Interoperability at PDC09: let's recap

I just flew back from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC09) in Los Angeles. What a week, with a lot of announcements, surprises and achievements on multiple fronts. From the interoperability perspective, a lot happened too.

This PDC09 further demonstrates how Microsoft is making interoperability a priority and reality by demonstrating how − as an open platform − Windows Azure offers choices to developers. We’ve been able to show our progress with practical examples (like WordPress), additional technologies to run on Windows Azure (Tomcat, MySQL) and new SDKs/tools (like AppFabric SDK for PHP, Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse version 1.0). We’re on a journey, but it’s a significant milestone!

So let’s recap what happened:

Ray Ozzie’s Keynote : Ray announced more options for developers on Windows Azure with Tomcat(Java), memcached and MySQL. This was illustrated by Matt Mullenwag running a demo of Wordpress running on Windows Azure and followed by Martin Cron from www.ICanHasCheezburger.com who showed their new Wordpress-based blog http://oddlyspecific.com/ which uses an image management plug-in based Windows Azure storage.

Watch this video with Steve Marx (Technical Strategist in the Window Azure team) and Vijay Rajagopalan (Principal Architect in the Interoperability team) for an overview:

Refer to PDC sessions Building Java Applications with Windows Azure and Developing PHP and MySQL Applications with Windows Azure for more details.

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Another interop demo: Domino's Pizza Java Tomcat-based application running on Windows Azure.
Domino's Pizza showed up in a short video in the keynote where Jim Vitek, Domino’s Director of eCommerce stated: "We have to buy hosting infrastructure to meet our highest peak which is Super Bowl which is 50 percent above our next highest peak which is a typical Friday night. So there’s a tremendous amount of unused capacity in our hosting infrastructure that Windows Azure allows us to eliminate"
Domino’s Pizza was also in Sumit Chawla’s talk at Web 2.0 expo demoing the scenario with Tim Wise from Domino's Pizza. Read this blog post for more details: “Domino’s Demonstrates Tomcat Site on Windows a Azure”. Sumit also made a few interoperability announcements from the #web2e expo floor.
Check this PDC09 session as well: Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform.

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A dedicated Interoperability page on the Windows Azure portal: www.windowsazure.com/interoperability.
You’ll find here the overview and links to resources which will enable various developer communities to leverage Windows Azure either as the primary cloud infrastructure or simply to extend their existing applications.

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Windows Azure SDKs for PHP and Java and tools for Eclipse version 1.0 released :
This release is the culmination our team’s year-long work with our partners for bringing core scenarios to life and a release that many of our customers & open source developers have eagerly been waiting for since our last CTP release at Eclipse Summit Europe.
Watch this video with Maarten Balliauw, initiator of the project and Vijay Rajagopalan, for a quick overview:

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New Interoperability Bridge: PHP developers get an SDK for the Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
Windows Azure platform AppFabric (formerly called .NET Services) includes the Service Bus and Access Control services that provide infrastructure in the cloud to connect applications.

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A new SQL CRUD Application Wizard for PHP:
This tool enables PHP developers to easily generate PHP code that performs basic Create/Read/Update/Delete operations for Windows Azure Tables SQL Azure and SQL Server

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Using Windows Azure Storage from Ruby :
We met with Johnny Halife, Principal Architect from Southworks, who has developed a Windows Azure SDK for Ruby. Watch the video for a quick overview:

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Apache Stonehenge demoed at PDC09: Kent Brown, product manager for WCF gives us an update and show a demo of the different StockTrader applications working together. Watch the video till the end, Kent unveils the mystery on why the project was called Stonehenge!

In case I missed anything (I’m sure I have) let me know, I’ll update the post.

[Update 11/23]

ASP.NET Ajax Library: the first project to be contributed to the CodePlex Foundation.
More information on James Senior's blog: http://www.jamessenior.com/post/News-on-the-ASPNET-Ajax-Library.aspx

-- Jean-Christophe Cimetiere, Sr. Technical Evangelist