VolkerW's WebLog

Unix to Windows API dictionary

Volker Will — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:06:20 GMT

Wen-ming on my team worked with folks from InteropSystems on a porting dictionary to help ease the pain porting source code from Unix to Windows. They took the most frequently used Unix calls and provided a piece of sample code demonstrating the equivalent function on Windows (if it exists).

Please go to http://www.interopcommunity.com/dictionary/index.php and check it out.

The team will certainly appreciate your comments and feedback on the site. Feel free to use the discussion forum on the dictionary website and share your own experiences and help expanding the dictionary.

New Training on the Channel9 Learning Center

Volker Will — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:53:06 GMT

The evangelism team is constantly expanding our selection of training courses on Channel9.

This week we launched another set of great learning courses on the new Learning Center. The one that is close to my heart is the High Performance (HPC) course.

I am very proud of my team. Two out of the currently available 8 courses are from my team: Windows Server 2008 R2 and the HPC training.

The new course comes with four units:

Overview

This introductory unit presents the motivation for using High Performance Computing. It covers the conceptual basics and presents HPC Server 2008, explaining what can it do for you and how can you start using it. You will also have a glance over how to develop applications that take advantage of the platform and the administrative tools you have available.

Application Development

Developing programs that can execute in parallel to tackle huge amounts of data or very complex calculation needs some specific patterns and techniques. This unit introduces the problem space and the Message Passing Interface, a programming model widely adopted by the industry with implementations on many platforms, including .NET. It also covers additional tools for tuning, tracing and debugging of this types of solutions.

SOA and WCF

Service Oriented Architectures are key to leverage the power of High Performance Computing from other types of platforms, exposing services to solve particular problems as part of a solution that leverage HPC capabilities, while preserving more traditional programming models for the the rest. This unit presents several scenarios and shows concrete examples of implementations using Windows Communication Foundation on HPC Server.

Administration

An important part of leveraging an HPC platform is to have an efficient process for setup, administration and integration of clusters and nodes. This unit explains how to start implementing the platform, schedule jobs and use templates, diagnose and troubleshoot, monitor and tune performance, and how to integrate with other platforms.

New Courses on the Channel9 Learning Center

Volker Will — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:09:43 GMT

As mentioned in a previous post, we are constantly expanding our selection of training courses on Channel9.

Today (Nov 9th) we launch a few new courses. One of them is the the Windows Server 2008 R2 training.

Windows Server 2008 R2, “Not your average R2!”

Explore this significant Windows Server release via a self-paced training course (URL works as soon as the course is live on Nov 9th, 2009) of videos and hands-on-labs with a focus on performance, web, management, and other server solution scenarios. Learn about developing applications for “many-core” scale, enable efficient “trigger-started” services, explore new Windows PowerShell features, create integrated solutions with the File Classification Infrastructure, build Web Platform extensions, and automate your dev-test environment with VHD and Hyper-V API’s.

Parallel Computing at PDC09

Volker Will — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:44:54 GMT

Besides a bunch of sessions, there’s also a chalk talk at #PDC09. Check out the details and “how to avoid the crowd” at the A View into the Behavior of Your Parallel Application blog.

Server Room to Datacenter To Compute Container

Volker Will — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:49:09 GMT

Over at c|net Ina Fried has a short article, including video interview, about what “… could be the largest data center in the world," according to Arne Josefsberg, GM of infrastructure services for Microsoft's data center operations.

But it is not only the potentially largest datacenter, it is also a quite unusual datacenter. The servers come in a data containers (literally). Computers of this datacenter are set up in large shipping containers. All you need for this datacenter is a parking lot, power, water for cooling and a wide network pipe.

Find out about the pros and cons and how you – regardless of the size of your company – can take advantage of this innovative setting in Windy City. Only one word: Windows Azure.

7 Up

Volker Will — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:11:00 GMT

Windows 7 has a lot to offer for developers. If I had to pick the 7 most relevant or the 7 “sexiest” I would go with James’ list. Over the past week Jim O’Neil wrote a series of blog posts about his 7 favorites.

Learn how to take advantage of these cool features on Jim’s blog. Be prepared for some cool stuff.

