April 2008 - Posts
Burley Kawasaki has just announced at the Microsoft Insight 2008 conference that in BizTalk 2006 R3 that Microsoft has Acquired from Covast some of their advanced B2B functionality specifically around new vertical industries ( details to come ) , this will be a no cost addition to BizTalk 2006 R3.
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Matt Deacon (Microsoft) runs a significant set of Architecture events certainly in the UK. Over the last two days several of the Black Marble architects and seniors have been at the Microsoft Insight Conference 2008. There has been a great range of topics split roughly into Infrastructure , Solutions , SaaS and Enterprise. I will update this post with links to available content when it is available.
Burley Kawasaki provided the closing Keynote on The Road to Oslo :), if you missed Burleys talk we will be running a SOA event at Black Marble in the next month or so
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To coincide with the release of SQL Server 2008 Microsoft plans to release an updated version of BizTalk Server. The update will cover compatibility with Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 , and SQL Server 2008.
This allows BizTalk Server users to improve on: scalability for mission-critical workloads, improved support for next-generation web and service oriented applications and improved virtualization support.
The R3 release also includes enhancements for
- New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
- Enhanced service enablement of applications (through new and enhanced adapters for LOB applications, databases, and legacy/host systems)
- Enhanced service enablement of “edge” devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile
- Enhanced interoperability and connectivity support for B2B protocols (like SWIFT, EDI, etc)
- SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer’s implementations
You should expect to see a CTP of BizTalk Server 2006 R3 later this year (with an RTM planned in H1 CY09).
We will be covering BizTalk 2006 R3 in our BizTalk Event in July ( we will announce this soon ).
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Microsoft have made a series of training packs available for free for developers wanting to skill up to .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio.
Sign up for the free training packs here
when you have finished Microsoft will give you discounts on exams and further training.
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I am sat in the departure lounge at Schipol (Amsterdam) waiting to head for the sunny north of England. I have had a great week at the MVP summit and best yet I already know I can go next year :) ( ray for all the April MVP's ).
Seattle has provided us with what can only be described as "mixed" weather , High Summer on Saturday (last) , Hail and snow (today). I think this level of random weather explains a lot about how the people in Seattle behaviour ( wild eyed and big smiles ).
The whole trip was worth it all just for Uncle Steve's open mike Q&A session.
I have also been ever so fortunate in having a most excellent travelling companion this week , the ever lovely Rob Miles. I went to Korea with Rob last year and hopefully Seattle next year :)
Rob and I met up with Andy Sterland last night (or err two nights ago , hard to tell) and he is now working for MS, I am so please for him as he is such a nice chap.
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On Sunday I bumped into the Dalai Lama in my Hotel. When I say bumped into the Dalai Lama , I mean bumped into a solid wall of Seattle's finest motorcycle cops who were stood in front of the Dalai Lama. He obviously was sad that we did not have time for a chat but I had to head off with Rob Miles to get some food ( mmmmm ham and hash browns ) , but he did wave which was nice.
The next morning, I walked out of the lift into another wall of motorcycle cops, with a shout of "is he the one we want" .....
How we all laughed :( , it was educational to see "Cop Humour" in practice.
Rob took some photo's
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I am currently attending the Microsoft Connected Systems Divisions , Olso Software Design Review and I am looking at the future and it is so bright it hurts, not to mention the amazing talent in the room , Juval Lowy, Sam Gentile, Brian Loesgen, Brian Noyes, Michele Leroux Bustamante, Roman Kiss, Don Box, Chris Anderson , Chris Sells , Alan Smith just to mention a just a few.
I think Brian Loesgen has put it best , It is nice to see we have all been betting on the right horse
all I can say is WOW
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I am attending a set of "Open Space" sessions, I think the idea of getting people together on like minded topics is great. But the "Philosophy of Open Space" suffers from the same problems of any other "Purist" self help/focus/delivery solutions i.e. it works great if the mediator is strong or in some cases where the attendees are strong. At other events I have attended sessions where "provided" mediators have been less than useless.
The first session I was in today , the "mediator" was not only strong in her ability to control the session but she was deeply knowledgeable in the subject which made it a truly great session.
