Just noticed these two gems (again from the MSDN Architecture Center):

Guide to Migrating from Oracle to SQL Server 2005

Summary: "This white paper explores challenges that arise when you migrate from an Oracle 7.3 database or later to SQL Server 2005. It describes the implementation differences of database objects, SQL dialects, and procedural code between the two platforms. The entire migration process using SQL Server Migration Assistant for Oracle (SSMA Oracle) is explained in depth, with a special focus on converting database objects and PL/SQL code."

Guide to Migrating from Sybase ASE to SQL Server 2005

Summary: "This white paper covers known issues for migrating Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise database to SQL Server 2005. Instructions for handling the differences between the two platforms are included. The paper describes how SQL Server Migration Assistant, the best tool for this type of migration, can help resolve various migration issues."

I definitely could have used these two documents a few months ago!

I hope this helps!

I have recently been scouring MSFT resources for information related to architecture and the role of enterprise architects, and I have found two resources that I wanted to highlight:

MSDN Architecture Center

This is a great central hub for architectural information related to MSFT technologies, platforms, and products.  There are also a number of excellent architects that deal with topics such as service oriented architecture (SOA), Software + Services (S+S, SaaS), security, enterprise architecture, agile development, and more.  Additionally, it is tied into a number of great blog feeds by various architects in the MSFT community.

The Microsoft Architecture Journal

As an example, Journal 13 is focused on Software + Services (S+S).  As such, topics include: The Internet Service Bus, Project Astoria, Implications of Software + Services Consumption for Enterprise IT, Enterprise Mashups, Microsoft Office as a Platform for Software + Services, and A Planet Ruled by Software Architectures.  Additionally, it features profiles, such as the profile on Ray Ozzie this month.

And the best part of it is that, after you register, you can get a free subscription to the MSFT architecture journal.

You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.  Good stuff!

As a side note, I'll admit that I need to find more resources like this that are not MSFT specific.  While I believe MSFT does a great job of addressing architectural issues that are agnostic of platform and technology, I need to continue to diversify the helpings on my plate!

If any one has suggestions, please send them my way!

I only recently noticed a four-part series of MSFT webcasts focused on aspiring architects, hosted by Mohammad Akif and Dave Remmer.  I found these links after visiting the blog of Hanu Kommalapati, an MSFT architect evangelist.  He links to the aspiring architects webcasts himself, as well as Mohammad's blog.

Here are links to the webcasts, as well as some high-level notes on the various topics discussed.

Note: you may think that these webcasts would focus on architecture from the MSFT perspective, but really the presenters do a great job of staying mostly agnostic to technology and platform.

Part 1 - Aspiring Architects - Architecture 101

• What is architecture?
• Why worry about architecture?
• Types of architecture?
• Types of architects?
• What does an architect do?
• Experience level for an architect?
• Key characteristics?
• What are architects expected to know?
• Governance challenges and solutions strategies
• How to be an effective architect

Part 2 - Aspiring Architects - Software development lifecycle and methodologies

• SDLC approaches
  • Waterfall
  • Rational Unified Process (RUP)
  • Agile Methodologies
• SDLC Tools
• Methodology context

Part 3 - Aspiring Architects - Services orientation and other architectural paradigms

• Solution types (e.g. rich clients, n-tiered, web-based, SOA)
• Solution construction models
  • Object-oriented
  • Component-based
  • Service-oriented
• Service oriented architecture (SOA)
• SOA maturity models

Part 4 - Aspiring Architects - Transitioning from a developer to an architect

• Skills of an architect
• Things to develop
  • Leadership
  • Organizational dynamics
  • Technology depth
  • Technology breadth
• Strategy for infrastructure architects
• Strategy for solution architects
• Process and tactics
• How to be effective
• Activities and experiences
• Next steps

Will you feel empowered to confidently act as an architect after watching these webcasts?  Maybe not.  Will you get a good, high-level overview of what it means to be an architect, along with tips on making the transition from a developer/IT professional to an architect role?  You bet!

