b26-a601-ff9621589ce3&DisplayLang=en

Here is a summary of the available whitepapers:

An Introduction to Microsoft .NET Services for Developers. This overview paper introduces Microsoft® .NET Services, each of its building block services, and how they fit together.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Access Control Service. This whitepaper shows developers how to use a claims-based identity model and the Microsoft® .NET Access Control Service – part of the Microsoft® .NET Services family – to implement single sign-on, federated identity, and role based access control in Web applications and services.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Service Bus. This whitepaper shows developers how to use the .NET Service Bus – part of the Microsoft® .NET Services family – to provide a secure, standards-based messaging fabric to connect applications across the Internet.

A Developer’s Guide to the Microsoft® .NET Workflow Service. This whitepaper provides details about the Microsoft® .NET Workflow Service, its relation to Windows Workflow Foundation, and what developers need to know to begin building workflows for the cloud. It not only explains the current tools and capabilities but also outlines the vision for future releases.

I hope you find these whitepapers useful.

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John L Scott Real Estate Looks to WPF and Software + Services

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-05-06T17:10:51Z

Microsoft uses the term "Software+Services" to describe a vision of computing that harmonizes client and server software with cloud services [S+S Strategy]. Rich software components that either exist on client machines or installed on-premise within a datacenter can leverage building block components that exist as cloud services. In many ways, this is not much different than, let’s say, accessing software components (such as Web services perhaps) in one’s own datacenter in order to build composite applications.

Microsoft’s broad platform offering gives customers a rich set of choices to weave together applications from growing collection of software and service offerings. In this particular post I’d like to address a combination of rich client (RIA) technology, namely Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft’s Live Services cloud offering, and on-premise assets that are brought together as one cohesive solution. To make matters more interesting, this ‘solution’ addresses a real world business scenario. The company in question that is testing and honing this model in John L. Scott Real Estate.

Founded in 1931, John L. Scott Real Estate has 400 employees, 3,600 agents, and 133 offices throughout the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The company closed nearly 32,000 transactions in 2008, generating $9 billion in sales and making John L. Scott Real Estate one of the top real estate companies in the nation and a regional power. Under the guidance of Lennox Scott, the third-generation Scott to lead the family business, John L. Scott has established itself as a leader in the use of technology to reach out to customers in new ways.

In early 2009, John L. Scott Real Estate (JLS) began looking at how it could provide greater value to real estate ‘sellers’. As most of us are aware, there are many tools for real estate buyers but few that are designed for sellers, therefore JLS saw the opportunity to deliver a solution that would focus on the seller’s thirst for information, enabling them to work more closely with JLS agents to sell their home quickly yet maximize the price.

To deliver on its vision, JLS had to bring together information from several sources and deliver it through a rich, unified user experience. They not only had to deliver a lot of diverse data, but they had to provide an easy way for sellers to assimilate that data. Sellers already have access to some of that data, but it’s scattered across different Web pages, while other data that sellers commonly want is available only through their agents. Their goal was to bring all that information together and present it to sellers in a way that associates strong value to the JLS brand.

Solution

In May 2009, JLS finished a pilot development effort specifically geared to assist sellers. Developed with assistance from Microsoft Certified Partner Artefact, JLS used a Software + Services approach to connect to their data center and the Microsoft Virtual Earth™ online mapping platform, combining information from both sources and presenting it to users through a rich, interactive user experience based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Artefact, headquartered in Seattle, is the firm that researched, designed,
and built the rich WPF-based user experiece.[blog, about]

“The proof-of-concept was to help us figure out what kind of information sellers are looking for and, more importantly, how to deliver that data,” says Pat Giles, Vice President of Marketing and Information Technology at JLS. With WPF, Virtual Earth, and a software-plus-services approach, they’ve been able to combine information from different sources and deliver it though a rich user experience. “The look and feel of the application is stunning, and will make digesting information on market trends and online activity an enjoyable experience for sellers”, says Giles.

Rich User Experience

A screen shot of the seller application is shown below. For the proof-of-concept, JLS focused on delivering general market trends, an overview of online interest in the seller’s home, and information on open houses and new properties for sale in the surrounding area. The application provides information about how effectively the seller’s own home is marketed, which can provide key data that allows the seller and the agent to calibrate their marketing efforts. Similar metrics to other homes are also available in order to keep track of ‘competitive’ resources.

