by community-syndication | Jun 5, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
This morning, I’m pleased to announce that the team has posted four initial Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) migration guidance documents to help current WF developers evaluate the new WF programming model that is being introduced in .NET Framework 4.
The documents were written by the PM team to help describe the relationship between the existing WF technology that was introduced in .NET 3.0 (defined as the types in the System.Workflow.* namespaces; referred to in the documents as WF3 for simplicity and brevity) and the new WF technology that is being released in .NET 4 (the System.Activities.* namespaces; referred to in the documents as WF4). The team explains how to think of WF features within the two programming models, and the choices you have as a user or a potential user of workflow technology in .NET 4.
Because this is a very broad topic, we’ve broken up what was initially going to be a single paper into about eight. There is an overview document and [currently] seven papers that take the form of either higher level guidance and cookbook papers. Today’s initial release introduces the higher-level guidance documents, with the cookbooks to be released in the coming weeks.
As the documents are updated, we will be releasing them to the WF Migration Guidance download on the MS Download Center, and the accompanying source code will be posted on a WF Migration Guidance project on the MSDN Code Gallery.
The document list looks like the following:
- WF Migration Overview (Now Live!)
Overview of the document collection and an initial starting place for the WF3 developer
- WF Migration: Best Practices for WF3 Development (Now Live!)
How to design WF3 artifacts so they are more easily migratable to WF4
- WF Guidance: Rules (Now Live!)
Discussion of how to bring rules-related investments forward into .NET 4
- WF Guidance: State Machine (Now Live!)
Discussion of WF4 control flow modeling in the absence of a StateMachine activity
- WF Migration Cookbook: Custom Activities (Coming Soon)
Examples and instructions for redesigning WF3 custom activities on WF4
- WF Migration Cookbook: Workflows (Coming Soon)
Examples and instructions for redesigning WF3 workflows on WF4
- WF Migration Cookbook: Workflow Services (Coming Soon)
Examples and instructions for redesigning WF3 workflow services on WF4
- WF Migration Cookbook: Advanced Custom Activities (Coming Soon)
Examples and instructions for redesigning advanced WF3 custom activities on WF4
The papers will continue to be grown and updated as we move towards the RTM release – to address a larger number of usage scenarios, and to address any changes that happen between pre-releases. We’ve been working on the documents over the last month, and think that they provide some good initial thoughts on how to approach the technology; and we hope that you find them helpful
The team will be supporting feedback and requests for the documents and accompanying sample code in the WF 4 forum on MSDN. I’m told the feature PMs will be creating a thread for each document to make it easier to provide feedback and for the PMs to respond – we should have more information on that in the next few days.
by community-syndication | Jun 5, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Yes indeed, the ESB Guidance is going to experience a name change once version 2.0 is released later this month. The ESB Toolkit 2.0 (set to release in mid June) offers so much more than just guidance that we needed to make the name more clear. I want to point out that this is more than just a name change or marketing scheme. Version 2.0 of the Toolkit 2.0 contains a ton of new enhancements over version 1.0 and since these enhancements are going to be key for most BizTalk shops, we needed to take some dramatic steps to mature the Toolkit from its initial “open source”/”best effort support” roots and make sure that is is enterprise ready and fully supported. We also realized the components in the toolkit offer a ton of value right out of the box and they no longer really act just as “guidance”. these are ready to use, valuable components for organizations building out their SOA infrastructure.
A couple of key points about ESBT 2.0:
- From now on, the toolkit will be available via MSDN and not via Codeplex
- We’re not going to be making the source code available like we did in version 1.0. This is tied to our planned changes around the toolkit’s support model.
- As a first step to increasing support, we are launching a public forum on MSDN to provide stronger community support for the toolkit Microsoft employees will be monitoring this forum.
- Beyond this, additional support measures are going to be phased in over the next several months. Eventually, you should be able to receive full support for the components in the toolkit via standard Microsoft support channels such as Premier.
- Dramatically simplified install process (the old install guidelines I posted last year and now thankfully useless). I’ve managed to complete my latest install in less than 20 minutes.
Also, kudo’s need to go out to Dmitri Ossipov and his team who have done a great job of developing this. Most BizTalk shops will find that they will want to leverage some part of the toolkit for their future projects.