I hope this helps!

It only took me two or three months, but I finally updated my Silverlight Hangman application.  It was originally written an earlier version of Silverlight 1.1 alpha, and I hadn't taken the time to update it.

The only things I had to do was switch out the Silverlight.js file and change the value of "Hidden" to "Collapsed" for the "Visibility" property of objects.  Otherwise I was able to use the same files in the Beta 2 version of Visual Studio 2008.

(Darn, I bet when Visual Studio 2008 is released soon I'll have to update it again!  Oh well!)

Enjoy!

Last Monday, three of us from Statera (Troy Hall, Colin McGraw, and myself) presented on the topic of Silverlight at the first MSDN Masters Series presentations in Denver, CO.  This event was hosted by Joe Shirey, an architect evangelist for MSFT, and was geared towards technical folks at the 200-300 level.

We presented the following three sessions over the course of four hours:

1. Programming Silverlight (Wade Wegner)
2: ASP.NET, AJAX and Silverlight (Colin McGraw)
3: Silverlight and Media (Troy Hall)

We had a good healthy attendance, and it is my hope that the topic was received well by the audience.

As promised, here are the slides from the presentation:

1. MSDN Masters Series - Programming Silverlight.pdf
2. MSDN Masters Series - ASP.NET, AJAX, and Silverlight.pdf
3. MSDN Masters Series - Silverlight and Media.pdf

Additionally, Colin has provided the source code for the Photo Site he demonstrated in his talk:

- PhotoSite_VS2005WebSiteProject.zip

And lastly, here's a slide deck I used for a "non-technical" discussion of Silverlight:

- Silverlight Intro.pdf

I hope you find these useful.  Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Note: For those of you that want to skip the explanation, and simply get a converted management pack for Commerce Server 2007, scroll down to download a MOM 2005 pack converted for OpsMgr 2007 for Commerce Server 2007.

I previously blogged about Commerce Server 2007 and Operational Monitoring, and indicated that there is no native OpsMgr 2007 pack for Commerce Server 2007 (although there will be one some day).  For now, we have to convert the MOM 2005 pack.  Fortunately, this is a pretty straightforward process, although there is the potential for things to to fail (learn from my experience!).

In order to convert management packs from MOM 2005 to OpsMgr 2007, you must have the following installed on your server:

• Operations Manager 2007 (hopefully this is obvious)
• The MOM 2005 User Interfaces (found on your MOM 2005 disk)
• The MOM 2005 to OpsMgr 2007 Migration tool (found on your OpsMgr 2007 disk)

Now, before you go and start installing all these bits, let me share my experience.  You should install the MOM 2005 User Interfaces first, followed by Operations Manager 2007, and lastly the MOM 2005 to OpsMgr 2007 Migration tool.  Here's why -- when I originally attempted to convert convert the 2005 pack I started by installing OpsMgr first and then tried to install the migration tool.  The installer told me that in order to install the migration tool I first needed the MOM 2005 UI.  Fair enough, I thought, so I went to install the UI tool.  However, every time the installer went to "Check Prerequisites" I got the following error:

No matter what I did, I got this error (although this error never occurred on any other machine that didn't have OpsMgr 2007 installed).  I couldn't find any information on this error (evidently I'm the only person to experience this problem), but I think it's some kind of installation failure because OpsMgr 2007 was already installed.  I went to test this theory by trying to uninstall OpsMgr 2007, but then I got a "Fatal error during installation" error when trying to uninstall.  Ugly!

Fortunately, this was a virtual machine so I scrapped it and started over.  This time I installed the bits in the following order:

1. The MOM 2005 User Interfaces
2. Operations Manager 2007
3. The MOM 2005 to OpsMgr 2007 Migration tool

This worked perfectly for me, and I never experience the above error.