While part of the solution’s appeal is the wealth of information it provides, the way it presents that data is just as impressive. “We had to deliver a user experience that was grounded in business reality for JLS—and thus useful and practical for sellers,” says Agnieszka Girling, Director of Product Strategy at Artefact. “We used Windows Presentation Foundation and Virtual Earth to bring all of the data around selling a home to life in new and exciting ways—including lots of 3-D charts, graphs, and maps that make it easy to visualize and understand the information.”

Development and Architecture

The application is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, is written in C#, and was developed using Microsoft Expression Design tool and the Visual Studio 2008 development platform. Developers used Microsoft Expression Blend software and Visual C# to fine-tune the XAML, adjust the behavior of the user interface, and connect it to the back-end services. The application also takes advantage of 3D Tools for Windows Presentation Foundation and InfoStrat.VE, both of which can be found on the CodePlex Web site.

WCF-based Web services using the BasicHTTP binding were developed by JLS developers, and per a JLS goal they were able to maintain the use of Microsoft SQL Server® 2000, thus avoiding a need to drive changes into the data platform. “From a data center perspective, it really wasn’t much work at all,” says Ruben Taylor, Senior Software Architect at JLS. “All we had to do was expose a few new Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web services, which was fairly simple.”

The following diagram depicts the high-level architecture outlay for the application:

What makes this application extraordinary is that JLS is presenting valuable data from their datacenter to home sellers. Web site usage data relating to how the home is being marketed is captured along with MLS data and presented to the seller. This allows both the agent and the seller to better understand how the home is marketed and it allows them to calibrate the marketing, as necessary.

Improved Collaboration Between Sellers and Agents

The company’s WPF-based seller application will help home sellers collaborate more effectively with JLS agents. “Everyone wants to sell their home quickly and still get the best deal, which requires understanding market conditions, indentifying and understanding competing homes, and marketing a house well,” says Giles. “However, many people don’t know what their homes are worth—or think it’s worth more than the market does. By enabling sellers to monitor competing homes and the number of online showings on our Web site, we’re helping them to better understand the market and what their home is worth. The many other features that we plan to add as we continue developing the application will aid in seller-agent collaboration, as well.”

JLS plans to soon roll-out the application to small test market, and they are in the process of identifying consumers that are sellers who would be interested to try the application and provide feedback. This is similar to Microsoft’s typical strategy around establishing an early ‘Community Technology Preview’ (CTP) for a service or product that is used to gain feedback around features so that changes can be made before broader adoption/rollout.

Two additional screen captures of the application are shown below:

Analytics Summary Data

Page Views Detail Page

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Windows Azure and SQL Services Updates from MIX09

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-04-01T18:22:25Z

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Some of the benefits that Azure provides include:

Web & Social Applications - The Azure™ Services Platform provides web developers easy to use development tools and cloud infrastructure to build rich internet applications targeted for the browser and digital devices. Create socially aware solutions and connect with a network of over 460 million Live users.
Great Developer Tools & A Unified Developer Experience – Any web developer can use the platform. Developers familiar with .NET and Visual Studio can use their existing skills to extend or create new cloud-based applications that dynamically scale. Applications written in PHP or Ruby can also run on and take advantage of the Azure infrastructure and services.
Interoperability – Azure services use REST and SOAP web communications standards to interoperate with other platforms and services; run applications on any browser, create and expose your own services, or utilize the services regardless of platform or programming language.
Composite Services - The Azure Services Platform allows developers to take advantage of one, all, or a combination of services.
Software + Services - Author new applications or augment on-premises software with cloud services to create a new breed of rich internet-based solutions. Microsoft refers to this as Software + Services.
Economical - The Azure Services Platform reduces onsite infrastructure needs and allows developers to continue using skills they already know from familiar development tools, all leading to lower cost and faster time to market.

MIX09 Updates

At MIX09 there were a number of updates to The Azure Services Platform that affect two underlying components, Windows Azure and SQL Data Services (SDS). In short, Windows Azure is the OS for the cloud from Microsoft and SDS offers relational data storage in the cloud and access to that data from cloud and client applications.

Windows Azure

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s platform for building and deploying cloud based applications, which provides customers with a service hosting and management environment for the Azure Services Platform.

