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Thanks
Aaron

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Not long ago (early April), P&P team just released the Unity as a lightweight, extensible dependency injection (DI) container, it facilitates building loosely coupled applications… CodePlex site is here http://codeplex.com/unity

Last week, Microsoft’s .NET Framework program manager Krzysztof Cwalina announced that his team is working on a new framework for .NET — Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) — designed to improve compatibility with third-party extensions. It seems that the .NET Framework group may take over the DI space from the P&P group… The followings are from K’s site: “The work we are doing builds on several existing Microsoft technologies (like the Unity framework) and with feedback from the DI community. The relationship with the Unity team is the regular relationship between the P&P group and the .NET Framework group where we trickle successful technologies and ideas from the P&P team into the .NET Framework after they have passed the test of time.”

MEF have much bigger scope than just he DI space, both Brad Adrams and Krzysztof will blog more details about MEF in upcoming months, but here are some early details (subject to changes, of course): “MEF is a set of features referred in the academic community and in the industry as a Naming and Activation Service (returns an object given a “name”), Dependency Injection (DI) framework, and a Structural Type System (duck typing). These technologies (and other like System.AddIn) together are intended to enable the world of what we call Open and Dynamic Applications, i.e. make it easier and cheaper to build extensible applications and extensions.”

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Journal 15: THE ROLE OF AN ARCHITECT.Welcome to the 15th issue of The Architecture Journal! In this issue, we wanted to kick start a discussion about our emerging profession. We've assembled a wide variety of perspectives from architects throughout the industry and at organizations like IASA and the Open Group. Download your electronic copy HERE.

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Krzysztof Cwalina and team released a Framework Design Studio that is a set of tools for framework and library developers to view, review, and compare versions of managed APIs.

It allows you to

• List APIs exposed from a managed code assembly
  
• Compare APIs in two versions of an assembly
  
• Review APIs
  
• Comment on API design
  
• File bugs to a defect database (via plug-in)
  
• Export Comments to a Microsoft Word document

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Day 2`s Session Videos
You can check my notes on the sessions that I've attended here

Keynote (Day 2) - Enterprise Architecture at the Government of Canada
The Government of Canada has started to apply EA in innovative ways and they are getting results in ways (and places) you will not expect. Come learn how Canada's Chief Architect and his team are pushing the EA envelop and driving towards Coherent Government by Design.

Malware Landscape Update
Almost all malware is criminally motivated today. Two or three cyber criminals are responsible for 60% of all the Internet malware. Their bots are self-updating, fast-fluxing, and can exploit dozens of vulnerabilities to break into end-user machines. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how many legitimate web sites are spreading this malware. Attend this session and learn about malware’s latest tricks and exploits.

Internet Service Bus
An Internet Service Bus provides a platform for creating and deploying composite applications that integrate services from various sites. As Web Services and Web 2.0 technologies become popular, the need for providing internet service bus is increasing. Join us and your peers to discuss the key ideas behind this important architectural concept and its potential applicability in your enterprise.

Designing the Optimized Desktop in the Enterprise
The desktop is the most unpredictable and uncontrollable part of you infrastructure and like it or not it is part of your infrastructure. During this session we will discuss how you can use innovative technologies to help reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the Windows desktop. This session will discuss how you can accelerate operating system and application management and enhance IT responsiveness and user uptime. We will also discuss how to better control the desktop, accelerate and simplify desktop deployments. Also how to improve management and create a more dynamic infrastructure.

SQL Server 2008 Data Platform
Attend this session to learn about the breadth of new features in SQL Server 2008. In this session, we will walk through the new developer functionality from SQL Server and .NET Framework enabling you to build the next generation of data applications leveraging the new data types and programmability features. We will also walk through the business intelligence capabilities, from reporting, analysis to data integration, enabling you to reach more users with relevant information. Finally we provide a brief overview of core enterprise platform capabilities, covering security, scalability, availability and manageability features. This session will be a mix of demos and slides covering the different aspects of the product.

Security Defence Trends
Get rid of the DMZ! There is no perimeter. Is IPSec finally taking off or is SSL winning out? Is anti-virus scanners finally dying? Attend this session to find out the latest security defense trends.

The Importance of User Experience in Today's Applications
With the advent of increasingly more robust user interface and communications technologies, there has been an unprecedented focus on user experience factors in application design and development. With greater demand for workforce productivity, understanding how to use technology to make the end user experience better has become a critical component to many application architecture decisions. This session will provide you with an overview of what user experience means in the context of application architecture and how you can leverage Microsoft’s technology platform to build a strong connection between the user and your applications.

