WindowsDevPro Blog

Dot Net Nuke Professional Edition 5.1

2009-06-18T17:37:00Z

Dot Net Nuke (DNN) released its Dot Net Nuke Professional Edition version 5.1 this week. I spoke with the company’s president and CEO, Navin Nagiah, about the launch of DNN Professional Edition version 5.1 and about the company’s success at building open source solutions on top of the Microsoft development stack.

Penton Media, the company that owns DevProConnections, hired DNN to convert and upgrade the websites for WindowsITPro, SQL Server Magazine, and other properties, including DevProConnections. You will be seeing the results of DNN’s efforts shortly, and when the new site is up and running I invite your feedback on how they’re doing. Editors at Penton are particularly looking forward to enhanced web 2.0 social networking features (rating, sharing, commenting, etc.) that will give even more voice to our reader contributors.

Nagiah explained that an essential feature of the DNN product, an open source web content management and application development framework for the Microsoft .NET Framework platform, is its modular architecture. An organization can either purchase and deploy DNN as a package, or it can remove specific modules and replace them with other commercial modules or build its own modules and plug them in. According to Nagiah “the whole framework will still work fine.” The product is used to power websites with rich features and applications. It comes in two editions: as a free download, The Community Edition, in keeping with DNNs open-source roots, and as a version optimized for business-critical applications, the Professional Edition, which is $1,999 per instance annual subscription.

There are up to 140,000 downloads of Dot Net Nuke per month, Nagiah says. He explained that this community is “inherently commercial by nature, “ and can be divided into three types of business. First there are the system integrators, about 450 companies who use the platform to customize a solution to an end user customer. Then there are the module vendors, around 400 small independent software vendors (ISVs) who build small software modules on top of DNN and sell it in the DNN marketplace or elsewhere, for prices ranging from 50 to 500 dollars per module. Finally there more than 20 hosting provider companies in the DNN ecosystem who generate revenue by specializing in DNN hosting.

Dot Net Nuke Professional Edition 5.1 includes:

A tested and verified version of DNN including the open source core framework
Content management, security, analytics, scalability, and network services features exclusive to the professional edition
Access to the online professional edition knowledge base
Product documentation
Unlimited product support with second-level support from DNN architects and engineers
Email notification of security patches and product updates
Product copyright indemnification

TechEd 2009: An Awarding Experience for Developer Products

2009-05-18T01:45:00Z

A good number of the winners of the Best of TechEd 2009 awards sponsored by Microsoft and Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazines were companies with a developer focus. In a year where attendance at TechEd was down—I heard estimates that varied between 4500 and 5000 attendees—this was good news for developers and the vendors that serve them. Traditionally, TechEd has been an IT-Pro-focused conference, with developer products and sessions making strong inroads, including a well-attended separate show last year. However, recession-deflated travel budgets cut into the developer presence at TechEd this year. If companies are going to fund travel, they may be saving some of those tight dollars to send developers to the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) later in the year (November 17-21) in Los Angeles. Most of the developer vendors I spoke with plan to be at both TechEd and PDC this year.

When you brush away all the fun stuff such as goofy swag, booth games, and all those shiny give-aways, it’s always good to be reminded that behind and within the flash of the sales floor are some of the brightest entrepreneurs in any industry. Microsoft can take products only so far; these vendors and partners are the ones who understand what still remains to be done, capitalize on it, and create products that make life easier for the technical professionals who need them on a daily basis.

A case in point is ScaleOut Software, who used TechEd to announce new extensions for the distributed ScaleOut StateServer caching software product. Dr. William L. Bain, founder and CEO of ScaleOut Software observed, “Our Company’s history has been that of identifying and delivering new caching technology to meet our customers’ needs. This release adds important new features which enable SacleOut StateServer to further address these evolving needs with the most comprehensive, powerful, and best supported distributed caching platform possible.” An earlier entrepreneurial effort of Bain’s was acquired by Microsoft and is now called Network Load Balancing within the Windows Server OS.

The winners and finalists of the Best of TechEd awards, selected from among over 170 entries, reflect this exciting creative technical spirit. They were evaluated based on each finalist's strategic importance, competitive advantage, and value to customers. It was a year when developer products finished strong.

The winner in the Best of TechEd Business Intelligence (BI) category, which was open to products dealing with any aspect of BI, went to Developer Express for its DevExpress Analytics. These products provide pivot grids and charts for Winforms and ASP.NET AJAX. Developer Express also won the Best of TechEd Attendee’s Pick award. In addition, Developer Express was the winner in many categories in this year’s asp.netPRO Reader’s Choice awards.

AVIcode for Intercept Studio won in the Developer Tools category. This AVIcode tool, which provides deep application health monitoring and error analysis, is useful for troubleshooting .NET application performance.

The winner in the Software Components and Middleware category is another developer-focused company—JNBridge. Their product, JNBridgePro, is useful for businesses running both .NET and Java applications. JNBridgePro enables developers to join .NET and Java applications at the object, class, and component level.