Windows Azure enables customers to:

Significantly reduce time spent managing hardware to focus on delivering applications which deliver compelling experiences and services.

Release at a faster time-to-market and reduce operational complexity by automating service management to allow for deployment of a new application onto the Web within seconds.

Reduce upfront hardware investment costs by providing a flexible environment where applications are hosted in Microsoft data centers capable of massive scaling.

There is an update to the Windows Azure CTP feature released at MIX09 which will allow developers to take advantage of:

FastCGI: allows developers to deploy and run web applications written with 3rd party programming languages such as PHP. This provides developers using non-Microsoft languages the ability to take advantage of scalability on Windows Azure.

.NET Full-Trust: provides developers with a level of flexibility in Windows Azure that removes limitations on .NET Libraries which require full trust (including .NET Services) .NET Full Trust, via spawning process and p/invoke, also allows developers to utilize existing investments in native code or legacy components that they will now be able to invoke on Windows Azure.

Geo-Location: provides developers with the ability to specify a location for their applications and data to build responsive services with lower network latency as well as the capability to meet location-based regulatory and legal requirements. This feature will be available a few weeks after MIX 2009.

SQL Services

Microsoft SQL Services delivers on the vision of extending the SQL Server Data Platform capabilities to cloud web-based services. It enables customers to store, process and analyze all types of data - from structured, semi-structured, to unstructured. SQL Data Services (SDS), the first service available within SQL Services, is the relational database. In the future, SQL Services will deliver a comprehensive set of integrated services such as search, reporting, analytics, data integration and data synchronization in the cloud.

SQL Data Services allows for the following:

Enables existing applications to utilize existing skills, code, and development tools to access SDS as they already do for on-premises SQL Server.

Enables Microsoft to accelerate the delivery of powerful relational database capabilities in SDS and to do so in a way that integrates seamlessly with existing tools, knowledge base, investments and data access components.

Provides a cloud-based reliable, scalable, highly available distributed relational database service.

Provides a cloud relational database service for Azure Services Platform, with other online services, or with existing on-premises software.

Over time, additional features from the Microsoft data platform will be available in the Azure cloud.

Windows Azure SDK Download

Developers will be able to take advantage of the Windows Azure CTP feature updates via the Windows Azure SDK update which is now available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/azure/sdk.mspx

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Microsoft Releases Update to .NET Services

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-03-31T21:59:30Z

Today, Microsoft is releasing the latest coding milestone of .NET Services, a component of the Azure Services Platform. .NET Services are still in community technology preview (CTP).

The March 2009 release further enhances support for web standards and interoperability, making it simpler for developers to connect cloud applications and services across platforms. Specifically, .NET Services now includes improved support for web standards such as REST, ATOM, SOAP, and HTTP. This means that all developers – whether they are .NET developers or not - will now find .NET Services much easier to use because they can utilize industry standards and protocols to interface the services.

Developers can download the .NET Services SDK today via http://www.azure.com and Microsoft encourages your feedback.

.NET Services make developing loosely-coupled on-premises and cloud-based applications easier. .NET Services include a hosted service bus for connecting applications and services across network boundaries, access control for securing applications, and message orchestration. These hosted services allow customers to easily create federated applications that span resources from on-premises (private data centers) to the cloud.

The .NET Services software development kit (SDK) provides integration with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). This integration allows .NET developers to build on their existing skills in WCF and WF, allowing developers to more easily build secure and reliable applications that can interact and exchange data with other applications, independent of the underlying platform, and to enable system workflow and human workflow.

The Access Control Service is one building block service that is under the .NET Services umbrella, and this service now supports REST and ATOM for managing rules around claims transformation.

The Service Bus is the second major building block services and this now provides discoverable and durable queues, which support both SOAP and HTTP, provide reliable pull message delivery with the capability of peek lock and simple destructive reads. Additionally, there are now discoverable and durable routers, which support SOAP 1.1, SOAP 1.2 and HTTP, and those routers provide message storage, control and delivery in unidirectional publish and subscription scenarios. The Service Bus also supports Push delivery to HTTP endpoints and Solicit/Push delivery to Service Bus listeners through a NetOnewayRelayBinding mechanism.

