This past Tuesday was the inaugural meeting of the Windows Azure Cloud Computing User Group in Chicago, IL.  The mission of this new user group is to provide a forum for developers and architects to discuss Microsoft's vision of Software + Services (S+S), and in particular the Azure Services Platform.  This user group is sponsored by Neudesic, and the presenter for the first meeting was Bryce Calhoun, Director at Neudesic.  Despite the snow and difficult driving conditions, the meeting was well attended by many members of the local community.

Bryce gave an excellent presentation on cloud computing that fostered some good discussion within the group.  His presentation was divided into the following topics:

• What's it all about?
• Why take it seriously?
• Software + Services
• Azure: Microsoft's Cloud Services Platform
• Developer Experience
• Business Models

Bryce also dropped into Visual Studio and built out a Windows Azure application that communicated with data stored in SQL Data Services - simple yet effective.

I was pleased when Bryce showed this quote from Steve Ballmer early in the presentation, as I think it really captures the value of engaging with this user group:

The Azure Services Platform was announced at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this past October, and you can already start building applications today through the public CTP.  Now is the time to explore the technology, try out new and different ways of writing software, and provide feedback to Microsoft on what works and what doesn't work!  It is my hope that this user group becomes a forum to explore how the tools and technologies that are available through Azure help (or hinder!) businesses when they attempt to create compelling applications in the cloud.

Below are some of my notes from the presentation.  This isn't an exhaustive set of notes, but rather a few pieces from the presentation that I found interesting and compelling.  If you want a summary of the entire presentation, well, perhaps you should come to the next meeting.

Why take it seriously?

I really liked Bryce's discussion on why we should all take the cloud seriously.  In particular, I felt that the following slide highlighted how all the big players - Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Oracle, etc. - are investing, to some degree, in the cloud.

Software + Services

Bryce had a slide that discussed S+S that I found rather interesting.  In this slide ...

... you can see that, on the left, we have a fairly standard architecture for on-premises software.  You might find this in any enterprise data center, as it is specifically designed to handle the needs and scale of an enterprise.  On the right you can see services in the cloud - notice how the various tiers are designed to scale horizontally and provide "on-demand" scaling.  This architecture is significantly different from your standard on-premises architecture because you are now dealing with Internet-scale, something that most companies and enterprises have little experience at providing.

What's missing from this picture, in my opinion, is an illustration that shows that S+S is not an either/or proposition.  Instead, S+S is about choice and flexibility.  There's no expectation that businesses will move all their on-premises assets and applications into the cloud; instead, they will probably identity specific instances in which it may make sense to move an application, a database, or some other asset into the cloud, and then use technology (perhaps provided by Microsoft's .NET Services) to bridge their on-premises systems to their cloud-based systems.  It's all about choice.

I really like this slide from Ray Ozzie's keynote presentation at PDC:

You can see here that the technologies provided by Microsoft provide a continuum that gives you an on-premises platform as well a set of cloud services that complement the on-premises platform.  You can use what makes sense and works in your scenario.

Business Models

The best source of information regarding the Azure business model (i.e. pricing and licensing) continues to be the Pricing & Licensing Overview page.  There you can read about the four principles of the business model:

1. Consumption-based model
2. Pricing attractive with the market
3. Market expansion opportunity for Microsoft partners
4. Easy access through the Web, or through existing channels and programs

Bryce made some good points regarding Opex (operational expenditure) and Capex (capital expenditure) when speaking to this slide:

This slide attempts to show that you can significantly reduce your costs when you no longer have to maintain a large infrastructure to support your on-premises software.  Instead, if you move towards a utility compute model, you only pay for the services you need and let the provider absorb the cost of maintaining the data center.