Quest Software, who was a Best of TechEd finalist in five categories and has products of interest to a broad spectrum of technical interests—from power users to IT Pros to DBAs and developers—won in the Database Development category with their Toad for SQL Server. This product is particularly useful for businesses running multiple versions of SQL Server. It connects to SQL Server 2000 and later and provides advanced T-SQL performance tuning and transaction log recovery.

Read the blog on WindowsITpro.com for a complete list of the Best of TechEd winners.

And don’t forget to check out the winners of the asp.netPRO Readers’ Choice awards.

TechEd2009: asp.netPRO Mag Announces Winners of Readers' Choice Awards

2009-05-11T14:30:00Z

The asp.netPRO Magazine editors have done the final tally on the votes for this year's asp.netPRO Readers' Choice Awards. Thanks to all the visitors to the aspnetpro.com site who chose their favorite products. More than 8,000 aspnetpro.com readers voted on approximately 300 products in 25 product categories. The magazine staff announces the winners today at TechEd 2009. Congratulations to the vendors for the reader confidence in their products. Don’t miss the write-up on the winners in the August issue of asp.netPRO Magazine. Here's the complete list of the Winner, Runner Up, and Honorable Mention in each category:

Add-In:

Winner: Developer Express CodeRush for Visual Studio .NET

Runner Up: JetBrains' ReSharper

Honorable Mention: Madinina Software's CodeObject for Visual Studio .NET

Charting and Graphics Tool:

Winner: Developer Express XtraCharts Suite

Runner Up: Telerik RadChart for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: Dundas Chart for .NET

Chat Application:

Winner: Xigla Software's Absolute Live Support .NET

Runner Up: CuteSoft Components' Cute Chat

Honorable Mention: Web Furbish's JaxterChat ASP.NET Chat Control

Code Editor:

Winner: IDM Computer Solutions' UltraEdit

Runner Up: Helios Software Solutions' TextPad

Honorable Mention: SlickEdit Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

Communications Tool:

Winner: /n software's IP*Works!

Runner Up: Dart Communications' PowerTCP for .NET

Honorable Mention: Catalyst Development's SocketTools .NET Edition

Community Resource:

Winner: DevExpress Community: Site/Developer Express

Runner Up: The Code Project

Honorable Mention: Microsoft's ASP.NET Site

Component Set:

Winner: Developer Express DXperience ASP.NET

Runner Up: Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: ComponentOne Studio Enterprise

Content Management System:

Winner: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Web Content Management

Runner Up: DotNetNuke Professional Edition

Honorable Mention: Telerik Sitefinity CMS

e-Commerce Package:

Winner: AbleCommerce Asp.Net Shopping Cart

Runner Up: AspDotNetStorefront

Honorable Mention: Corporate Web Solutions' .netCART

E-mail Control:

Winner: 360 IMPACT's ASP.NET Auto Email

Runner Up: Advanced Intellect's aspNetEmail

Honorable Mention: /n software's IP*Works! S/MIME

Forum Application:

Winner: Telligent Community Server

Runner Up: BV Software's DotNetBB Forums

Honorable Mention: Active Modules' Active Forums

Grid:

Winner: Developer Express ASPxGridView

Runner Up: Telerik RadGrid for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET

Hosting Service:

Winner: DiscountASP.NET

Runner Up: Applied Innovations

Honorable Mention: MaximumASP

IDE:

Winner: Microsoft Visual Studio

Runner Up: Delphi Prism

Honorable Mention: Sun Microsystems' Sun Studio 8

Navigation Control:

Winner: Developer Express ASPxNavBar

Runner Up: Telerik RadMenu for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: ComponentOne Menu for ASP.NET

Online Editor:

Winner: Developer Express ASPxHTML Editor

Runner Up: Telerik RadEditor for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.NET WebHtmlEditor

Polling Tool:

Winner: CodeWidgets.com's Online Voting/Survey Web-App

Runner Up: PeterBlum.com's Peter's Polling Package

Printing/Reporting Tool:

Winner: Developer Express XtraReports Suite

Runner Up: Telerik Reporting

Honorable Mention: GrapeCity-data Dynamics' ActiveReports for .NET

Project Management/Defect Tracking:

Winner: Axosoft's OnTime 2009

Runner Up: Fog Creek Software's FogBugz

Honorable Mention: Seapine Software's TestTrack Pro

Scheduling/Calendar Tool:

Winner: Developer Express ASPxScheduler

Runner Up: Telerik RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: ComponentOne WebSchedule/WebCalendar

Security Tool:

Winner: PreEmptive Solutions' Dotfuscator

Runner Up: /n software's IP*Works! SSL

Honorable Mention: Novalys's Visual Guard for .NET

Silverlight:

Winner: Developer Express AgDataGrid Suite

Runner Up: Telerik RadControls for Silverlight

Honorable Mention: ComponentOne Studio for Silverlight

Testing/QA Tool:

Winner: Telerik WebUI Test Studio (powered by ArtOfTest)

Runner Up: Red Gate Software's ANTS Profiler

Honorable Mention: AutomatedQA's TestComplete

Training:

Winner: ASPSmith.com's ASP.NET Training

Runner Up: Telerik Training

Honorable Mention: AppDev Training

Utility:

Winner: Developer Express ASPxSpellChecker

Runner Up: Telerik RadSpell for ASP.NET AJAX

Honorable Mention: CodeSmith Tools' CodeSmith

asp.netPRO Readers' Choice Finalists

2009-05-07T18:36:00Z

The asp.netPRO editors have tallied the votes for this year's Readers' Choice Awards. More than 8,000 aspnetpro.com visitors voted on approximately 300 products in 25 product categories. The winners will be announced at TechEd 2009 Monday May 11, 2009. Right now we’re proud to present the finalists in each category. Look for our continuing coverage of the winners on aspnetpro.com and on devproconnections.com next week. And don’t miss the write-up on the winners in the August issue of asp.netPRO. Here's a list of the finalists by product category:

Add In

Developer Express CodeRush for Visual Studio .NET

Madinina Software's CodeObject for Visual Studio .NET

JetBrains' ReSharper

Charting and Graphics Tool:

Telerik RadChart for ASP.NET AJAX

Developer Express XtraCharts Suite

Dundas Chart for .NET

Chat Application:

Web Furbish's JaxterChat ASP.NET Chat Control

Xigla Software's Absolute Live Support .NET

CuteSoft Components' Cute Chat

Code Editor:

IDM Computer Solutions' UltraEdit

Helios Software Solutions' TextPad

SlickEdit Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

Communications Tool:

Dart Communications' PowerTCP for .NET

Catalyst Development's SocketTools .NET Edition

/n software's IP*Works!

Community Resource:

Microsoft's ASP.NET Site

The Code Project

DevExpress Community: Site/Developer Express

Component Set:

Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET and AJAX

Developer Express DXperience ASP.NET

ComponentOne Studio Enterprise

Content Management System:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Web Content Management

DotNetNuke Professional Edition

Telerik Sitefinity CMS

e-Commerce Package:

AspDotNetStorefront

Corporate Web Solutions' .netCART

AbleCommerce Asp.Net Shopping Cart

E-mail Control:

360 IMPACT's ASP.NET Auto Email

Advanced Intellect's aspNetEmail

/n software's IP*Works! S/MIME

Forum Application:

Active Modules' Active Forums

BV Software's DotNetBB Forums

Telligent Community Server

Grid:

Telerik RadGrid for ASP.NET AJAX

Developer Express ASPxGridView

FarPoint Spread for ASP.NET

Hosting Service:

MaximumASP

Applied Innovations

DiscountASP.NET

IDE:

Delphi Prism

Sun Microsystems' Sun Studio 8

Microsoft Visual Studio

Navigation Control:

Developer Express ASPxNavBar

ComponentOne Menu for ASP.NET

Telerik RadMenu for ASP.NET AJAX

Online Editor:

Telerik RadEditor for ASP.NET AJAX

Developer Express ASPxHTML Editor

Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.NET WebHtmlEditor

Polling Tool:

PeterBlum.com's Peter's Polling Package

CodeWidgets.com's Online Voting/Survey Web-App

Printing/Reporting Tool:

GrapeCity-data Dynamics' ActiveReports for .NET

Developer Express XtraReports Suite

Telerik Reporting

Project Management/Defect Tracking:

Fog Creek Software's FogBugz

Axosoft's OnTime 2009

Seapine Software's TestTrack Pro

Scheduling/Calendar Tool:

Developer Express ASPxScheduler

Telerik RadScheduler for ASP.NET AJAX

ComponentOne WebSchedule/WebCalendar

Security Tool:

Novalys's Visual Guard for .NET

/n software's IP*Works! SSL

PreEmptive Solutions' Dotfuscator

Silverlight:

ComponentOne Studio for Silverlight

Telerik RadControls for Silverlight

Developer Express AgDataGrid Suite

Testing/QA Tool:

Red Gate Software's ANTS Profiler

Telerik WebUI Test Studio (powered by ArtOfTest)

AutomatedQA's TestComplete

Training:

AppDev Training

Telerik Training

ASPSmith.com's ASP.NET Training

Utility:

Telerik RadSpell for ASP.NET AJAX

CodeSmith Tools' CodeSmith

Developer Express ASPxSpellChecker

New Way to Think About Your Development Career: The Blended Role

2009-04-16T16:03:00Z

Over the past few months I've had some interesting conversations with Embarcadero executives. They've seeing a trend in IT and development that they've called the blended career. Since the their acquisition of Code Gear last year, which gave the company an international reach and a fresh set of developer products, folks from Embarcadero have been visiting customers to get a read on the needs and wants of the IT and Developer audience, especially in these difficult economic times.

