Architecture
Lets Design for Accessibility When Solidsoft was engaged on the Tell Us Once project for the UK government one of the many key requirements was to meet all the accessibility requirements. At the time this was a bureaucratic edict couched in values expressed in research from pre-2006. Yet another tick box or accreditation for us to meet. What transpired is the first steps towards thinking about embracing accessibility not merely meeting a government edict. Strangely enough the new Government Digital ......
With Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 about to hit the streets I ask are you paying too much for your EAI solution? Every organisation in the world is forced to evaluate every £ spent. Have you looked at how much you spend on your EAI/Middleware Server/platform and associated services to deliver it? At Solidsoft we know how to make every £ count. By using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006/2009 combined with the best EAI architects and solution developers in the business we can help make those pounds count ......
Move it: MSIT group has just released a whitepaper on moving from BizTalk 2004 2002 & 2004 to BizTalk 2004 2006. It goes into quite a bit more technical detail than our typical case study particularly in regards to their consolidation onto 64bit hardware. http://www.microsoft.com/te... ......
Can you feel it: What is REST? The following has been abstracted from Roger L. Costello;s article REST is a term coined by Roy Fielding in his Ph.D. dissertation [1] to describe an architecture style of networked systems. REST is an acronym standing for Representational State Transfer. Why is it called Representational State Transfer? The Web is comprised of resources. A resource is any item of interest. For example, the Boeing Aircraft Corp may define a 747 resource. Clients may access that resource ......
Something: Facilitating joined up government with federated security This article examines the benefits of creating a federated security environment. http://www.valuefromitingov... ......
I'm Free!: Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition for Free The full software for 32-bit and 64-bit versions is available as a free download !!! This is the full Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise edition available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This is not a trial or limited version ! Virtual machines created today with Virtual Server will be able to migrate into our hyper visor based Windows virtualization. http://www.microsoft.com/wi... ......
Day 2 built on the excellent start of day 1. Good business view of SOA kicked of my day, followed by the SQL workshop with Keith and Eric and then a fine BizTalk 2004 Session from John Plummer and Kevin Smith (both of MS). In the afternoon I enjoyed an excellent presentation from Martin Fowler (Thoughtworks not Eastenders!) Lots of networking and hob knobing before winding my weary way home! Overall and excellent 2 days. Well done the two Matts! ......
Location : Celtic Manor - http://www.celtic-manor.com/ Agenda: Good in parts Best Session of the Day: Eric Nelson's SQL Server 2005 Application Architecture. First 15 mins very funny... Introduced 7 new products: 1. SOA Server 2. XML server 3. Application Server 4. ETL Server 5. OLAP Server 6. Diamond Reporting Server (SIC) 7. Deep Thought Server Guess what only sold as a suite of programs, and every copy gets a free SQL 2005 license....think about it. Intresting stuff today on SoBI, MSF 4, Indentity, ......
I will survive: 1. Hardware firewall. For small-office Wi-Fi networking, the most affordable secure firewall is the Linksys Wireless-G WRT54G router (left, about $60 USD street), which also offers four ports for wired Ethernet. If you wish to install third-party Linux firmware, get the WRT54GL ($70). To cover more than a few adjacent rooms, consider the Linksys WRT54GX ($160), which doubles the usual "g" range. Be sure to enable WPA or WPA2, either of which provide strong Wi-Fi security. The WRT54G ......
Walking on the moon: Developing a solid foundation for delivering transaction services Andy James, Chief Technology Officer, describes Solidsoft’s approach to delivering a common architecture for creating end-to-end business processes – the Solidsoft Solution Foundation http://www.valuefromitingov... ......
Quote Threats and Countermeasures: Improve Your Web Application Security This guide gives you a solid foundation for designing, building, and configuring secure ASP.NET Web applications. Whether you have existing applications or are building new ones, this guide is for you. Minor Ad: Great DVD rental offer! ......
Amazon's Mechanical Turk Project In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen’s "Turk" was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. To persuade skeptical audiences, Kempelen would slide open the cabinet’s doors to ......
If you're interested in clustering under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, then this forthcoming webcast on Thursday 10th February 2005 at 19:30-21:00 UK Time (11:30AM - 1:00PM PST) by an expert in Virtual Server, Robert Larson, is a must. Abstract:Looking for an easy way to build a cluster of virtual machines to avoid the cost and complexity of a physical environment? Attend this session to learn how to create a two-node cluster of virtual machines running Windows Server 2003 - a key feature of Virtual ......
Enterprise Library is the next generation of the patterns & practices Application Blocks.
Read here http://www.microsoft.com/resources/practices/comingsoon.mspx for more info
Had an interesting response from Ben Johnston to my post below around the whole installation issues of BizTalk 2004 2004 2004. His point waqs that having spent a number of days getting all the hot fixes, service packs ect. together it didn't seem much different to the process the 'Free software' build would take. So I decided to let you in on my own trial. Build a VPC of BTS 2004 with all bells and whistles, do the same for 'LGOL'. Result: BTS build - 1 day LGOL build - over 4 days and still having ......