One of the big problems with Open Space is the "Induction" which reminds me of an In-Touch event where an unnamed Microsoft Employee turned to me and said "I am worried that at any minute they will expect us to cover ourselves in Woad and Primal Scream ourselves into the woods" , which was SOOOOO much kinder than my thoughts were on the matter.
spiritually yours
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I at the MVP summit in Seattle and so far have seen the hottest and chilliest days I have seen this year. it has been great to catch up with old friends
:) only 20 minutes in and Barry Dorrans is up running loud and true to make the world right with the goodness that is card space (don't ask what the subject actually being discussed , as it is not relevant to Barry's ability to promote card space) , while simultaneously trying to offer a radiant Michele Leroux Bustamante a box of chocolates. I love this world :)
If you are at the summit and would like to catch up , I will at the CSD / BizTalk sessions and / or the UK events , worst case drop me a note.
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Microsoft Research have been working on the next generation of compiler optimisation and analysis tools for sometime, if this is your area I recommend looking at the Phoenix Connect Web Site. I saw Jim Hogg ( with a surname like that , how great must this guy be :) ) , present on Phoenix a few years ago and it promises to be a great step in the fundamentals of development. This version of Phoenix supports visual studio 2008 and as a sample has a lisp compiler!
Channel9 has a video on Phoenix from 2006 .
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I thought it would be useful to keep my links for BizTalk in my blog, I will keep updating this list when new BizTalk items ( or old ones I have missed ) present themselves.
Tools
BizTalk Server 2006 Best Practices Analyzer V1.1
BizTalk LoadGen 2007 Tool
ESB
ESB Guidance
ESB Installation - Currently My Notes , but there is a set on its way from MSDN , I will update this shortly.
Documentation
BizTalk 2006 Installation and Upgrade Guides
BizTalk Adapter Pack ( Siebel , Oracle , SAP )
BizTalk RFID Documentation
BizTalk 2006 Tutorials
BizTalk Operations Guide - This is a very very important document Read it if you do any work with BizTalk
BizTalk Performance Guide – READ THIS BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING
and the ever great posters
BizTalk 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster
BizTalk 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster
BizTalk 2006 R2 Database Infrastructure poster
Tools
BizTalk Patterns Wizard
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Well the IMTC has finished , it was great fun and it was really nice to see so many great presenters presenting on a wide range of great subjects.
I managed to see some of the slots but I was busy preparing for my two sessions.
Overview of Microsoft Live Labs Volta
Well the writing was on the wall as soon as I had finished my 4th perfect run through of slides and demo's. for some reason my laptop refused ( despite a lot of coaxing ) to duplicate the screen and so I ended up coding over my shoulder onto the large cinema screen making a lot of typo's. I think the presentation part of Volta went well but the coding demo's were not great.However the audience were great and very understanding.
I had several post presentation comments , the main one was that I didn't cover Volta and Silverlight and the other integrations , well the reason for that is I wanted to show the importance of the Architectural Refactoring and how it will impact the future of general application development and so I wasn't as focusing on all of the integration pieces of Volta, but fair point.
So I am planning to record a rerun and send it to the IMTC guys and hopefully it will get posted so anybody can watch it :)
Thanks to everybody who came to the session.
Overview of SOA BizTalk and ESB
With no demo's ;) the session seemed to go down quite well. There was a lot to cover in an hour and my views on SOA were not held by all, but again after some post event chats , it was clear that my view was a solid base line to deliver SOA from not the total view. The reason for having a base line view is simply , if you can't achieve the base line , the rest is not worth worrying about.
One topic that did come up during the ESB talk was that of distribution of applications, I will try and find some time <sigh> to look into this in the near future.
Thanks to everybody who came to the talks and for all of the great feedback
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But I am now a MVP for BizTalk , Hurrah.
My thanks for the support the VS team has given me in the last year and I look forward to working with the BizTalk chaps and chapettes over the next year even more than I have this year.
Also many thanks to the MVP support team as I know due to the broad areas of the community I work in, can make it hard to place me in the program.
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