BTS

The Modeling Vision Continues

Rick G. Garibay — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:43:16 GMT

Recently the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, who is responsible for technologies including Windows Application Server, BizTalk Server, and .NET Framework technologies including Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation,.NET cloud services, and the "Oslo" modeling platform was reorganized into the Data and Storage Platforms Division as the Business Platform Division (BPD) which is part of the Server and Tools Group responsible for products like Windows Server, Visual Studio and SQL Server.

This move was not a big surprise, because if you look at products like BizTalk, Dublin and Oslo, Windows Server and SQL Server are intrinsically related, delivering on the need for a comprehensive plug-and-play platform for connecting disparate systems. For example, BizTalk, Dublin and Oslo run on the Windows Server platform, and each depend on SQL Server to varying extents.

SQL Server has proven itself as a RDBMS platform and Dog-fooding SQL Server is good for business. I’ve also talked about the robustness of Windows Server, and the fact that it not only runs the .NET stack faster than Java, put runs Java faster than AIX. Needless to say, the server platform that was beat up throughout the 90's as not worthy of the enterprise has certainly come of age.

Anyone who knows me, has come to PCSUG meetings or reads this blog has probably heard me talk about the progression from imperative programming into declarative software development and how critical model-driven development will become in the not so distant future. As a believer, I strive to incorporate technologies like WCF, which is declarative, and Entity Framework which is both declarative and model-driven into my solutions. Entity Framework raises the level of abstraction beyond the logical/data layer in the database, to the conceptual layer, which is the true “stuff” of software, the model. With a model, we can have solution-oriented conversations about the problem domain without talking about tables, views, classes, bits or bytes. In addition, developer’s benefit from significant productivity gains by avoiding boiler-plate ADO.NET code which is largely commoditized into the Entity Framework.

Yesterday, Doug Purdy announced that the Olso team is joining the Data Programmability Team which is responsible for technologies like… wait for it… Entity Framework. Despite mixed messaging from Microsoft, Oslo represents the culmination of the declarative and model-driven vision within the Microsoft CSD. As of today, Oslo will deliver languages like “M” which will at a minimum allow developers to further reduce the impedance mismatch between RDMS and application development by raising the abstraction of how developers and architects develop data models that are decompiled into TSQL. I demonstrated this in June in Phoenix at Desert Code Camp, and while it is cool, it is only the beginning. “M” will allow developers to create domain specific languages that will bring the conceptual layer closer to the design and problem solving stage. Applications built on foundational frameworks such as WCF and WF will take advantage of their declarative model to easily be serialized into the Oslo Repository for centralized management. These applications are surfaced via Quadrant, which provides a model with which to interact with the applications both individually and at the solution and enterprise scope.

As Doug teases in his post, look for some key insights at PDC 09 this year as to the future of the modeling vision which appears to be very bright indeed.

Bite-Sized SOA: Think Big, Start Small, Rinse and Repeat

Rick G. Garibay — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:00:06 GMT

Please join my colleague, Todd Sussman and I on Wednesday, June 3rd as we share thoughts and best practices for delivering SOA to the enterprise.

In this 1 hour free webcast we will:

Discuss the organizational, technical and political challenges inherent to distributing business processes across geographical business assets, vendors and business units of varying maturity.

Provide insight and guidance directly from the field on how to bring business, technical and vendor teams together to achieve the shared vision and promise of SOA using state-of-the-art technology from Microsoft and the .NET partner ecosystem including specific discussions around WCF, Microsoft Business Rules Engine (BRE) and Neuron ESB.

Provide real-world metrics from this success story that can be used to plan and measure success in your SOA initiatives.

Persistent Digital Archives and Library System (PeDALS)

Rick G. Garibay — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:53:22 GMT

My good friend and colleague Todd Sussman and I have been working with the Arizona State Library who are leading an effort on behalf of the Library of Congress to design, develop and deploy an automated, integrated workflow to process collections of digital publications and records for the Library of Congress. Actually, Todd has been working on this great project for a while now and has only recently let me join in on the fun :-)

The project is called Persistent Digital Archives and Library System (PeDALS), and the goal of the PeDALS project is to both revolutionize and standardize the manner in which official document records are digitally archived.

At its core, PeDALS aims to become both a long-term service to the national archive community and to local and national citizens alike.

For archivists, the vision is to support the ability to ingest "digital stacks" of digital copies of documents and corresponding metadata from various offices of origin, parse and catalog the documents and metadata, store a “local” copy of the documents and metadata, and then replicate the archived document across 7+ nationally distributed repository clusters. We are leveraging BizTalk Server as the metadata splitter and archive broker for archiving the digital records to a highly replicated storage network that can preserve the authenticity and integrity of the collections indefinitely.