In a discussion with Michael Swindell, the VP of product for Embarcadero, he told me that they've learned that IT and Developer budgets were under pressure in a number of differnt ways. Software licenses are being scruritnized. Basic Message was get more out of what you have. Companies may have smaller budget and need to do more: This puts a lot of pressure on the development and IT team. Many companies are dealing with layoffs and mergers and acquisitions: However, those systems stay in place, so the team has to take on this work in addition to the work that they’re already doing. This means that the existing teams have to understand the work that other people did. They have to be able to very quickly ramp up on source code that they’re unfamiliar with, or database platforms they may not have worked with, and they may not even have the tools they need for these different platforms and frameworks.

In other words, in many companies it's no longer enough to be a pure application developer, or a pure SQL Server DBA. What Embarcadero heard from developers, DBAs, and architects is that they're taking on both extra work in their field and additional roles. So a developer may now be asked to do some testing and performance testing. Or an architect may be asked to take on some DBA responsibilities. They call these blended roles, and they're becoming more and more typical. So it's important that tech professionals work smarter, not harder, to meet the demands put on them by their line of business owners, senior management, and the company as a whole. Often, due to budget constraints, it's no longer possible to rewrite, re-architect, or even replace applications and databases that are core to running a business as a means of achieving better performance or scalability. Likewise, simply throwing additional computing resources at the problem in an attempt to extend the life of an application or system is often no longer feasible due to capital costs. The only option is to get more out of existing systems with as little effort as possible.

For Embarcadero these studies helped them position their tools offerings. In February the company released Embarcadero All-Access, what they're calling the industry’s first software development solution that provides application developers, architects and database professionals with cost effective, on-demand access to all the tools they need to design, build and run software applications and data systems for all of their platforms and programming languages. In today’s economic climate, companies are under intense pressure to boost IT and R&D productivity while simultaneously reigning in costs,” said Al Hilwa, program director, Application Development Software, IDC. “One of the best ways to address this challenge is to provide application and database developers with the full range of tools they need to speed development, manage changes and compliance more efficiently, and to design things right in the first place. Software vendors that can affordably provide this broad range of tools across the industry’s most popular platforms and languages are well-positioned to become strategic partners to companies seeking to optimize their IT spend and boost efficiency, productivity and innovation.”

A few days ago Embarcadero announced a set of new and enhanced performance optimization tools to detect, fix and prevent a range of software errors that will improve the performance, availability and scalability of software systems. These tools include J Optimizer 2009 for Java profiling and optimization, DB Optimizer 1.5 for SQL profiling and tuning, and Performance Center for automated 24/7 database monitoring. Embarcadero All-Access is now available worldwide. Pricing in North America begins at $2,250 USD for a “Bronze” single-user Workstation license. To learn more about Embarcadero All-Access packages, visit www.embarcadero.com/products/all_access.

J Optimizer and DB Optimizer are available now. Performance Center is available now and the new 2.7 release will launch in Q2 2009. For more information and pricing on individual optimization products, visit the company’s website www.embarcadero.com.

As with all Embarcadero products, these optimization tools are also available in the Embarcadero All-Access tool chest.

Scott Guthrie on ASP.NET 4.0 and Silverlight 3.0

2009-03-30T21:49:00Z

Keynoter Scott Guthrie packed the ballroom at the Orlando Marriott at the spring 2009 DevConnections conference. Guthrie, a Microsoft vice president and widely viewed as the father of ASP.NET, spoke on “Web Deployment: The Next Generation.” He gave the audience of ASP.NET and Visual Studio developers a sneak peek at the improvements in its web platform and tools.

At the Mix 2009 conference Guthrie announced the release of ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) to the web. For more on this announcement, see Michael Campbell’s http://www.devproconnections.com/tabId/180/itemId/4566/ASPNET-MVC-Official-Release.aspx reaction on DevProConnections.

On the ASP.NET 4.0 front, Guthrie said to look forward to lots of activity over the next 12 months. NET 4.0 will be a backward-compatible release, he said. He told the assembled developers to expect improvements to Web Forms, controls, data binding and the view state. Guthrie said that other events on the horizon include a second version of MVC around the time Visual Studio 2010 ships and updated libraries for AJAX that include jQuery. Also, Microsoft has a middle-tier cache in the works codenamed Velocity. Guthrie shifted gears to give the audience an update the progress of Silverlight and some insight into the newly announced Silverlight 3. Silverlight, which was new 18 months ago and went into a second release at October’s PDC, has “already had over 350 million installs. We have over 300,000 developers and designers, 200 partners in 30 countries, over 200 Microsoft products and websites that are using Silverlight.” Guthrie said. Guthrie noted that Silverlight 3 would actually be about 50K smaller than the last release due to some careful tuning. He demoed new features and enhancements, including new graphical features (a DeepZoom demo here, always a crowd pleaser). He discussed the continuing work to evolve rich data experiences—data binding improvements, including element-to-element binding; validation error templates; and multi-tier REST data support. Guthrie detailed the recently announced work in Silverlight to enable “out of browser experiences” for users of Windows and the Mac. He said that new scenarios include extending media experiences that are pervasive, creating companion applications for your website, and using lightweight “data snacking” applications like gadgets and widgets.