Workflow is the third service and there is now a CloudServiceBusReceive activity which enables a workflow to receive Service Bus messages. Combining CloudServiceBusReceive with CloudServiceBusSend, the already existing activity, Workflow Service now offers improved integration with Service Bus. Message-based activation allows the creation of new instances on-demand and direct communication with these instances. Finally, there are Workflow REST-Client enhancements with the addition of PUT, DELETE, custom verbs as well as parameters and header support to the HttpSend activity.

.NET Services can be used in a standalone manner to connect services and applications. Used in conjunction with the other Azure services it provides the bridge to connect on-premises with the cloud, and with other programming platforms; it provides important interoperability functionality for the Azure Services Platform.

Developers can download the .NET Services SDK today. The latest .NET Services CTP, is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/sdk.mspx

Incidentally, the Access Control Service of .NET Services can federate with third-party identity providers, allowing for the handling of identities from existing systems and from different organizations. The Access Control Service is a hosted Security Token Service (STS) for use if you need federation, but don’t want to build or buy your own solution. The .NET Services Access Control Services can federate with third-party Secure Token Services, specifically supporting Windows Live ID, X509 certificates, user name and password, managed card, and personal card, as well as offering support for WS-* standards and REST. With its federation capabilities, the Access Control Service can federate with Active Directory to use existing identities and enforce claims based access control. “Geneva” Server is on-premises Active Directory Server. The “Geneva” Framework is a library for building your own Security Tokens Service(s). Microsoft Federation Gateway is one of the tokens that .NET Services Access Control Service work with to perform authentication.

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Internet Explorer 8 FireStarter Event - Redmond, WA and Online - Mar 26th, 2009

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-03-14T19:40:44Z

On March 26th Microsoft is hosting a day-long, free event for Architects, Developers, and IT Pros interested in learning more about Internet Explorer 8. There is a very good line-up of speakers who are Subject Matter Experts in different areas associated to IE8. You can read about the speaker line up, the sessions, and you can get a feel for the agenda by Registering for the event. Details are available via this Mithun Dhar blog post.

Note that this event will be broadcast online as well. Therefore, if you are not in Redmond you can watch the event LIVE on the Web via Live Meeting. Additionally, all the sessions will be recorded and made available post event!

Hope you can make it.

Architect Council - The Importance of the Client

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-02-17T00:11:47Z

Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of innovation around of technologies that make it easier for the end user of an application to interact with systems. This innovation has been a boon for the end user because it has provided them a more natural interface with systems that span the web, computer, and phone. However, this has caused the complexity of systems architecture and development to increase. The focus of this session will be on how to prepare and manage this complexity within your organization.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this event is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers. This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

EVENT SUMMARY

The Value of the Client - In the past, the choice of how an end user interacts with an application has been dictated by IT and often without regards to the usage. Recently, as the population has become more tech savvy and are experiencing interactions on the web, computer, and the phone their expectations have increased tremendously. Many organizations now have to support multiple standards and technologies to accommodate their user base. We will discuss the opportunities and challenges this presents.

The Changing Face of the Web - The web has changed from a static collection of data to an application platform. In many cases, JavaScript and AJAX have enhanced the experience to enable more advance application scenarios. In other cases, the Rich Internet Application using technologies such as Silverlight and Flash can bring the experience to a new level. In this session we will discuss the web and in particular the investments Microsoft is making in this technology.

Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices - The web has been a boon to application development and deployment, but it doesn't always fit every scenario. There are certain classes of applications which provide a better experience when running on a device and utilizing local hardware. The ubiquity of the mobile device has also extended the expectations of users with anytime/anywhere access.

The Future of the Client - The pace of change in client technologies over the past few years has been tremendous and is expected to continue to evolve.. From support of new device types such as tables and walls, to continued improvements in interactions on the web, client, and the phone the client will become more and more important from a technology perspective and more strategic to the organization.

AGENDA

12:15 PM Arrival
12:30 PM Lunch and announcements
01:00 PM The Value of the Client
01:45 PM The Changing Face of the Web
02:45 PM Creating Powerful Applications on Computers and Devices
03:45 PM The Future of the Client
04:15 PM Raffle and close

SPEAKER BIO

Joe Shirey
Senior Architect, Developer & Platform Evangelism
Microsoft Corporation
http://www.joeshirey.com

Joe Shirey is a Senior Architect Evangelist for Microsoft based in the Denver area. In this role, Joe works closely with customers and the community to help them understand where Microsoft technologies fit into the architecture of their solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Joe was a Vice President at Interlink group where he was responsible for service and delivery for Interlink's Denver market. In the past, Joe was a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the Microsoft Architect Advisory Board, and sat on the .NET Partner Advisory Council. Joe has more than eighteen years of hands-on technical and functional experience in project management, systems analysis, design, development, and implementation. Joe attained his Microsoft Certified Architect award in 2005.