I noticed a little healthy skepticism from the group, and rightly so.  This is a new platform, and the onus is on Microsoft to show that they (er, we) can deliver on the promise of cloud computing.  Some of the top concerns I heard from participants included:

• The security provided by Azure storage and SQL Data Services
• The (perceived) disconnect between SQL Server and SQL Data Services and confusion regarding the roadmap
• The business model and lack of specific pricing and licensing details

It seems to me that these topics would make excellent topics for future posts, and I will try to do so.  In the meantime, I encourage those of you that have these same concerns and questions to engage in your community, try out the new technology, and explore the capabilities of the Azure Services Platform - all you have to do is go to http://www.azure.com/ to get started.

All in all, I am very excited about this new users group and the community it will create, and I appreciate Neudesic's efforts to launch these groups around the U.S (see http://cloudcomputingusergroup.com/ for details).  The current plans are to have another Chicago user group meeting in January, most likely held at the Microsoft office in downtown Chicago.  Once I hear something concrete I will be sure and let you know.

For those of you that attended the user group meeting (and even those of you that did not, for that matter), please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions on the Azure Services Platform, and how you might start building some compelling applications.  You can reach me through this blog.

I had the honor and privilege to present with Jack Greenfield at PDC2008 this past week.  We discussed our use of the Azure Services Platform - the new Microsoft cloud services layer recently announced at PDC2008 - to build Multi-Enterprise Business Applications (MEBAs).  As Jack says in the presentation, the Azure Services Platform has the potential to bring about a resurgence on business-to-business (B2B) in a way that hasn't been possible before.  Our mission was to figure out how to use Azure to build out the MEBAs of tomorrow.

It was an incredible journey to PDC, and I plan to post a number of blog entries over the next couple weeks highlighting our day one keynote with Bob Muglia and RedPrairie (skip to minute 59:00), our use of the Azure Services Platform to build a supply chain application, and lots of code and patterns that show how we did it.  For now, I'd like to share with your our breakout session at PDC2008.  To watch our presentation, please click the picture below:

Our session abstract:

Learn how we built a multi-enterprise supply chain application using the cloud services platform. Today, most organizations are deeply interconnected, and business applications span multiple enterprises. See how we built an application that satisfies requirements around connectivity, identity, orchestration, and storage, providing a scalable, pervasive, highly available, general-purpose platform that replaces custom software and infrastructure. Hear about the core requirements for multi-enterprise business applications, their architecture, and the cloud-based framework we built to support them. Learn about the issues we encountered, lessons learned, and useful guidelines and patterns.

If you are interested in building out higher-level services on top of the Azure Services Platform, please let me know!  We are looking for great customers that want to explore the many possibilities that the cloud has to offer.

Enjoy!

… and I can’t wait!

For the last two months I’ve been working on a project that uses the “Windows Cloud OS” and “Cloud Services”, and I can’t wait until we disclose all the details at PDC 2008.  Expect to see a significant amount of details regarding this cloud computing project as we get closer and closer to PDC.

In the meantime, enjoy a sneak peak at the work done by one of our ad agencies – can you feel the excitement??

If you have any interest in the new Windows 7 and Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy, you won’t want to miss Microsoft PDC 2008!

I find myself doing this over and over again, so I figured it would be worthwhile to post.  Below you’ll find a really useful way for installing a Windows O/S from a bootable USB device.  I am particularly dependent on USB drives, as I have a Lenovo X61 Tablet that doesn’t have a CD/DVD-ROM (unless I’m docked, but I’m hardly in the office).

A couple of notes:

• This assumes you’re running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008
• I’ve tested by installing the following O/S’s: Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008
• You must have a machine capable of booting from a USB drive

Without further ado, here are the steps:

1. Open an elevated command prompt.
2. You must make your USB drive bootable.  Type the following in the command prompt:
   
   diskpart
   list disk (FIND YOUR USB DISK)
   select disk 1 (OR WHATEVER YOUR DISK NUMBER IS)
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition 1
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   
3. Mount your Windows Server ISO (or unpack it) and copy the contents of the CD/DVD onto your USB.  Make sure you get all files, including hidden ones.

You should now be able to use this USB drive to install a new O/S.  Good luck!