Click here to download a beta version of Silverlight 3.

WinDevPro website is now DevProConnections

2009-03-19T18:50:00Z

Penton Media, Inc. has changed the name of the WinDevPro.com website to DevProConnections.com. The mission of the website remains the same: DevProConnections bridges the gap between development and IT administration. It’s the business application and website developer’s resource for content and code that provides practical solutions based on real-world implementations. According to Kim Hansen, the publisher of DevProConnections and the asp.netPRO properties, “The renaming of WinDevPro to DevProConnections builds on the brand that the Penton event, DevConnections, has already established in the marketplace. DevConnections is a well-respected conference that has done an outstanding job of connecting people in the Windows developer market. DevProConnections shares that mission and also strives to provide independent, high-quality education for Windows developers while helping to bridge the gap between the IT Pro and DevPro.”

DevProConnections will continue to serve developers who use Microsoft development tools, languages, and platforms. The recent acquisition by Penton of asp.netPRO Magazine, asp.netNOW newsletter, and the aspnetpro.com website brings rich ASP.NET content to the site. In addition, the site focuses on .NET Framework, Visual Studio, database development, and coding in C# and Visual Basic.

The twice monthly email newsletter associated with DevProConnections retains its name, WinDevPro UPDATE.

Scott Guthrie Previews DevConnections Keynote

2009-03-05T16:30:00Z

In a WinDevPro/asp.netPRO exclusive interview with Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Developer Division Vice President, he shared his thoughts with me about what he has planned for the Spring DevConnections keynote address he'll be giving in Orlando. Scott strongly hinted that Microsoft would be making some announcements at the DevConnections conference, March 22-25.

Q: At the PDC last Fall you previewed ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. I assume you’ll be giving us an update at your DevConnections keynote. Can you give us a brief a preview?

ScottGu: I'll be focusing on recent improvments in ASP.NET over the past six months and improvements coming this year. I'll be talking about some of the target solutions that we've recently shipped which allow you to easily create graphical charting based ports and applications with ASP.NET. I'll talk about our new Modeling Framework that we're about to ship. It'll probably ship right before the conference. The Modeling Framework provides a pattern on top of ASP.NET for building applications that take advantage of unit testing, test-driven development, and enable you to build ASP.NET applications in a slightly different way. I'll talk about some of the Dynamic Data work that we shipped recently that will help you build data-driven ASP.NET applications much faster. I'll talk about some of the AJAX work that we've done recently that allows you to build AJAX applications really fast. We'll talk about all of these features at the conference.

We'll talk about .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. These are major, major releases. We've give a good flavor of some of the capabilities that are coming there. You'll see much better deployment support. You'll see much richer data support and the next evolution of some of our data technologies. You'll hear about some of our future plans for MVC and about the work we're doing with JavaScript and AJAX, both from the tooling and the runtime perspective in order to build interactive apps better that way. You'll hear more about code-focused or language features that are coming out in that timeframe as well.

We'll talk about Silverlight, WPF, Windows Forms and all the improvements we're making there as well. I think it's a fun time to be a developer. I think the next twelve to eighteen months are going to be a pretty great time for .NET developers in particular.

Q: Can you give us a taste of what we have to look forward to with the next version of Silverlight?

ScottGu: We've dropped a few hints about what the next release of Silverlight looks like. We'll be talking about it at conferences like DevConnections coming up shortly. Some of the things we've announced already are much richer graphics support, including some hardware-accelerated graphics that will enable a bunch of interesting scenarios. You can expect a lot of interesting stuff at conferences like DevConnections.

For the full interview listen to the podcast.

DevConnections Speakers Speak Out on ASP.NET and SQL Server Development

2009-02-19T16:09:00Z

The developer community is gathering once again in Orlando for the Annual Spring DevConnections Conference March 22-25. This year's DevConnections conferences include ASP.NET, SQL Server, SharePoint, and Visual Studio and .NET Framework.

There's a full slate of sessions for each conference--the focus continues to be on practical, hands-on information that developers and DBAs and SharePoint IT Pros can absorb quickly. The conference organizers know that this is a difficult time in a down economy and so the offerings are focused on career-enhancing skills. To learn more about what the speakers have said about their technologies download the conference magazine, MyDevConnections, at http://www.devconnections.com/mydevconnections/DEV_Mag_Issue2_Web_S08.pdf.