Woody Pewitt
Technology Evangelist, Developer & Platform Evangelism
Microsoft Corporation
http://blog.pewitt.org

Woody is a Technology Evangelist with Microsoft in Southern California. He gets to work with all kinds of people who are interested in Microsoft development technologies. He is an experienced teacher/trainer and is a part-time instructor at University of California San Diego. Before joining Microsoft in 2005 he worked for as a Principal Engineer for a Microsoft partner, InterKnowlogy. He has been involved in software and system architecture, code, development and infrastructure reviews and analysis of several fortune 500 companies for salability, security, performance and standards & practices. He is also an accomplished author, having written Microsoft Official Curriculum and has authored several published magazine articles.

REGISTER

To register, please click on the link below for the city of your choice or call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368).

March 24, 2009 | Bellevue, WA
Microsoft Corporation
Civica Office Building
205 108th Avenue NE, Suite 400
Bellevue, WA 98004
Main: 425.705.1900
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399661&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032399661
*Referral code not required to register.*

March 25, 2009 | Mountain View, CA
Microsoft Corporation
1065 La Avenida St.
Building 1 Mountain View California 94043
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399662&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032399662
*Referral code not required to register.*

March 26, 2009 |San Francisco, CA
Microsoft Corporation
835 Market Street #700
San Francisco California 94103-1901
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399663&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032399663
*Referral code not required to register.*

March 31, 2009 |San Diego, CA
Microsoft Corporation
San Diego MPR
9255 Towne Centre Dr., Suite 400
San Diego California 92121
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399664&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032399664
*Referral code not required to register.*

April 1, 2009 |Irvine, CA
Microsoft Corporation
Irvine MPR
3 Park Plaza, Suite 1600
Irvine California 92614
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032399665&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032399665
*Referral code not required to register.*

April 2, 2009 | Los Angeles, CA
Microsoft Corporation
333 S Grand Ave, 33rd Floor
Los Angeles California 90071
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032404032&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032404032
*Referral code not required to register.*

April 7, 2009 | Denver, CO
Microsoft Corporation
Maroon Bells 1
7595 Technology Way Suite 400
Denver Colorado 80237
Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032404033&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032404033
*Referral code not required to register.*

Register for VSLive by Feb 4th and go to the MSDN Developer Conf for Free

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-01-30T16:47:00Z

I thought that many of you might be interested in this event and how you are able to attend the MSDN Developer Conference for no charge. If you work with Windows or Web development using the .NET Framework and Visual Studio, then this event would likely be of interest. The economy has been tough on everyone, and that’s why we’re doing what we can to make this the most affordable developer event of the year.

Join Microsoft and Visual Studio Magazine's VSLive! this February for five days of exploration into the next generation of Microsoft developer technologies, along with content and advice you build right away. First, get the best of PDC at the MSDN Developer Conference (MDC) which will showcase technical overviews of the Azure Services Platform, Silverlight, Live Mesh and more. Then experience VSLive!, where you can choose from over 80 in-depth technical sessions and full-day workshops designed to help you stay competitive in today’s job market.

Hope you can make it!

Silverlight Training from SoftSource

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2009-01-21T18:32:00Z

"Practical Silverlight" is an all-day, instructor-led, in-depth look into the application of Silverlight. A Microsoft partner, SoftSource, is offering the course for $100, which is not a bad deal and worth a look. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of Silverlight and receive a jumpstart on moving toward Silverlight development.

Register Online

Here is more detailed information on the course:

Here is information on the course instructors:

Dates and places for the courses:

February 10, 2009
Hyatt Regency Bellevue
900 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, WA 98004

February 12, 2009
University Place Hotel & Conference Center
310 SW Lincoln St
Portland, OR 97201

Register Online

Hope you enjoy the course.

InfoSpace Selects Silverlight to Power Toolbars

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2008-12-11T23:37:39Z

I have been collaborating with a great customer in Bellevue, WA by the name of InfoSpace. Many of you might already be familiar with them. Recently, InfoSpace has gone through some changes - they have restructured and in many ways are now operating like a startup. It is very exciting to step into their high-energy environment and to sense their enthusiasm.