Keynote (Day 2) - Dynamic IT at Microsoft
This discussion will explore some of the key initiatives inside of Microsoft’s own IT organization. Barry will be discussing some of the important challenges and opportunities facing Microsoft IT such as Software + Services and how Microsoft uses our own software to satisfy the needs of one of the world’s largest enterprises.

Enterprise Ready Data Platform
Attend this session to learn how SQL Server 2008 provides a trusted data platform for you mission critical applications. We will cover the new security and compliance features enabling you to protect your data. We will also cover new scalability and high availability features enabling you to make your data always available. We will end with the new manageability features that enable you to manage this platform more easily while extending your reach, enterprise wide to all databases within organization.

Decreasing the Number of Admins
Everyone knows that decreasing the number of active administrators is one of the best ways to defeat current malware and hackers, yet over 90% of businesses allow all their end-users to run as local administrators. Contrary to popular belief, Windows Vista doesn’t really bring much to the game that wasn’t available in XP Pro. Attend this session and learn the 20 ways customers can use to reduce the number of administrators in their environment. This session will cover the methodology to use and spreadsheets and templates that you can share with your customers to help with this security journey.

Architecting Solutions Using the Windows Live Platform
This session will provide an overview of the architectural elements of the Windows Live Platform. The Windows Live Platform provides APIs for core services such as Windows Live Contacts, Windows Live Messenger, Live ID, Search, and Virtual Earth. These APIs can be used to create dynamic and interactive applications that include mapping, streaming media, instant messaging, storage, presence, contacts, authentication, and more.

Accessing Data on the MS Platform
The .NET Framework is now at version 3.5 and there are many different ways the framework provides access to your data. This session will deliver an introduction to some of the different data access technologies like LINQ, Entity Framework, ADO.Net Data Services and other future improvements being made to the .Net Framework. This session will provide an introduction to these technologies through demos and slides and will provide resources where deeper knowledge can be gained.

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Day 2 in general is interesting... but when I found that Simon Guest won`t come tomorrow, a bit disappointed. For the full list of sessions videos, click here

KeyNote: EA - Everything Aligned
Gary Doucet from Government of Canada shared his insight in EA implementation. He emphasised that the enterprise architecture already exist in the enterprise... just not in a structure way...we need to make it coherent/align. The EA process should be a driver role to design the business process instead of just capturing the requirement, progressing from foundation, extended to embedded stage of the alignment between business process and architecture.

Panel: Identity Management
I joined this panel to see if I can get more idea to extend my existing Enterprise Application Security Framework. My current architecture still having a big missing piece, Identity Federation. There are a few very useful tips and experience sharing. It seems that there is no magic, non technical processes for building the identity meta model, identity life cycle, and work with the actual subject matter is a must... SAML based token can be used, only when the trust model across different business units exists.

Breakout: Malware Landscape Update & Security Defence Trends
Not too much to talk about, other than it drives me to looking for a better AV to install on my PC (Russian one should be better). I'm glad that Roger Grimes pointed out the importance of RBAC practices, which it plays a most important role in my Enterprise App Sec Arch. However, the presentation seem to be too much... words and slides, make it kind of lost what`s the most important, especially for the session just after lunch... z z Z Z

Breakout: Accessing Data on the MS Platform - Jamie Wakeam
This is the most interesting one today, although the demo is not very successful (still beta). The most interest one is the ADO.NET Entity Framework & ADO.NET Data Services to Ship with VS 2008 SP1 & .NET 3.5 SP1. Finally... MS get the ORM tool/framework. At the very beginning... I think it look like .netTiers/CodeSmith like code generation model, but one of our developers told me that it should like SubSonic, since Rob Connery join Microsoft since last year...

KeyNote: Dynamic IT at Microsoft
Talk about the similar things as of last year... The only surprise for me this year are those words like ecosystem, sustainable, carbon neutral data centre, which I used to it in Canada`s daily news, by the way my previous employer just become carbon neutral

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Canada Strategic Architecture Forum 2008 Day 1

• Morning session is quite interesting, it seems that Microsoft having a big bet for future in MS-Surface and natural interface (IPod Touch?)
• Richard (BMO) having a very interest presentation to share his experience as a Chief Architect in BMO, some of them are very practical (or real) tips...
• Afternoon sessions are a bit disappointed, nothing really new from Microsoft's sessions. They still promoting their BPIO model (MS version of CMMI...), but I found that it's too MS-product centric...
• The Application Platform Optimization via SOA session was quite interesting for the Service Virtualization concept... (too bad, we don`t have video for this session yet...)

In the panel discussion session, I joined the SOA road map one...
I`m still hesitate or doubt to have a solid SOA road map, or invest in the solid implementation yet. We always say that the architecture should not rely on technology implementations. I still remember in late 80s to early 90s when every architect focus on state-of-the-art distributed computing architecture using DCE, COBRA and Forte (MS may want to put DCOM in the same category). When the http (and Java) waves come in 90s (thanks to T. Berners-Lee), all the effort in those heavy weighted stacks on APIs or IDLs become legacy architecture. Will those WS-* based or WCF based SOA face the same problem when the RESTful wave come, actually it`s coming already.