I’ve fallen drastically behind on my plans to release a number of “how to” videos for the ESB Toolkit 2.0. However, with the release coming soon, I’ hope to change that quickly. Check back soon for some new “how to’s” on two way synchronous routing, service composition (or service chaining), building your own ESB ready orchestrations etc.
Cheers and keep on BizTalking
Peter
by community-syndication | Jun 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Some of you may have noticed that the Microsoft Blueprints project has gone quiet and the site taken down from CodePlex and MSDN. I had written a couple of posts about Blueprints in the past and how it was eventually going to take over from GAT/GAX.
Anyway, if you are wondering what’s happening,the answer isthat we […]
by community-syndication | Jun 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
No, you read that correctly. If you follow the link below and register for Dallas TechFest 2009 between now and June 14th, 2009 you will be entered into a drawing to win a Mac Mini. We’ve got lots of space around, so spread around the code to all your friends. Oh, and you’ll also be getting $20 off the full ticket price on top of that.
Why tell your friends? Because if your friends tell us on their registration that you referred them, then you get an entry into the drawing as well. So spread the word on Twitter, your blog, your company’s internal list, or anywhere else you think there are folks who would want to go to Dallas TechFest.
http://tinyurl.com/WinAMacMini
But wait … you’re telling me I’m losing out because I registered early? Not at all!
Nope, we’re giving away another Mac Mini as well, as a special thank you to all those who registered early.
by community-syndication | Jun 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
While the idea of Microsoft giving a keynote address at JavaOne – the Java community’s biggest conference of the year – has probably raised a few eyebrows, it really shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise at this point. Not only have we been involved in JavaOne for the past few years, you’ve also heard me talk many, many times about the importance of interoperability: most recently in the context of cloud computing and often as it relates to Web services. The latter has been a heavy focus for my team – and Microsoft in general – for a number of years. In fact, sometimes folks are caught off guard at just how active Microsoft has been in driving better interoperability via Web services and through our work with W3C, WS-I, WS-*, OASIS (e.g., the recent announcement regarding WS-RX, WS-TX and WS-SX), DMTF and more.
As we look at our latest research numbers, we see that 73% of professional developers rely on .NET or a combination of .NET and Java. In that sense, both Java and .NET have won in the enterprise and it is incumbent on both Microsoft and Sun to ensure that interoperability for the platforms is real, available and as easy to implement as possible. It’s a responsibility that we both share and customers tell us loud and clear that they expect innovation to accompany interoperability. I’m proud to say that this is something we take seriously and are executing against.
Along these lines, some of you may recall that last November we announced our participation – and the contribution of our StockTrader 2.0 code – to the Apache “Stonehenge” project. Stonehenge was formed to deliver a set of sample applications that demonstrate interoperability across multiple underlying platform technologies by using currently defined W3C and OASIS standard protocols. This is helpful for a number of reasons. While industry efforts like WS-* define approaches to enable interoperability, products may still need to be configured by customers before the benefits of interoperability can be realized. In fact, we’ve had a number of customers tell us they need better examples and more guidance on how to realize the built-in interoperability of applications across multiple vendor platforms. Stonehenge addresses this by providing customers with best practice guidelines and actual code that illustrates precisely how to achieve this in real world scenarios. To put it a little more poetically, Stonehenge will help us complete the “last mile” of interoperability between today’s standards-based infrastructure and tomorrow’s service-based applications.
So what exactly does this have to do with Microsoft – and specifically me and Dan’l Lewin – keynoting at JavaOne? A great deal actually, since during our keynote, Sun Vice President Aisling MacRunnels, Dan’l and I will announce that Sun has also now agreed to participate in the Stonehenge project and will be contributing the Metro-based StockTrader application code. This is important for two reasons. First, it means that Stonehenge will deliver even more value by providing best practice guidelines and reference implementations across an even broader range of scenarios and platforms, including Java, .NET, PHP, etc. The more samples and real world guidance we can give the community the better since it gives customers the ability to choose the best ones for their specific business requirements. It also makes it easier to pinpoint potential interoperability problems.