InfoSpace has just launched a new toolbar offering. What is unique is that they are one of first to leverage Silverlight™ to enable such an experience. The first toolbars delivered by InfoSpace are for wallpaper and recipe content -- and this information is neatly presented to the consumer via a rich and animated 'fly out' (or 'drop down') extending directly from the toolbar.

Here is a graphical capture of the wallpaper toolbar shown in an extended form:

The recipes toolbar follows the same basic design, so multiple toolbars fit nicely together and provide the same base experience.  The view above is the fully extended view – they look like normal toolbars when not in use and only come alive when you want to interact with them. The target markets are currently geared toward 19-24 year old women and 45-54 year old women who use the internet lightly. As the additional toolbars are released to the market, other demographics will be targeted.

The use of a rich interactive technology, like Silverlight, to power a user interactivity is important as it creates an engaging experience for the user. Unlike other toolbars available today, crammed with undistinguishable icons, the toolbars developed by InfoSpace are a fresh experience with simple, elegant and consistent user experiences.  Each toolbar sort of act as a Rich Interactive Application (RIA) that happens to live at the top of your browser.

In the case of InfoSpace, their toolbars are a clever way to bridge users to a new search product branded as 'Nation.com'.

Nation leverages InfoSpace meta-search capabilities, including Microsoft Live Search along with Google, Yahoo and Ask for the end results.   In 2009, InfoSpace plans to build over 20 more toolbars which shall provide additional avenues for Nation.com. Each toolbar, in its own unique way, serves as a channel to Nation.com, thus increasing search queries and traffic.

From a pure business perspective, the toolbars serve as the foundation of a scaleable approach for a Cost per Acquisition business model. Simplicity and elegance are the keys to making these distinct offerings and Silverlight was a logical means by which to enable that business scalability.

InfoSpace plans to soon release more toolbars related to things like weather, entertainment (think "rich media"), horoscopes, and music, and many more in the coming months, so keep a lookout.

Kudos should also be given to two local partners who were instrumental in assisting with the InfoSpace toolbar offerings: Artefact and IdentityMine.



A resounding "job well done" goes out to InfoSpace, Artefact, and IdentityMine.

Software + Services

This is also a tremendous, yet simple, example of what Microsoft is calling Software plus Services (S+S for short). S+S recognizes the need for local software resources accessing services available in the cloud. You get the strength of the local processing power and the flexibility to store data and assets in the cloud, and you can call upon those assets when you need them. This is a very simple scenario because the toolbars are still operating under the influences of the browser. However you could ratchet-up the local processing power (and user experience) outside of the browswer with great technologies like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which is based on the same underlying technology and principle (i.e., XAML).

Microsoft Architect Council on Cloud Computing - 12/16, Bellevue, WA

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2008-12-02T01:39:21Z

It’s time for another Architect Council. Please feel free to pass this along to other colleagues who might be interesting in attending. This discussion will primarily stay at the architecture level but some code-based demos will be shown.

Architect Council | Cloud Computing and the Impact on Architecture

Cloud computing is a disruptive force that has the potential to change everything, but how do we take advantage of it? At Microsoft, cloud computing is a major component of our technology strategy and platform, and a rich and massively scalable cloud platform called the Azure Services Platform was just unveiled at PDC by Ray Ozzie (Ray’s keynote). Come for a discussion on how Microsoft’s platform can be leveraged to create a new class of applications that are more connected, dynamic, and can extend existing IT investments towards cloud computing.

Facilitated by Microsoft, the premise of this group is to provide an open forum where architects can meet to discuss technologies with their peers. This forum will provide first-hand experience and best practices that will enable its members to learn from each other and transfer knowledge. Please join us for this great opportunity to learn, share and network with your peers and other company leaders.

EVENT SUMMARY

Microsoft and Cloud Computing – Cloud computing represents the new wave of innovation that will significantly transform many aspects of computing as we know today. During this session, we will discuss Microsoft’s outlook and strategy in moving towards cloud computing; providing the next-generation cloud-based platform for building services in the cloud.