Once everything is installed, you can begin the conversion process.  Open Start --> All Programs --> System Center Operations Manager 2007 --> Migration Tool.  The migration tool is a wizard that will walk you through the process, and is very easy.  Simply point to the extracted 2005 management pack file (which you can download here) and either migrate it directly to your OpsMgr group or to a file.

If you have chosen to migrate it to file (like I did), you must then import it into OgsMgr 2007.  Open Start --> All Programs --> System Center Operations Manager 2007 --> Operations Console, choose the Administration tab, right-click Device Management, select Import Management Packs, and point to your converted MOM pack.  It's as easy as that!

Now when you go to the Monitoring tab, you'll see the following:

All you need to do now is provision the agents on your Commerce Server 2007 machine, and away you go!  Very simple, and very useful.

I hope this helps!

I installed Windows XP Professional with SP 2 today and was amazed to see this when I ran Windows Update:

96 updates!

It literally took longer to install all the Windows XP updates than it did to install Visual Studio 2005 Team Developer Edition.  Amazing!

Maybe it's time for SP 3?

Operational monitoring (OM) is a practice that is sorely underused, in my opinion.  OM is a performance and event monitoring practice that allows you to respond to errors and gain insight into machines on your network.  Microsoft has two flagship products for operational monitoring: Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007.  Through MOM and SCOM you can monitor your Microsoft server products, such as SQL Server, Web Sites, and even Commerce Server 2007.

There are a number of benefits to using OM, including:

• Receive notification of critical errors and warnings
• Automatically respond to errors and warnings
• Gain insight into performance and trends to preempt future problems

Both MOM and SCOM use an agent (a piece of software installed on the monitored machine) to track the performance and events on monitored machines.  The agent watches a number of different sources on the computer, such as the Event Log, and then centralizes this information on the OM server where it is stored in a database.  The OM server applies filters and rules, and will notify individuals and/or groups if necessary.  Additionally, they can respond to events by running scripts or executables on the monitored machine.

While you can define your own events and thresholds to monitor your machines, you can also take advantage of pre-built management packs.  These management packs are designed by the corresponding product team (e.g. the Commerce Server 2007 MOM pack is designed by the Commerce Server team) so that the monitored events and defined thresholds are most appropriate for the product.

Installing MOM 2005

The process for installing MOM 2005 with Service Pack 1 is pretty straightforward (especially if you're installing it on one machine).  Take a look at the following documentation for detailed steps:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/mom/mom2005/Library/b7b0c768-64d1-486e-b9ed-7292c9e545f9.mspx?mfr=true

There are four steps involved in installing MOM 2005:

1. Installing SQL Server and MOM 2005
2. Discovering computers and deploying agents
3. Install MOM 2005 reporting (optional)
4. Import management packs

I suggest that, before you install MOM 2005, you take advantage of the "Check Prerequisites" tool to make sure that you've properly configured your server.

If you have problems installing agents on step two, take a look at the following KB article: ttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/883335/en-us.  Turns out I had a DNS issue on one of the machines I wanted push an agent onto; after resolving the DNS issue I had no problems.

Once you have successfully installed and configured MOM 2005 (steps 1 through 3) you are ready to import various management packs.

Configuring the MOM Pack for Commerce Server 2007

You must first download the MOM 2005 pack for Commerce Server 2007.  When you run the executable you must specify the location to place the files.

I suggest you use the default location for management packs: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Operations Manager 2005\Management Packs\.  This way, when you run the import from the MOM 2005 Administrator Console, you won't have to change the default location.

To import the management pack you must do the following:

1. Open the MOM 2005 Administrator Console
2. Browse to Microsoft Operations Manager (<Computer Name>) --> Management Packs
3. Right-click Management Packs and select Import/Export Management Pack.
4. Choose the Import a management pack, and click Next.
5. Lave the default location for the management packs, which is where you installed the Commerce Server 2007 MOM Pack.  Click Next to continue.
   