As I am new to Illinois, I recently started looking around to find out about some of the local user groups.  My friend and colleague, Dave Bost (developer evangelist and co-host of The Thirsty Developer), recently sent me the following list of user groups in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  I'm not yet sure if this is an exhaustive list or if I'm missing some key groups.  Please let me know if I'm missing any.

Illinois

Chicago .NET Users Group – http://www.cnug.org
Chicago VSTS Users Group – http://vsts.sogeti-chicago.com
Bloomington (IL) – http://www.bloomingtondotnet.org
Rockford .NET Users Group – http://rockforddotnet.net

Indiana

Indianapolis .NET Developers Association (+ C# SIG, ASP.NET SIG, VSTS SIG) – http://www.indynda.org
Evansville .NET Users Group  – http://www.evansvillednug.com
Michiana .NET Users Group (South Bend) – http://www.madnug.org

Wisconsin

Wisconsin .NET Users Group (Milwaukee) – http://www.wi-ineta.org
Fox Valley .NET Users Group (Appleton) – http://fvnug.wi-ineta.org
Chippewa Valley .NET Users Group (Eau Claire) – http://cvnug.wi-ineta.org
Madison .NET Users Group – http://www.madisondotnet.org

I attended the Chicago .NET Users Group (CNUG) last night and had a great time.  I hope to see you all at the next meeting!

I know that Twitter is nothing new and that many of you are already using it, but until recently I had managed to resist.  However, upon joining Microsoft and getting to know my evangelist peers, I found Twitter to be a great way to both keep in touch and coordinate with my friends and coworkers.  Furthermore, having recently moved from Colorado to Illinois, I found that Twitter is also a great way to keep in touch with distant and remote friends.  It's great to hear what's going on with my friends, like Rich Finn and Ryan McCutchen; also, unlike instant messaging technologies, we don't have to be online at the same time.

So, as you have probably guessed, I have started to Twitter; you can follow me at: http://twitter.com/wwegner/.

There are tons of people twittering away all day long, and one of the challenges I've had is filtering out the the noise.  Consequently, the one bit of advice I will give to newcomers is to start slow and resist the temptation to start following hundreds of people all at once; I did this at first, and I found it overwhelming.

As a RESTful service using simple SMS, Twitter makes it easy to interact via many different clients.  One that I've started using on my Windows Mobile 6 device is TinyTwitter.  This tool allows me to read the messages of people I'm following and post updates when I'm away from my computer.

Neat stuff.  Try it out, and feel free to follow!

I have long been a proponent of working and developing in an environment that matches your production systems.  I've found that developing on the same O/S takes away a lot of the unknowns and guess work that occurs when you deploy from a traditional workstation O/S (like XP or Vista) to a server O/S (like Windows Server 2003 or 2008).  Don't get me wrong, Windows XP and Vista are fantastic O/S's and appropriate for all kinds of development; yet, when you're working with products like BizTalk, SharePoint, or Commerce Server, it make sense to use the same server O/S.

Windows Server 2003 has been one of my favorite O/S's.  It's stable, fast, and powerful.  I've built all kinds of custom .NET, SharePoint, BizTalk, and Commerce Server applications on Windows Server 2003 and I have never been unhappy or displeased with the O/S.  So, if I've always been happy with Windows Server 2003, why am I talking about Windows Server 2008?

This little post is probably the wrong place to get into a full discussion regarding the features and benefits of Windows Server; however, let me mention a few things that convinced me:

• IIS 7.  There have been some tremendous changes to IIS in this latest version.  I'll post about this another time; there's too much for this post.
• Hyper-V.  Hyper-V is a virtualization system for x64 versions of Windows Server 2008.  It's cool stuff, and again too much to get into here.  Never heard about this?  Go read about it!
• x64.  All I can say is that I was always unhappy with the x64 version of Windows Server 2003.
• Roles and Features.  I'll talk more about these in another post; roles and features are similar to what we've used in previous versions, only better!