OK here's the rub - IBM seem to have a clear answer to the customer question 'What do I need for SOA' on the other hand Microsoft seems destined to not provide a straight answer saying simply .Net or more likely Indigo. Neither is a packaged solution like IBM's WebSphere orientated 'On-demand' tale. So what I was wondering is can we the MS community provide a clear 'packaged answer' and a nice strap line to go with it? How about as a starter - "Service based solutions for customers" and the package: ......
I've been doing a lot of research lately around these two and come to some sort of thoughts about them. There seems to be a huge amount of confusion particularly that Workflow is BPEL and BPEL is Workflow - that’s just not true. For my part I think its best if I give you my definition of BPEL: What is BPEL BPEL standards for Business Process Execution Language. It is an XML standard for defining the composition of Web Services into new services (web services) In some quarters it is seen as one of ......
Over the last few months I've taken a calm and considered view of ESB. Until now I have decided to 'keep out' of the foolish arguments that have been going on, that was until I read the 'ESB vs BizTalk 2004 Debate Gets Heated in Barcelona' by David A Chappell. Now in its self this shows how heated the various debates can get, then there is the logic behind the arguments, but finally the penny drops for me as to what really underlies the arguments and inparticular this one. Both David and the Microsoft ......
To Quote: Microsoft Certified Architect Program The Microsoft Certified Architect Program validates top industry experts in IT Architecture. These professionals have 10 or more years of experience in IT with at least 3 years of experience as a practicing architect, and possess strong technical and leadership skills and form a distinguished community. Unlike other IT certifications, this credential was built and is granted by industry architects, as candidates must pass a rigorous review board with ......
Passing large amount of data through web services can become a huge bottle-neck in WAN application architecture (i.e., server is on the web), and in any case a real load on the network traffic. This is one solution for downsizing the network costs. Nice topic by DaberElay read it at http://www.codeproject.com/... ......
Behold WSE 2.0: Removing Another Layer of WS-Pain Reporting Strictly for Developers: Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 10 Ways to Make Your Code More Testable ......
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Get all the latest information on building Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in one place. This new section of the .NET Architecture Center features an updated version of Pat Helland’s Metropolis presentation that drills down on the SOA guidance that Metropolis provides. New Service-Oriented Architecture Resource ......
Over the last 5 years I have been involved in a lot of different projects where Identity Management or IDM has become more and more important. Any work with local or natinal government now has this as a key element so I thought it might be time to blog a little on the topic... What is it? Simply put Identity management (ID management) is a broad administrative area that deals with identifying individuals in a system (such as a country, a network, or an enterprise) and controlling their access to ......
In the recesses of your computer, 20-30 invisible processes run silently in the background. Some hog system resources, turning your PC into a sluggish computer. Worse yet, other useless processes harbour spyware and Trojans - violating your privacy and giving hackers free reign on your computer. WWW.ProcessLibrary.com is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to know the exact purpose of every single process
Have a look at this it makes intresting reading.... To quote the article: "Discovery is one of the most important features required by all SOA based technologies. In the Web Services environments there are several technologies to provide discovery support like: WSIL, WS-Discovery and, one of the most popular, UDDI. UDDI is typically associated with Web Services; however its data model permits to represent almost any kind of information. Some technology providers uses UDDI to, for example, discover ......
Having recently reviewed an excellent bit of solution architecture from one of our excellent Principle Consultants it struck me thta a key aspect of SOA is the need to provide a registry of services. Now this may sound like a simple list or datadase solution but what really 'lit my fire' was the use of the rules engine as the registry. What a cool idea - we can use the content of the message passing through BizTalk 2004 to decide the services it requires to fullfil its process. So what we end up ......
At last how to network together multiple VPC's - hope over to Simon Guest's site : http://blogs.msdn.com/smguest/archive/2005/02/10/370861.aspx
In recent months after having struggled with the concepts of SOA I have finally come to the view that once I've cut through the hype the vision is simple - instead of building monolithic applications we should break them up into smaller services then aggregate these into a larger solution to meet the business need. When the business need changes we can use existing other services or create new ones and reaggregate. As similar requirements arise we can re-use services to meet the need. Of course the ......
My muse for the week is simple...now BizTalk 2004 has come of age (16 not yet 21) and the major growing pains are over we now have a situation where the product is not just about EAI and B2B. We have a set of tools that facilitate the rapid deployment of Business process using .Net technologies. So what do I mean by that? Well lets start using BizTalk 2004 in application solutions. Orchestration has come of age, the plumbing issue has been cracked and we now have a stonking Rules Engine. This means ......
The Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation framework (EIF) enables applications built on the .NET Framework to be instrumented for manageability in a production environment. This framework provides an extensible event schema and unified API which leverages existing eventing, logging and tracing mechanisms built into Windows, including WMI, the Windows Event Log, and Windows Event Tracing. This framework plays a key part in a number of the Microsoft application blocks particulary the Exception block. ......
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