A lineup of Microsoft executives and other experts from the field will keynote: These speakers include Microsoft VP and ASP.NET guru Scott Guthrie, Microsoft GM and database expert Quentin Clark, Microsoft SharePoint Director Thomas Rizzo, Microsoft Visual Studio Director Dave Mendlen, and Tim Huckaby, development expert and CEO of Interknowlogy.

If you're attending the show we hope you'll stop by the asp.netPRO/WinDevPro/SQL Server Magazine booth and chat with the editors. We're looking foward to meeting with you and and getting your feedback on what technologies you want to see us focus on in the magazines.

Microsoft Developer Platform Application Tier Development—Conversation with Burley Kawasaki

2009-02-05T20:12:00Z

Recently, some of my colleagues and I were on the Microsoft campus discussing developer trends. Here's our conversation with Burley Kawasaki, who's the director of product management for the developer platform. My colleagues here are Mike Otey, Jeff James, and Michele Crockett.

So, just to kick it off Burley—Can you give us an overview of app tier development?

Burley Kawasaki: Sure. When I talk about the application tier, I think about it, in very simple words, as what the application developer builds on top of to really support their efforts. And when we think about how applications have evolved over the last few decades, applications are getting more and more distributed by nature. Even when you had mainframe-based apps, you typically had a couple of mainframes, either in different regions or different departments that had to somehow distribute a logic across them. As we've seen applications evolve from the mainframe world, to client/server, to the web (service oriented), and now to the cloud, the common theme is that applications are much more highly distributed, and that means in some ways they are getting much more complex to manage. It's not all moving in a single place; now the bits and pieces of the application are distributed across multiple machines, multiple organizations potentially. When you're running these cloud-based apps, you don't even have control over the parts of the application that may be given.

Sheila Molnar: So are these applications built using the new Azure services?

Burley Kawasaki: Well, they certainly can be. When I talk about the application tier, I think about this really stretching across both the on-premises world and the cloud. I think that's one of the principles of our Software+Services vision is that you as an app developer can build in a consistent way using a consistent set of tools. So if I build an application today that I may want to target the Azure service platform, that's great, I can take advantage of all the exciting new things that are available, and I may have advantages in that I can get it running faster, because I don't have to provision a lot of IT infrastructure. At some point you know that that may change—you might want to bring part or all of that app in house. So, what I don't want to do as an app developer is have to rewrite my app, or rearchitect it, because I now want to run it on my own hardware, as opposed to running it in the cloud.

So, the application tier should really hide or distract a lot of the runtime away, so that the logic app model we've implemented really is agnostic to where it's being run. And that's part of the investments we're making in the app tier in the .NET framework itself, and in the layers that build on top of the .NET framework.

Michael Otey: You mentioned a new type of application called a composite application. Can you explain a little bit about what they are and what makes a composite application?

Burley Kawasaki: A composite application, simply put, is combining multiple bits and pieces—typically services—to form a new app. It's a style that I think is particularly of interest to customers these days, because they have a lot of existing investments—their package apps, their mainframe apps—and given the current economic situation, they are reluctant to rewrite them or replace them anytime soon. At the same time, their users are asking for new capabilities, better usability, better access to information, and so leaving your existing, mature applications in place—running on the mainframe, running on SAP—but then being able to compose those services into a new user-centered application is very compelling and powerful, so we're seeing a ton of interest from our customers right now in creating them. You don't see them as mashups—you're combining existing logic into a business process to support a new user need.

Sheila Molnar: And how do IT pros work with all of these applications?

Burley Kawasaki: Well historically, very painfully. They haven't had a lot of the tools that existed for the more traditional applications. They've had a lot of resources available for managing and scaling web applications and the like, so part of the investments we're making are not just in the platforms and tools, but also in technologies that will ship inside Windows Server.

One of the projects that we have under way is code-named Dublin. It's a sort of extension to the Windows Server application server role. And it really targets the IT professional in helping them give the same kind of management and control and visibility to these much more complex, composite apps.

Michael Otey: You mentioned that there's a CTP for Dublin that's available?

Burley Kawasaki: That's right—we first announced it in the fall, and at PDC we released the first community technology preview for Dublin. We also, same time, offered a number of other related technologies from the composite apps perspective, such as new things in the .NET Framework around Windows Communication Foundation and also Windows Workflow Foundation.

Sheila Molnar: Could you say a little more about how Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation work together, helping a developer create a composite app?

Burley Kawasaki: Sure. Well one of the things we typically see is, you want to build an app that combines all these services together, and the services probably aren't in the same format—certainly weren't written by the same vendor, and probably not even in the same language. So, you can use any sort of mix of services—it could be based on standards, it could be using some of the new Web 2.0 protocols like REST or POX, or it could be a proprietary API to a package vendor. WCF, Windows Communication Foundation, gives you a universal way to describe and enable these services for a composite app, regardless of what the underlying technologies are. Even if it's cross-platform, you can expose things in the mainframe as a WCF service.