There are many more reasons; this published list of the Top 10 Reasons to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 is a great start.

Alright, convinced?  Well, if for some reason you're still not convinced then I invite you to witness how slick and easy the installation process is with Windows Server 2008.  Actually, I found that it's very much like the Windows Vista installation.

1. Insert your bootable DVD or map the ISO file to your virtual machine.  Boot the machine.

2. Once the lightweight O/S has booted, click Install Now.

3. Depending on the flavor of your DVD / ISO, you will have various options to select from.  Select the operating system you want to install, and click Next.

4. You are next presented with the license terms.  Be sure and read these terms!  Once you have finished, select I accept these terms, and click Next.

5. You must next select the type of installation.  Again, depending on your flavor, you may have different options.  I always prefer to perform a fresh installation.  That's just how I role.  Make your selection, and click Next.

6. Next, you have to select the disk partition to which the operating system is installed.  Make your selection, and click Next.

7. Now comes the impressive part.  The installation for Windows Server 2008 is very much like Windows Vista - fast!  That's because the operating system is largely unpacked rather than installed.  On the first screen you'll notice that the zip is copied over to the disk partition ...

8. ... and then it is expanded.

9.  Oops.  It went so fast I missed a screen shot.  Honestly, Installing Updates is typically the slowest part of the installation, although this is more true for Vista than Server 2008 as Vista has more updates to install at this point in time.  (No, this is not a reflection or comment on the quality of Vista!)

10.  At this point I was asked to reboot.  Just do what it tells you to do.  It's smarter than we are.

11. And then the installation completes.  Yippee!

12. Before you can log into your new fresh installation of Windows Server 2008, you are told to change the administrator password ...

13. ... and then you can set a new password.  It struck me odd that this was considered "changing" the password, since there doesn't appear to have been one before.  Oh well.  Semantics.  This installation still rocks.  Click the little arrow, and then ...

14. ... your desktop is prepared!

Congratulations, you've just installed Windows Server 2008!  Altogether, I was able to go through this process in about 30 minutes on my Dell D830.  Not too shabby!  In the effort of full disclosure, here are the specifications for my machine:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.40 GHz
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB
System type: 64-bit Operating System

Really, when you sit back and reflect on what operating system installations were like back in the old days (the 90's were the old days, right?) it's amazing how much more sophisticated this process has become.  It's elegant, intuitive, and fast.

While you may not be as impressed with this as I am (in which case you must try it on your own, as I know you'll become as fervent as I am) I promise you that some of my next posts will get your blood flowing.  I plan to show how easy it is to add roles (e.g. a Web Server with IIS) and features (e.g. .NET Frameworks or PowerShell) to Windows Server 2008.  Neat stuff, and again, very intuitive.

I hope this helps!

Today I decided to install the x64 version of Windows Server 2008 EE w/ Hyper-V on my Dell D830 laptop.  I will post about the experience later (it was awesome!); for now, I want to specifically mention how I was able to get the wireless working.

I should have done my due diligence prior to installing Windows Server 2008, but I like to live dangerously!  After the installation was complete (which was simple and fast), I noticed that the wireless adapter was not installed.  I tried to update the driver manually, specifically telling it to check the web, but the search didn't find anything.  I also checked both the Intel and Dell web sites to no available—I couldn't find anything for Windows Server 2008 and my wireless adapter on either web site (which is not all that surprising, since I doubt many people try to install a server O/S on their laptop).

Discouraged, I did a quick search and found a post from my colleague Keith Combs discussing his experience installing Windows Server 2008 EE on his Lenovo laptop.  Amazingly, Lenovo laptops have the same Intel wireless adapter as the Dell; furthermore, Lenovo has also published the device drivers!

To make a long story short (too late, I know), I was able to download and install the Lenovo drivers on my Dell.  Thus far (it's been about two hours) everything seems to be working perfectly!

Gotta love OEM!

Hopefully this saves a poor soul from a couple hours of digging.  Good luck!