In addition, it represents another step forward in our ongoing work with Sun. As we all know, today’s IT environments are heterogeneous; whether it’s a single organization that runs both.NET and Java apps or multiple organizations that seek to collaborate with each other. To that end, we’ve been working closely with Sun on a number of interoperability initiatives over the past five years to help customers leverage their existing investments in Sun and Microsoft technologies. Some of the best examples include our work on Web Single Sign On, the Interop Vendor Alliance, our collaboration on virtualization and, of course, our recent agreement to use the SAML federation standard in both the Sun OpenSSO Enterprise federation solution and the forthcoming Microsoft “Geneva” Server federation solution.
Looking ahead, our work with Sun (or perhaps I should say Oracle?) becomes even more important in the context of cloud computing. Success in the cloud for most enterprises will hinge on the ability to utilize a broad and diverse set of computational resources, some of which may be implemented very differently from others. Interoperability protocols are the key to this. Thus, it’s important for us to continue to work together to ensure platform interoperability through these protocols, especially as it relates to Web service interoperability standards. The work that we are announcing today with Sun around Stonehenge is a great step in the right direction since it helps demonstrate seamless interoperability across application platforms – whether those applications are implemented on premises and in the cloud – and whether those applications are implemented on J2, on .NET or on something else.
With that in mind, I’d encourage everyone to take a look at the Stonehenge project and download the StockTrader sample app on one of the many supported platforms such as .NET, Java, PHP, WSAS, Sun Metro, etc. If you are interested, you can also read more about what Microsoft is doing around interoperability in general or watch Dan’l’s and my full JavaOne keynote. The keynote focuses specifically on the work we are doing with Sun to deliver interoperable application platforms that span on-premises and cloud computing, and help our customers leverage their Java and .NET investments.
by community-syndication | Jun 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I recently downloaded and installed Dev10 Beta-1 and created some images for my team. The Channel-9 videoguiding us step by step through the whole process was invaluable. One thing that had me in trouble was the installation of Full Text Search in SQL 2008 (as TFS requires this feature). When i captured the ISO image […]
by community-syndication | Jun 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I got a message from my colleague Scotty showing
off some new app for his iPhone.
This new app was showing that he could bring up on his iPhone some xbox 360 live info.
I thought damn that would be nice to have on my HTC Touch phone.so
I went searching and came up trumps!
Where it all happens is here – http://www.zumobi.com/getzumobi/xbox/
Click on the appropriate link and you’re well on your way!
– from my htc phone
and finally after install
by community-syndication | Jun 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
One interesting new feature I noticed in the Visual Studio 2010 beta 1 debugger: You can now turn watch expressions into little detached “post-it”-like notes that float around your debugger window. I’m calling them Watch Notes for now, since I have no clue what the feature is actually called.
You can create them by hovering […]
by community-syndication | Jun 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Well folks – that pain point SPAM, it’s normally pills, sniffers, adding inches, removing
inches
Lately I’ve been getting”Just confirming for the online event X that is happening
in 2 days <blurb> Click Here”
This latest one I had to share with you
Essentially the SPAMMERs formula is <Send Email><Add Words to Make User
Click><Provide Dodgey Links that will track you for life><End Email>
Sent from a gmail acct (that makes it real 🙂
———————–
Princeton Global Networks
<http://rm.resultsmail.com/customers/BGInc/img/new%20logo.jpg>
Dear Mick Badran,
It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the
2009/2010 Princeton Global Networks “Honors Edition” of the Registry.
The 2009/2010 edition of the Registry will include biographies of the world’s most
accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands
of executive and professional men & women throughout America and the World each
year. Inclusion is considered by many as a very high mark of achievement.
Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among a select few of accomplished individuals
in the Princeton Global Network Registry. There is NO cost to be included in the Registry
as a basic listing.
For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application by using
the link provided below and submit your information to us at the earliest opportunity.
http://www.formdesk.com/pgn/New (Link
has been modified as it contained GUIDs that I reckon verify my addr)
On behalf of the Managing Director, we wish you continued success.
Sincerely,
<Bugs Bunny>
Editor in Chief
by community-syndication | Jun 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
This article will give a short and easy explanation on how to use the WCF-Oracle adapter to retrieve a result set from an Oracle database. The first thing we need to have on the Oracle database is a stored procedure that returns an object of the type ref-cursor. This article will give some examples on […]