So WCF—think of it as the sort of common language or way to bring all these services together. And then how you bring them together is usually in terms of some type of process or workflow—you want to assemble them to first check to see if they're an existing customer, then you want to do a credit check, then you want to update their record. And so there's this whole set of steps—called services—across different apps across different platforms. So Windows Workflow Foundation is a companion part of .NET Framework, which helps you describe as a developer the sequencing and order of the services that are part of the composite app.

Sheila Molnar: What would you say the business value of creating composite apps is?

Burley Kawasaki: I think a lot of it has to do with end-user productivity, and also end-user satisfaction. You're really creating an application that is more directly aligned with the way they do their work. So if the business is under more pressure to cut costs and get more done with less, you want to make it as easy for, say, the call center rep to do their job, or the sales person out in the field to get access to information. So rather than them having to navigate back and forth between four, five, ten different applications that they normally have to use today, a composite app brings it all to their fingertips and allows them to really use the process and workflow that is most natural to them.

Sheila Molnar: I understand that Oslo is now part of the .NET Framework?

Burley Kawasaki: Yeah, we also at PDC released a CTP of Oslo, which is a code name for the next generation set of investments in modeling technologies. Modeling has been around for decades as a concept, but really is applied mostly to up-front design and requirements. We're trying to connect modeling now down to the developer space, to really make it friendly for developers, so that they can describe an app and actually have it be part of their app, not simply a piece of paper that they print out. And so this sort of use all the time internally is the model, is the application. So if I as a developer change the model, it should instantly change the behavior of that running application.

So we think it builds on top and extends on a lot of existing skills they already have with .NET and Visual Studio, but it adds a much more hands-level of productivity, because they get to change a higher level description of the business logic, as opposed to having to get down into the plumbing and writing lots and lots of implementation code.

Jeff James: How would a LAMP developer, someone that's using a LAMP stack, integrate and take advantage of some of the services that you talked about?

Burley Kawasaki: Well, it's a great question, and there's a number of ways they can. And certainly going back to some of the standards and protocols that we provide through the Windows Communication Foundation, whether you're building an app on-premises or in the cloud, you can take advantage of WS-*-type standards, or Web 2.0 standards like REST, there's a lot you can do at the Web services standards level. But if you're trying to even directly program it, we also offer SDKs that target the Java world, the Ruby community, so for example as part of the .NET services component of the Azure services platform, we offer SDKs so a lot of app developers who are fluent with other languages or tools can also take advantage of these capabilities.

Sheila Molnar: We understand that there's a new language called M?

Burley Kawasaki: Yes—M. M as in model. It's part of our overall Oslo investments. It's a way to really reach out to the developer community—in a lot of the usability testing that we did early on, we found that modeling was not being accepted as broadly by developers, because many of them preferred to be at a command line, or a textual metaphor, as when they write code today. So, giving them the ability to stay inside their developer tools, and write down in text their description, is an important way to reach that community.

So, M is one of the ways that you can experience Oslo. You can also choose to use visual tools. So, it's a part of broadening out the types of uses.

Sheila Molnar: I had a question on collaboration, and I guess this might be our last question. How does modeling improve collaboration across the whole development life cycle?

Burley Kawasaki: Well, it's a great benefit I think of taking a model and then being able to store that model inside a repository. So part of the Oslo investments are around a repository, based on SQL Server, that allows teams of people to interact with, edit, and modify the same model. So everyone might have a slightly different view—if I'm a developer, I might want to see maybe more detail than a business analyst or an IT pro may want to see. But we can all interact with the same model and collaborate and have a different experience, but it's the same source of truth, so that if I change it as a developer, that's the same thing that an IT pro would see, or the same thing that a business analyst would see.

Sheila Molnar: Well thank you very much Burley, we've really appreciated talking with you today.

Burley Kawasaki: My pleasure.

Microsoft Silverlight to Stream the Inauguration

2009-01-17T00:48:00Z

The Obama organization, well-known for its agile adoption of Internet technologies and use of online communities, will make the inauguration on January 20 and other allied events available for viewers via the Internet. The Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC) selected its Silverlight technology to enable the stream of live video of the inauguration to the PIC website , Microsoft announced. The video will also be available on-demand on the PIC site.

A blog on the PIC site encourages viewers to watch the official swearing in online and touts the use of Silverlight, stating, "Whatever your internet connection, you’ll be able to watch the ceremony as if you were there – Silverlight detects your internet speed and adjusts accordingly."
Events along the pre-inaugural Whistle Stop Tour will also be streamed using Silverlight, according to the Microsoft press release.

ASP.NETPRO JOINS PENTON MEDIA--Good News for WinDevPro!

