MSDN Flash For January 19th, 2009

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. My job is to make sure that as few developers as possible wonder what happened. Moreover, due to difficult economic times, many companies have shut their doors and is important for developers, testers, architects and managers to be well informed. Naturally, that raises the questions about what to keep your eye on in 2009.

Blogging like there's no tomorrow – https://blogs.msdn.com/brunoterkaly

One thing you can count on is that I will be blogging extensively about all this. I will create extensive how-to's for developers. There will be high level topics also but I plan to focus on writing code. A lot of it will be setup for the environment, such as getting tokens, service packs, sdk's, and the like. See https://blogs.msdn.com/brunoterkaly

The Event You Must Not Miss - MSDN Developer Conference - Feb 23rd in San Francisco

A fantastic way to figure out what is coming up in 2009 and beyond is to attend the MSDN Developer Conference. If you missed the Professional Developers Conference a few weeks ago, now is the time to get caught up.

Please read the end of my editorial for more information. Times are tough so we are offering big discounts to sign up early.

The Big Wave In The Sky

In my humble opinion, 2009 will be the year of the cloud. But many of my readers will say things like, "My company is controlling costs and is not funding new projects." Yes, that makes perfect sense. My response is, "The cloud is a game changing technology that will save companies lots of time and resources." Microsoft will need to continue innovation aggressively in the cloud because there some big competitors, such as Amazon, Google, SalesForce, and Sun.

The cloud offers file storage, identity services, access control, workflow, and a distributed database. Companies will create their own services or run an entire application in the Azure cloud, paying for only the services and capacity they need. But lets be clear – this technology in the very early stages. Azure is in CTP mode, which means "Community Technology Preview."

Data And Services In The Cloud

Microsoft doesn't expect customers to re-write applications from scratch. Key financial data and other high secure information will continue to be maintained on premises. But there will be specific development patterns that adapt well into the cloud. Perhaps a company will use The Microsoft® .NET Service Bus to build composite applications, which are collections of smaller applications connected securely with a standards-based messaging infrastructure. The .NET Service Bus will allow applications to communicate across organizational boundaries, behind network address translation (NAT) boundaries or bound to frequently changing, dynamically assigned IP addresses.

Workflow might be the bait a company needs to jump to the cloud. Maybe your company is part of a supply chain, which is the system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Even though companies can create their own Web sites to do this, they still have to manage user identities across multiple enterprises. Every single supply-chain user needs to be managed by an IT staff, which is expensive and time-consuming.

SQL Server Data Services (SDS) Is Being Built From The Ground Up

For you DBAs out there, it is a different world in the cloud. Thousands of man years went into SQL Server. Some pieces were added and some removed to make it service ready. SDS must be self-healing and extremely scalable. Failures must not affect consistency. Automatic provisioning and monitoring is crucial. Data will need to be replicated across machines, switches, and geography. Record locking in the cloud is difficult. The challenge is being correct and scalable and nimble for atomic sequences.

In today's world, companies can buy a service, skin it to look like their own, and glue various services together to create a cohesive app. Companies must reduce care and feeding of their applications to lower costs. Companies utilizing external services space will lower the need to worry about infrastructure. Databases as services is a huge part of this.

To learn more about the future of databases, see the brilliant interview of Dave Campbell (Technical Fellow at Microsoft) at https://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Dave-Campbell-SQL-Server-Data-Services-and-the-Future-of-Data-in-the-Cloud/.

 

Events to Attend

Visual Studio Team System – Free Seminars

These half-day training luncheons will provide a deep dive into maximizing your investment in Visual Studio Team System. Please join Microsoft and Steven Borg of Northwest Cadence, Microsoft VSTS MVP, for this demo-driven event. Learn how to be agile and illuminate key metrics that help make development improvements possible.

  • Mountain View, CA – February 11, 2009 - 12:30 to 4:30
  • San Francisco, CA – February 12, 2009 - 12:30 to 4:30

Register online –

               Mountain View, CA: https://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=134300

               San Francisco, CA:   https://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=134301

Register via email – please email Sue.Ferguson@nwcadence.com

Register by phone – please call 425.605.3580

MSDN Developer Conference - Feb 23rd in San Francisco

The MDC will give you a glimpse into the future of the Microsoft Application Platform. You will experience Microsoft's vision for Cloud Computing, our Internet services platform that will enable you to extend existing solutions, creating applications that seamlessly bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone. Be among the first to see the full range of advances in Windows 7, the next major version of the Windows client operating system. Sessions include the latest developments in .NET, Silverlight, Live Mesh, and more. And it is at the beautiful Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, right by the bay and easily accissible by Bart, ferries, and buses.

When

February 23, 2009-All Day until 5pm.

Where

Hyatt Regency San Francisco

5 Embarcadero Center

San Francisco, California, USA 94111

(415) 896.1600

How

https://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/sanfrancisco.aspx

Lots of free giveaways

Guaranteed Giveaway – Windows 7 Beta on DVD. In addition to the cool swag that every attendee will receive upon check-in, you'll also have a chance to win one of these cool prizes. To be eligible, you have to fully complete an event evaluation and be present to win. The drawing will happen directly following the final breakout session of the day, which ends at 4:45 PM. Multiple copies will be given away:

MSDN Subscription, Robotics Platform, Mobility Products, and Games.

Women in High Tech - She's Geeky – Jan 30 to 31 in Mountain View

Are you going to 'She's Geeky' (https://shesgeeky.org/ ) on Jan 30-31 in Mountain View, CA? Meet up with Southern California Microsoft Developer Evangelist Lynn Langit (blog at https://blogs.msdn.com/SoCalDevGal) there. This is an annual unConference for geeky Women. It's held barCamp style (that is presentation topics and schedule are determined at the beginning of the conference). Last year, influential geek women from all over the valley attended. Lynn will be talking about her work with Microsoft's global DigiGirlz program at She's Geeky. Lynn has been working to develop technical curriculum of interest to high-school aged girls. She will be showing Kodu, a visual programming environment and more.