Microsoft Azure Services Platform – Discussion on key components of the new Microsoft Azure Services Platform with an overview of .NET Services, SQL Services, and underlying Foundational Services. A key component in cloud computing is the ability to compose multiple cloud-based services from different organizations into a logical unit to serve a specific purpose. However, connecting, orchestrating, and managing services in the cloud still require a level of sophistication similar to enterprise SOA implementations. We will take a look at an implementation of multiple-enterprise business applications utilizing Azure Services to facilitate cloud-based transactions that connect and span heterogeneous organizations.

Live Services – Discussion on Microsoft's Live Mesh, a platform designed to combine the world of the web and the world of digital devices. You will learn about the underlying service architecture behind this mass-scale cloud service and client platform, including services such as FeedSync-based synchronization, security, P2P communications, pub-sub infrastructure, and the Live Operating Environment.

AGENDA

11:45 AM Arrival

12:00 PM Lunch and announcements

01:00 PM Microsoft and Cloud Computing

02:30 PM Microsoft Azure Services Platform

04:00 PM Live Services

05:15 PM Raffle and close

REGISTER

To register, please click on the link below or call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368).

December 16, 2008 | Bellevue, WA

Microsoft Corporation

Civica Office Building

205 108th Avenue NE, Suite 400

Bellevue, WA 98004

Main: 425.705.1900

Registration Link: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-BC-15-14-81-B7-05-DA-9E-26-99-66-72-50-7D-10&Culture=en-US

Event ID: 1032393295

SPEAKER BIO

David Chou

Architect, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation

http://blogs.msdn.com/dachou/

David is an architect in the Developer & Platform Evangelism group at Microsoft, where he collaborates with local organizations in architecture, design, and proof-of-concept projects. Drawing on experiences from his previous jobs at Accenture and Sun Microsystems, David enjoys helping customers create value from using objective and pragmatic approaches to define IT strategies and solution architectures.

Woody Pewitt

Technology Evangelist, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation

http://blog.pewitt.org/

Woody is a Technology Evangelist with Microsoft in Southern California. He gets to work with all kinds of people who are interested in Microsoft development technologies. He is an experienced teacher/trainer and is a part-time instructor at University of California San Diego.

Before joining Microsoft in 2005 he worked for as a Principal Engineer for a Microsoft partner, InterKnowlogy. He has been involved in software and system architecture, code, development and infrastructure reviews and analysis of several fortune 500 companies for salability, security, performance and standards & practices. He is also an accomplished author, having written Microsoft Official Curriculum and has authored several published magazine articles.

Microsoft Windows Client FireStarter Event

schenaur@microsoft.com (Sam Chenaur) — 2008-12-01T23:19:39Z

On Friday, December 12, Microsoft is hosting a Windows Client FireStarter event at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond. If you are a Developer or an IT Pro, you do not want to miss it.

As another event in our ever-growing-in-popularity FireStarter event format, we welcome attendees in person, via simulcast or on demand, via download, at your leisure.

REGISTER to attend in Person

REGISTER to attend via Simulcast

Date: December 12, 2008
Time: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

In Person Location:
Microsoft Conference Center (Bldg. 33)
Kodiak Room, 1st Floor

16070 NE 36th Way
Redmond, Washington

Contact:

Mithun Dhar

Directions

We have a stellar line up of MS speakers to cover the following:

Agenda:
	Session Name	Speaker
8:15 – 8:30	Kick off	Mithun Dhar
8:30 – 9:30	Keynote/Why Vista!	Chris Henley
9:30 – 10:45	The Case of the Unexplained	Mark Russinovich
10:45 – 11:00	Break
11:00 – 12:15	Building Differentiated UI Applications Using Composite WPF	Glenn Block, Bob Brumfield & David Hill
12:15 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 2:00	Best Practices for Developing for Windows for Windows Standard User	Crispin Cowan
2:00 – 3:00	Windows Security and Bitlocker	Byron Hynes
3:00 – 3:15	Break
3:15 – 4:00	(Windows 7 + Windows Server 2008 R2) Teaser Session	Byron Hynes
4:00 – 5:00	Windows for everyone!	Bruno Terkaly

Not familiar with FireStarter Events?

· Deep dive event on a single technology

· Unparalleled event experience - available in-person and simulcast

· Excellent Microsoft speakers; all Subject Matter Experts in their field

· All content made available for viewing online after the event. In person attendees will receive event kits upon departure.