Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Next Generation Enterprise Web Solutions – Lunch Seminar
PHP Application Platform on Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 for the Internet
Join Microsoft for lunch and learn how to leverage next generation enterprise web solutions like Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for the Internet and PHP Application Platform for Windows in your organization.

Featured Speaker
Peter Meister, Group Product Manager – NextWeb
Windows Server Division (Microsoft HQ – Redmond, WA) 

Agenda (Lunch included)

• Introduction – Welcome
• MOSS 2007 for the Internet
• Windows Server 2008 PHP Solutions and PHP Application Platform
• ASK THE EXPERTS Panel Discussion

Session Overview – MOSS 2007 for the Internet
The services and capabilities built into SharePoint Server 2007 provides a scalable and extensible platform for external-facing web applications.  The discussion will include an overview of these capabilities and the appropriate workloads and scenarios for external-facing MOSS, as well as a discussion on real-world implementations of SharePoint for Internet Sites.

Session Overview – Windows Server 2008 PHP Solutions and PHP Application Platform
Microsoft’s flagship server released this year takes Web Services to a new level of enterprise performance, scalability and dependability. With the addition of PHP support, rich centralized management and great database integration – Windows Server 2008 is a great solution for your web services and application platform needs.

Date/Time/Location:
January 13, 2009 – 11:45am – 4:00pm
Microsoft Irvine
3 Park Plaza Suite 1600, Irvine, CA 92614
949.263.3000

Registration:
This event is invite only.  If you are customer of mine, please contact me for details on how to get registered.

Interesting article for Infoworld, written back in April of 2008.

<taken from an Infoworld article>

Microsoft designing application virtualization on server
The technology will let apps get centrally managed on a server and then streamed to desktops, devices, or shared PCs, and can also deliver upgrades on demand

Microsoft is working on application virtualization technology for the server that is designed to provide administrators the flexibility to quickly deploy infrastructure and even stream applications on-demand.

The capabilities would be similar to the application virtualization capabilities available in the client side via Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid).  

SoftGrid, which Microsoft acquired when it bought Softricity in May 2006, lets users package applications into "containers," store them on a server where they can be centrally managed, and then stream those containers to desktops, devices or shared PCs. It also can be used for on-demand delivery of patches and upgrades.

The benefit is that each application has a properly configured operating environment tailored to its needs. It also ensures applications don’t interfere with each other, such as running different versions of Office on the same desktop.

"We are working to move server applications into stateless environments so applications don’t need to go through the install process; they can be copied on top of the operating system," said Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia in his keynote address at the company’s annual Microsoft Management Summit.

The effort is part of Microsoft’s expanding virtualization strategy ahead of the shipment of Hyper-V, the server virtualization add-on to Windows Server 2008 expected to ship this summer.

Microsoft wants to bring application virtualization capabilities to the datacenter so users can quickly roll out infrastructure (middleware and operating systems) and then deliver applications either directly to the server or streamed on-demand when needed.

Images of applications and infrastructure would be stored in an online library, and deployed dynamically ensuring that the middleware’s configuration is aligned with the needs of the application, but also allowing different versions of server applications to run on the same box.

…

LINK:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/29/Microsoft-designing-application-virtualization-on-server_1.html

Around this topic, the Server Application Virtualization team has recently posted a blog entry on their site asking for people to participate in a survey to help them in their planning process.

“Our goal, as a team, is to improve server applications serviceability, reliability, and availability by allowing a consistent deployment experience.  We’ll accomplish this goal by making Server Applications “Xcopy-able” without requiring application code changes, maintain application state separation and thus unifying the deployment and servicing processes.

Server Application Virtualization will allow customers to rapidly deploy and service Windows Server workloads in a manageable way. Today it may take days or weeks to provision applications in the data center. Decoupling the server application from the operating system affords customers a great deal of flexibility that can be applied in various scenarios to improve operational efficiency. Server Application Virtualization will allow IT departments and businesses act quickly and efficiently to the demands of their customers.  The Server App-V technology will be able to run on bare metal or inside a virtual machine.

The Server App-V Engineering team needs your help!  We need additional customer data to help us with our planning process to help ensure our next generation application virtualization software aligns with our customers’ business requirements and scenarios.

We would appreciate it if you could take 1 – 2 minutes to complete the survey below.  Please include your contact information if you wish to be contacted and included in further discussions to help us shape the Server App-V product!”

…

LINK:
http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/12/17/server-application-virtualization-product-team-needs-your-help.aspx

Use Kinoma FreePlay, the world’s first mobile media browser, to find and play video, audio, and pictures on your mobile phone, home PC, or favorite sites (including YouTube and Flickr).

Without Kinoma FreePlay, your smartphone is just a phone. With Kinoma FreePlay, it’s a mobile media powerhouse. Kinoma FreePlay is the world’s first mobile media browser—it’s everything you need to find and play video, audio, and pictures, whether the media is on your phone, on your home PC, or on your favorite web sites.