2009-01-08T18:23:00Z

NEW YORK, NY (January 8, 2008) - Penton Media, Inc. today announced the acquisition of asp.netPRO magazine and the brand’s related media products including its www.aspnetpro.com website and its electronic newsletter, asp.netNOW. Formerly part of Informant Communications Group, Inc., asp.netPRO is a leading information resource for professional software developers who use Microsoft’s ASP.NET (Active Server Pages.NET) technology to build, deploy, and manage web-enabled applications and business solutions. asp.netPRO will further strengthen Penton’s portfolio of products serving the developer Information Technology community including Windows IT Pro Magazine, SQL Server Magazine, System iNetwork, and associated websites. This acquisition builds a more robust offering from Penton in the Microsoft development space by tightly aligning with Penton’s www.WinDevPro.com website and current, twice monthly e-newsletter, WinDevPro UPDATE. These properties are dedicated to “bridging the IT gap between developers and system administrators.” Kim Hansen, publisher of Penton’s IT Developer group, comments on the benefits resulting from this acquisition, “The asp.netPro products nicely complement our online, in person, and print media offering serving the software development professional. Developer readers and vendors will continue to enjoy the high-quality content asp.netPRO products produced by its staff and contributors; plus they will now have access to the WinDevPro UPDATE newsletter with its 88,000 subscribers. Expect to see great synergy between the asp.netPRO and WinDevPro content offerings and Penton’s DevConnections conferences in Orlando (March 22-25, 2009) and in Las Vegas (November 9-12). The asp.netPRO audience can look forward to expanded offerings, such as webcasts and podcasts, and we invite them to become active participants in building an online developer community through forums, blogs, online training, and virtual events.” Penton Media, Inc. the largest independent business-to-business media company in the U.S., serving more than six million business professionals every month. The company's market-leading brands are focused on 30 industries and include 113 trade magazines, 145 Web sites, 150 industry trade shows and conferences, and more than 500 information data products. Headquartered in New York City, the privately held company is owned by MidOcean Partners and U.S. Equity Partners II, an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP, and its co-investors. For additional information on the company and its businesses, visit www.penton.com.

Microsoft Makes BizTalk 2009 Beta and RFID Announcements

2008-12-09T17:09:00Z

Microsoft announced yesterday that the first public beta of BizTalk Server 2009 is available for download. The announcement was made at the Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration Summit, and included the news that BizTalk RFID Mobile and the BizTalk RFID Standards Pack are generally available.

BizTalk RFID Mobile extends BizTalk Server RFID to mobile devices running Windows Mobile and Windows CE. According to the Microsoft press release, customers are already seeing benefits from deploying mobile radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions on the new platform. Ken Vollmer, principal analyst with Forrester Research, comments that "the big impact here is the enablement of RFID capability on a wider range of mobile devices through the availability of full RFID features on Windows Mobile and Windows CE. This will open up opportunities to use RFID in a wider range of business scenarios."

Go to BizTalk and RFID Announcements for the the extended article.

For download information go to Microsoft's download site.

Podcasts From SQL PASS: Parallel Computing and other Industry Trends

2008-12-04T19:55:00Z

In this podcast from the November SQL PASS Conference in Seattle, David DeWitt discusses how his career in database research led to becoming a Microsoft Technical Fellow in the Data and Storage group. DeWitt describes his connection with the Madison project and the topic he explored in his keynote at PASS--parallel computing.

To learn more about the database research DeWitt leads in Madison, WI, read Microsoft Partners with the University of Wisconsin, Madison to Open Database Lab.

In this podcast from the SQL PASS Summit, I spoke with technical experts and executives from Quest about industry trends affecting SQL Server. We ranged over a number of topics including SQL developer tools, the growth of SQL Server, the move of SQL Server to the cloud as a part of the Azure platform, the pros and cons of SQL Virtualization, and the new Quest SQL wiki, called SQLServerPedia.

Participating in the roundtable were Billy Bosworth, Quest SQL Server VP & GM, Kevin Kline, SQL Server MVP (and Former president of PASS),Brent Ozar, Domain Expert, and Douglas Chrystall, Quest SQL Server CTO.

For more on SQL Server cloud computing see:

Cloud Computing: How Will It Affect Corporate IT

Cloud Computing Comes to SQL Server

Developer News from Dev Connections 2008

2008-11-13T23:22:00Z

Developers don't come to the Dev Connections conference for big announcements about major new products from Microsoft. They come for intense hands-on sessions with experts in various Microsoft technologies. Some of the expert speakers are from Microsoft and many are not. Their candor about the products gives the conference its unique appeal.

Check out the tongue-in-cheek webcasts made by conference attendees who completed the sentence "If I ran Microsoft" at Windows IT Pro's ITTV.net website.

On a more serious note, here's a round-up of developer news blogs and podcasts from the conference:

New ASP.NET Chart Control Announced

SQL Server 2008: What's in It for You?

Silverlight and SQL Server Podcast

The Greening of SQL Server Blog and Podcast

DotNetNuke Development Blog and Podcast