Session Videos

Keynote - Norm Judah
Architectural discontinuities continue to drive both innovation and opportunity. The next wave of these discontinuities is no different in its breadth and depth, for example; Mobile Platform, Virtualization, Software plus Services and Green Computing. Each one of these has implications on how we design, build, deploy and manage applications, and in particular, the application architecture.

Keynote - Richard Cleaver
Enterprise architecture is an area of focus for many companies. Transformation, simplification and agility are only a few of the many drivers that impact the need for an effective and engaged enterprise architecture function. Richard Cleaver, Vice President of Enterprise Architecture for BMO Financial Group, will share his thoughts about the current and future state of enterprise architecture. Richard is an engaging and thought provoking speaker and you will gain new insights into the practice and impact of an enterprise architect.

BPIO Service Line
Today’s business climate is more challenging than ever, and businesses are under constant pressure to lower costs while improving overall operational efficiency. In short, businesses are being asked to “do more for less”. As businesses advance their IT capabilities and achieve a sustained improvement in their IT infrastructure, they must take a long-term, strategic view of optimization and link these capability and optimization improvements to their business needs and strategy to achieve their business objectives. We see Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization (BPIO) as a flexible model for infrastructure optimization that can lead to a roadmap for infrastructure maturity.

The goal for infrastructure optimization is to help companies realize the full value of their IT infrastructure to drive business results. In this presentation we will introduce the BPIO model and the different stages of maturity while providing examples of services that have applied the BPIO model to solve real business situations.

Building an Agile IT - The CN Way
This session will explore how CN is leveraging the Microsoft Platform to deliver applications in an agile fashion.

Keynote - Stephen Ibaraki
Join us as Stephen Ibaraki, a long time industry leader and visionary shares his insights on using IT as a strategic asset within our organizations.

Building Business Intelligence Using the Microsoft Platform
In this session you will see an important part of the overall Microsoft BI platform in action from end to end. Learn how by integrating SQL Server 2005 with SharePoint 2007 you can enable users throughout your organization to access powerful reporting capabilities. See how you can use Excel 2007 to analyze multidimensional data from SQL Server Analysis Services, we will also demo the SQL Server Data Mining Add-In for Excel 2007, a set of easy to use capabilities that enable predictive analysis on every desktop. In addition, utilize Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to get the thin Excel experience in Excel Services by creating excel web parts, dashboards and to collaborate across the organization.

Core Infrastructure Optimization
Having a plan and methodology to take your organization to the next level by simplifying your IT infrastructure allows organizations to reap many benefits. The Infrastructure Optimization (IO) model allows you to assess your current place within the model and create a roadmap to move to a more agile infrastructure. This session will provide an overview of the IO model and how organizations can use the available tools and guidance to enhance their core infrastructure and reap the benefits of a Dynamic Organization.

Improving the End User Computing Experience at Bombardier
In 1999, Bombardier Aerospace (BA) defined an innovative Windows 2000 PC image that is still efficient. 8 years later, Bombardier Aerospace is defining a program to improve and enhance the End User Computing (EUC) experience. The presentation will go through BA EUC evolution, Vision and Communication program to make such program a business priority.

How to Manage Virtualized Environments using System Center
In this session, we will examine System Center tools for managing virtual environments, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, and VMWare. You will learn how a unified management vision for both virtual and physical environments allows you to simplify your IT infrastructure and helps to automate many of the management tasks faced by administrators on a daily basis. We will also look at some data protection challenges of virtual environments and how Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM 2007) can be used to protect critical data and physical and virtual machines while they are active, which also increase availability.

Realizing Dynamic Systems
This session will cover the fundamental building blocks of architectures that support dynamic systems. Looking at the creation of health models as well as complex event generation and recognition we will investigate how these underpin systems that can determine remedial actions themselves. We will also look at some of the process changes that need to take place in our teams in order to build dynamic systems.

Windows Server 2008 as a SOA Platform
This session takes a look at the various components of Windows Server 2008 and how they can be leveraged to build solutions. Focus will placed on IIS, WAS, and .Net 3.0 but features like Virtualization, Server Core, and Active Directory enhancements will also be explored.

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Welcome to Archiveloper Blog...
Due to some technical problem ...
This blog will replace the original blog in http://www.archiveloper.com/

Please stay tune if you want to access some of my old blog entries. I am in the process to migrating the old blog entries here... (but have to wait for me to file my tax return first...)

Last Updated: April 10, 2008

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