XP-Mode	Taskbar	Federated Search	Extended Linguistic Services
Direct 2D	Sensor and Location API	Multitouch

The Microsoft Career Campaign

Volker Will — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:50:46 GMT

Whether you are currently unemployed, looking for a promotion, or want to be indispensible in your existing role, Microsoft’s Career Campaign provides learning paths and guidance to help you get trained for some of the top IT job roles in the industry. These learning paths focus on some of the most popular applications, such as Microsoft Windows, SQL Server, Windows Server and Exchange. To help accelerate your learning path, we are also providing discounts and special offers for certifications, e-learning, and classroom training.

To find out more visit: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/start/start-career.aspx

To access the promotions visit: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/offers/career.aspx

Windows Server? – What Windows Server?

Volker Will — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:09:47 GMT

In a comment to one of my previous posts Dmitry asked:

“I'd like to find details about different versions of Microsoft Windows like Server 2008, HPC Server 2008 and HPC Server 2008 R2. What is the difference between them? It's very hard to find a table which would give such comparison.

Is R2 just an update of existing version or this is redesigned version?

What is the difference from applications' point of view? …”

Thanks for your questions! There’s lots of pages you find detailed information about all different flavors of Windows Server. I want to point out 3 pages I find particularly informative.

The first page “New and Updated Features in Windows Server 2008 R2” seems to be exactly what you are looking for Dmitry. It contains a summarized version of all new and updated features for Windows Server 2008 R2 and which edition they are supported on.

The second one is called “Overview of Editions”.

This page does a good job listing the different SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) of Windows Server and their key benefits. Clicking on the individual images on that pages leads to more in-depth information about the editions.

Did you know there’s a Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium based Systems edition? Of course you did. Find out about the key scenarios about Windows Server on IA64 by clicking the image.

The third page, named “Differentiated Feature Comparison by Edition” is awesome. It lists OS features and which Windows Server edition has it and which doesn’t.

Regardless which one you choose, make sure you check out the navigation bar on the right side of the page. It says “Editions Information” in bold.

There’s much more comparison info available via the links in this box.

Enjoy!

New Efficiency Launch Event Live on Monday

Volker Will — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:49:08 GMT

Experience The New Efficiency Microsoft Launch Event Live from San Diego October 26th Virtually!
www.thenewefficiency.com/live

View and download 18 IT Professional and Developer focused live sessions from San Diego starting at 9am PDT October 26th. Focusing on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010, you can listen to Microsoft experts, download valuable resources and explore the live launch event "virtually".

Mark your calendars

PowerShell- PDC09 Prep Guide For Server Folk

Volker Will — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:43:00 GMT

This post focuses on a series of select sessions closely related to the Windows Server platform. Read all related posts.

The post highlights selected sessions and gives guidance on what to read or which website to check out to make the most out of your visit to PDC2009.

Certainly not complete but something to get you started.

PowerShell Sessions @PDC2009

Windows PowerShell: An Automation Toolbox for Building Solutions That Span Small Businesses, Enterprises, and Cloud Services

Come learn how you can leverage Windows PowerShell to automate the administration of client and server operating systems all the way from small businesses to large enterprises and cloud services.

Resources:

Building Your Administration GUI over Windows PowerShell

Learn how to use PowerShell to help quickly create a custom UI to simplify enterprise administration. Come find out why layering administration GUI on top of Windows PowerShell makes delivering a UX quick and easy. See how to write rich automation and integrate graphical user interfaces using Windows PowerShell.

Resources:

see above

See you @PDC09.

New Channel 9 Learning Center

Volker Will — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:38:02 GMT

http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/. Free technical training on bleeding edge technologies!

The Channel 9 Learning Center is the destination for free technical training on emerging Microsoft products and technologies. The Learning Center consists of a set of courses with each course including a set of videos, hands-on labs, and source code samples to get you up-to-speed quickly.

Check out the first to courses (and spread the news!):

More courses are coming (very) soon!

SQL Server - PDC09 Prep Guide For Server Guys+Gals

Volker Will — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:51:00 GMT

This post focuses on a series of select sessions closely related to the Windows Server platform. Read all related posts.