Once the first phase (replicated dark storage) is complete, patrons like you and I can go to a public website and search on historical records like marriage certificates, official government documents, and even emails sent from government officials!

Today, there are 5 participating states in the project, including Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, New York, and Wisconsin.

Even more impressive, Microsoft Connected Systems technologies like BizTalk and .NET along with LINUX and BSD systems are driving national standardization of how the entire nation can work with a variety of repositories in a standards-compliant, interoperable manner to support the ongoing development of the system and promote best practices across national archive repositories.

You can see an overview of the project here: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/states_az/states_az.html as well as a system architecture diagram here: http://rpm.lib.az.us/pedals/Pilot_Architecture.asp.

All of this work is public record and I personally feel very proud to be working on this project as it will provide a great service to our local and national communities that will impact my children and several generations to come.

Lessons from the Trenches: A Real World SOA Success Story - Session Posted on SoapBox

Rick G. Garibay — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:26:29 GMT

The video of the talk I delivered at the Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference has been posted by Microsoft on MSN SoapBox.

You can click below to view the video now, or click this link to view the video and session abstract.

Deciphering the Microsoft offerings for Real World SOA, Brian Loesgen.

Clearing the Minefield with Next Generation SOA Technologies, Alan Smith.

SOA Patterns from the Field, Jason Hogg.

You can view videos for all of the sessions by visiting the MSN Live Space here: http://soaconference2009.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

February Phoenix Connected Systems User Group Meeting - Tonight 2/12

Rick G. Garibay — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:31:38 GMT

Don't miss a great discussion with Brendon Birdoes, Principal Consultant with Neudesic who has been working with the Patterns and Practices Group over the last several months on the next version of Microsoft ESB Guidance.Brendon will discuss some of the new enhancements to ESB Guidance and how they can be applied to common customer integration scenarios.

More info here.

Meeting Place: Microsoft District Office - 2929 N. Central Avenue, Suite 1400, Phoenix, AZ
Meeting Time: Thursday, Feb 12 6pm to 7:30pm

Please note: We cannot validate parking for this event. If parking fees are a problem, please park at a free or metered parking spot.

See you there!

Rick

For a recap of previous events as well as what's coming up next, be sure to bookmark: http://www.pcsug.org/Home/Events

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Announcement

Rick G. Garibay — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:17:42 GMT

On April 24th, I blogged about Microsoft's announcement of BizTalk Server 2006 R3. Today, Microsoft is announcing plans for BizTalk Server 2009, which will replace original plans for the R3 release. You can read Steven Martin's official announcement here: http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar

As with BizTalk Server 2006 R3's original list of new features and enhancements, the focus on BizTalk Server 2009 is enhanced platform support, SOA and Web Services, including:

New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
Low-latency messaging enhancements and ESB Guidance
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
SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer's implementations

This announcement, and corresponding (non-comprehensive) feature set is significant in my opinion for two reasons. First, it reflects a continued commitment on behalf of Microsoft Connected Systems Division (CSD) to the BizTalk Server platform. This is important for businesses and developers who have made significant investments in BizTalk Server and are looking beyond the next 3 to 5 year horizon in making strategic architectural decisions that will have a lasting effect.

Second, it reflects an emergent approach to simplifying application integration, SOA enablement and adoption which ensures that by staying up the date and following platform patterns and best practices, a gradual yet consistent readiness for upcoming technologies and platform enhancements is provided.

I believe that BTS 2009 will be a step forward in lubricating the adoption of more model-driven technologies through a stronger, more connected alignment with the .NET Framework, Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow.I have talked a bit about the Connected Systems Technology curve here.

To summarize, The .NET Framework cross cuts the entire Microsoft stack, from the user interface to the database, and this is certainly true within Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server. However, moving from pure .NET to WCF is non-trivial because it requires an evolution in thinking beyond traditional development and into contract-first development and SOA. In my career, I recall the struggle I had in moving from writing procedural code to thinking in terms of object orientation, and I don’t have to look too far back to remember the shift in thinking in moving from white-box-reuse-based objects to black-box component programming. While the WCF developer likely has a system/middle-tier background, the evolution to workflow and modeling will prove just as challenging because strong .NET system developers tend to be much more comfortable working imperatively. BizTalk developers, on the other hand, have been benefiting from the maturity in tools, modeling of workflow and message-based communication for several years. For the BizTalk developer and architect, the transition to WCF, and especially WF is nearly seamless because with the fundamentals in place, the declarative and model-based design experience that WCF and WF introduce respectively become second nature and so does the rate of adoption.

While there has been no official change to release plans, a CTP update is planned for Q4 of CY08. Microsoft will use this broad feedback from customers and partners to help us validate the features and readiness of the product.