6. Select the Microsoft Commerce Server 2007.akm management pack to import.  Click Next to continue.
7. On the summary page, click Finish.

Once you have installed the management pack you must then specify your Commerce Server 2007 servers.  To do this, you must do the following.

1. Open the MOM 2005 Administrator Console
2. Browse to Microsoft Operations Manager (<Computer Name>) --> Management Packs --> Computer Groups --> Microsoft Commerce Server 2007.
3. Right-click Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 and choose click Properties.
4. Select the Included Computers tab and click Add.
5. Select the Commerce Server computers you wish to monitor, and click OK.

Now your Commerce Server 2007 servers are being monitored by MOM 2005.

I would say that the "out-of-the-box" settings for the MOM pack are okay about 90% of the time.  The key is to get a baseline for your environments and potentially fine tune the settings based on your findings.

SCOM 2007 and the 2005 MOM Pack

According to the CS product team there is no native SCOM 2007 pack planned at this time.  However, the MOM 2005 pack is supposed to work with SCOM 2007.  While I haven't tried this myself, I've been told by multiple sources that it should work and that this is the supported model.

If I get the opportunity to test this I'll be sure to update this post.

Additional Resources

In addition to the Commerce Server 2007 MOM Pack you may also want to use the following MOM packs:

• Web Sites and Services Management Pack for MOM 2005
• SQL Server Management Pack for MOM 2005

While the Commerce Server 2007 MOM Pack tracks the health of your Commerce Server environment, it doesn't really monitor the health of your Web Site (i.e. IIS).  Additionally, there are events and thresholds in the SQL Server pack that are also worthwhile.

At the very least, make sure you review the following white paper: Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 MOM Pack White Paper.

Also, here are some good blogs/sites to track:

• Operations Manager Product Team Blog
• OpsMgr, SCE And MOM Blog
• System Center Community
• Scripting for Microsoft Operations Management (MOM)

MOM 2005 and SCOM 2007 are great resources and you should definitely take the time to learn more about them.

I hope this helps!

04/13/2008 - Please see this post for information regarding this book.

It has been awhile since I last posted about the status of the book Professional Commerce Server 2007, so I thought I'd share some news and exciting developments.

First of all, I am very happy to announce that Tom Schultz has agreed to participate in writing the book and will author a number of chapters.  Tom is a senior consultant with the Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS), and is particularly focused on e-commerce and the Commerce Server product.  Tom's extensive real world knowledge and expertise will bring tremendous value to this book, and I am really excited to work with him.

The book is on schedule and still targeted to hit the shelves in Q1, 2008.

Here is the table of contents for the book.  At this point there really won't be any major changes:

Part I: Getting Started

1    Technology Primer
2    First Steps
3    The Commerce Server Architecture

Part II - Commerce Server Overview

4    The Catalog System
5    The Inventory System
6    The Orders System
7    The Profiles System
8    The Marketing System
9    The Commerce Server Adapters for BizTalk Server 2006
10    Commerce Server Staging
11    The Data Warehouse Analytics System
12    The Business Processing Pipeline System

Part III: Developing with Commerce Server

13    Commerce Server 2007 Development
14    Developing with the Catalog System
15    Developing with the Inventory System
16    Developing with the Orders System
17    Developing with the Profile System
18    Developing with the Marketing System
19    Customizing the Business Management Applications
20    Modifying and Extending the Data Warehouse
21    Building and Customizing SQL Reporting Services
22    Advanced Topics with the Commerce Server Adapters
23    Operational Monitoring

Part IV: Commerce Server in Production

24    Production Architectures
25    Building Your Production Environments
26    Deploying Commerce Server

Appendix

A    APIs
B    FAQ and Answers
C    Tips and Tricks

Tom and I will continue to work diligently on finalizing the content of the book.  Our goal is to provide our peers (i.e. you!) with the knowledge required to successfully architect, implement, deploy, and support enterprise solutions using Commerce Server 2007.