The post highlights selected sessions and gives guidance on what to read or which website to check out to make the most out of your visit to PDC2009.

Certainly not complete but something to get you started.

SQL Server Sessions @PDC2009

Making Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Fly

Hear best practices for getting the fastest query processing for general-purpose applications, including logical and physical database design, statistics management, query design, query tuning, problems areas to avoid, and more. Learn which query constructs cause the query optimizer to rely on guesses rather than accurate statistical estimates for the number of rows returned by sub-plan. Also learn how to work from an understanding of your query and update patterns to develop a high-performance set of indexes for database tables. Find out how parameters and local variables effect plan selection and optimality, and how that can impact performance of your applications. See how how your choice of data types for join keys can affect join performance, and how data compression affects CPU overhead and I/O.

Resources:

SQL Server Optimization
SQL Server Library
SQL Server on Channel9 (videos and screen casts)
SQL Server 2008 Developer Training Kit
Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (free eBook)

Microsoft Semantic Engine

See how the Microsoft Semantic Engine brings search, structured query, and analytics together in a simple, unified Search-Discover-Organize usage model. Learn how it addresses the need to have unified access to structured and unstructured enterprise data through easy to use analytical tools. Also learn how to enable business insight to support decision making at all levels within the enterprise. Get an overview of the Semantic Engine, its architecture, the product and its APIs.

Resources:

Microsoft Semantic Engine (MSDN Code Gallery)
Jamie Thomson about the Semantic Engine on SQLblog.com

Microsoft Project Code Name “Repository”: Using Metadata to Drive Application Design, Development, and Management

Come see how to use the Microsoft SQL Server "Repository" to increase speed and accuracy of development, deployment, maintenance, and management of your enterprise applications. The "Repository" is a central management database for application lifecycle metadata. Learn how to perform impact analysis, architecture validation, and manage application configuration/deployment using the UML, CLR, Identity, and deployment models in the "Repository".

Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 includes an exciting new platform called StreamInsight for building rich data processing over real-time event streams. This technology is ideal for applications that need to process high volumes of event stream data with no latency. Learn the basics of how to build a StreamInsight input adapter for monitoring an event stream, how to construct real-time queries in LINQ and install them in the highly scalable StreamInsight engine, and how to build a StreamInsight output adapter to visualize the results from your queries.

Resources:

Advanced Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight

This is the second session in a series focusing on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight, a new platform for building rich data processing over real-time event streams. Come get a detailed architectural walkthrough of the three major components of StreamInsight: input and output adapters SDK, the StreamInsight engine runtime, and the semantics of the continuous standing queries hosted in the StreamInsight engine. Learn how the engine deals with out-of-order data arrival and how to achieve close to real-time latency for queries. Examine best practices for performance and scalability, and hear a few case studies of real-world StreamInsight implementations and the lessons learned from them.

Resources:

see above session

Simplifying Application Packaging and Deployment with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Come explore the new enhancements in SQL Server 2008 R2, known as Application and Multi-Server Management, which enable a more efficient way to develop, deploy, and manage data-tier applications and instances. See how a new single unit of deployment for database applications is integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio and helps enable developers to more quickly write higher quality database applications, author deployment policies based on the needs of their applications, and hand off a single package to database administrators. Also learn how improvements combine a first-class Transact-SQL IDE with a new Visual Studio 2010 project template known as .DACPAC (Database Application Component) to produce a comprehensive model of the objects, policies and runtime resources required by a data-tier application.

Resources:

Developing Rich Reporting Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) provides a comprehensive platform for developing and delivering rich enterprise reporting functionality over the Web. SSRS reports support rich data visualization and navigation features, and can be rendered in most popular formats. Come get a quick review of SSRS report development, and explore some of the key improvements in SQL Server 2008 R2, including new map visualizations, a new component library, using existing reports as a data source for the new PowerPivot functionality in Microsoft Excel 2010, and an improved AJAX enabled Report Viewer control for building Web-based reporting solutions.

Resources:

SQL Server Reporting Services (Books Online)
Reporting Services Homepage
Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008 (White Paper)
SQL Server 2008 – Reporting Services (TechNet)

See you @PDC09.

BizTalk Server - PDC09 Prep Guide For Server Folk

Volker Will — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:22:00 GMT

This post focuses on a series of select sessions closely related to the Windows Server platform. Read all related posts.

The post highlights selected sessions and gives guidance on what to read or which website to check out to make the most out of your visit to PDC2009.

Certainly not complete but something to get you started.

BizTalk Server Sessions @PDC2009

Queuing and Publish/Subscribe in a Heterogeneous Environment

Queuing and publish/subscribe are common patterns for building loosely-coupled, distributed applications. Learn how to use Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) the new Microsoft ASP.NET 4.0 routing service, the Microsoft .NET Service Bus, and Microsoft BizTalk Server to easily connect heterogeneous systems. We’ll then introduce AMQP (the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol), an important new open standard for interoperable message-oriented middleware, which will reduce the friction in connecting heterogeneous clients. A real-world scenario will show AMQP in action, connecting WCF, Microsoft Excel, and Java-based clients.

Resources:

WCF - Windows Communication Foundation Architecture Overview
ASP .NET 4.0
Routing in ASP .NET 4.0
AMQP - Advanced Message Queuing Protocol
Open AMQ
MSMQ – Message Queuing
.NET Service Bus

Microsoft BizTalk Server Futures and Roadmap

Learn how BizTalk Server 2009 lets you focus on writing the code to do the hardcore business logic and let BizTalk take care of moving the data. Hear how your development skills with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) work seamlessly with the powerful integration platform of BizTalk. Find out how BizTalk aligns with the Microsoft application server in the longer term.

Resources:

Microsoft BizTalk Server
WCF - Windows Communication Foundation Architecture Overview
BizTalk Server Developer Center
Learn BizTalk

Connecting Applications with the Microsoft BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus

See how the BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) enables you to build services that can be quickly located and connected, whether they live behind the firewall or in the cloud, without creating a brittle point-to-point link. Learn how to dramatically improve the service lifecycle of development, testing, and deployment by using the powerful messaging, routing, and transformation capabilities of the BizTalk ESB in your solution today, and get a glimpse of future plans for BizTalk service bus/pub-sub pattern.

Resources:

See you @PDC09.

Free eBook on Windows Server 2008 R2

Volker Will — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:09:18 GMT

Go and grab the free MS Press eBook, “Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2” by Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker! This is a fantastic resource for learning about the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 in the areas of virtualization, management, the Web application platform, scalability and reliability, and interoperability with Windows 7.

Down the eBook from the Windows Server 2008 Product Home Page.

HPC Server 2008 - PDC09 Prep Guide For Server Guys+Gals

Volker Will — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:30:29 GMT

This post focuses on a series of select sessions closely related to the Windows Server platform. Read all related posts.

The post highlights selected sessions and gives guidance on what to read or which website to check out to make the most out of your visit to PDC2009.

Certainly not complete but something to get you started.

Windows HPC Server sessions @PDC2009

Accelerating Applications Using Windows HPC Server 2008

Learn how to accelerate your applications by multiple orders of magnitude using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Microsoft Excel, and Windows HPC Server 2008. See how easy it is to offload the calculations from a desktop application to an HPC Server Cluster using the HPC SOA programming model, with emphasis on performance tuning best practices.

Resources:

Windows HPC Resource Kit
Microsoft HPC homepage
HPC Team Blog
Evangelist Blog
Clustered Excel
WCF - Windows Communication Foundation Architecture Overview
SOA meets HPC - an FAQ (presenter’s blog post)
HPC videos on Channel9

Data-Intensive Computing on Windows HPC Server with the DryadLINQ Framework

Come get an overview of the DryadLINQ features and runtime environment, and walk through some real-world examples of DryadLINQ programs based on the familiar declarative syntax of LINQ combined with the fault-tolerant distributed graph scheduling of the Dryad runtime. Hear how DryadLINQ provides a programming model and runtime for data-parallel programs running across large clusters and partitioned data sets.

Resources:

See you @PDC09.