• Video
  Search, play and share YouTube video. Watch movies and TV, catch breaking news, and view hundreds of webcams and traffic-cams.

• Audio
  Bring your music with you on your phone or stream it from home. Instantly access tens of thousands of great podcasts, streaming radio stations, and audiobooks.

• Pictures
  Browse, search, and view your own photos, or photos from Flickr or other sites. Even create and play slideshows, complete with music.

• Kinoma Guide
  Browse or search this constantly updated, always fresh guide to the best mobile-ready content, with no monthly subscription fees.

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/totalaccess/software/software/kinoma.mspx

Next Generation Enterprise Web Solutions
Lunch Seminar

PHP Application Platform on Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 for the Internet
Join Microsoft for lunch and learn how to leverage next generation enterprise web solutions like Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for the Internet and PHP Application Platform for Windows in your organization.

Featured Speaker
Peter Meister, Group Product Manager – NextWeb
Windows Server Division (Microsoft HQ – Redmond, WA) 

Agenda (Lunch included)

• Introduction – Welcome
• MOSS 2007 for the Internet
• Windows Server 2008 PHP Solutions and PHP Application Platform
• ASK THE EXPERTS Panel Discussion

Overview

• Session Overview – MOSS 2007 for the Internet
  The services and capabilities built into SharePoint Server 2007 provides a scalable and extensible platform for external-facing web applications.  The discussion will include an overview of these capabilities and the appropriate workloads and scenarios for external-facing MOSS, as well as a discussion on real-world implementations of SharePoint for Internet Sites.
• Session Overview – Windows Server 2008 PHP Solutions and PHP Application Platform
  Microsoft’s flagship server released this year takes Web Services to a new level of enterprise performance, scalability and dependability. With the addition of PHP support, rich centralized management and great database integration – Windows Server 2008 is a great solution for your web services and application platform needs.

Date/Time:

• January 12, 2009
  11:45am – 4:00pm
  Microsoft Phoenix
  2929 N. Central Ave.
  Suite 1400
  Phoenix, AZ 85012
  602.280.8600
• January 13, 2009
  11:45am – 4:00pm
  Microsoft Irvine
  3 Park Plaza
  Suite 1600
  Irvine, CA 92614
  949.263.3000

Registration:
This event is restricted to my customers.  If you are a direct customer of mine, please contact me for online registration information.  Attendance is limited so please contact me ASAP.

WOW!  After all the bashing and criticism, Peter Molyneux and his team at Lionhead Studios has done it.  They won a Game of the Year award from a respected publisher of game reviews.  G4TV’s X-Play does year round reviews of games published for both PC and console and gave the highly coveted “game of the year” honors to “Fable 2”.

1UP News: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171749

Peter Molyneux, the acclaimed creator of Populous, Black & White, and the original Fable, was widely criticized for his original overhype of the original “Fable” for the first Xbox.  With Fable 2 however, it’s clear that he’s redeemed himself in the eyes of the gaming community and recaptured his crown as one of the most visionary designers of video games of our time… and the “Game of the Year” title reflects this respect.

Winning the award over:

• Fallout 3
• Grand Theft Auto 4
• Metal Gear Solid 4
• Left 4 Dead
• Resistance 2
• Gears of War 2

… it’s clear that Peter & Lionhead Studios have accomplished something truly remarkable.  Here’s a video of Peter Molyneux himself accepting the award from G4TV’s Morgan Webb and Adam Sessler:

http://www.g4tv.com/lv3/35425

Discover the best Optimized Desktop Delivery Solutions!
Attend a half-day seminar hosted by Microsoft and Citrix.

In today’s economy, IT budgets are leaner and adopting a green VDI solution is a great way to choose the client computing scenarios that best meet the unique needs of your business, while making a positive impact on the environment. That’s why Citrix® and Microsoft® have joined forces to offer one of the best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions for companies looking to take desktop management to the next level.

Citrix XenDesktop™ together with Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V™, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, and Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) offers a complete, green desktop delivery solution that enables flexible work scenarios (like mobile commuting which reduces gas use) and extends desktop lifecycles (which minimizes waste and saves on replacement costs).

Join us to hear more about this technology that virtualizes Windows® desktops and applications in the datacenter and delivers them as a service, while consolidating servers and reducing energy requirements.

Can you afford not to attend? Register now!  http://registerandcompute.com/vdi/

• Energy-saving & flexible desktop configurations
• Best possible desktop & application performance in a VDI scenario
• Easily manage physical & virtual environments through world-class infrastructure management solutions
• Dynamic provisioning delivers desktops & applications on demand

Agenda
8:30 a.m –  9:00 a.m  Registration
9:00 a.m –  9:45 a.m  Virtualization 360 – From the Desktop to the Datacenter (Microsoft)
9:45 a.m – 10:45 a.m  Introduction to Microsoft Optimized Desktop and Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (Microsoft)
10:45 a.m – 11:00 a.m  Break
11:00 a.m – 12:00 p.m  Citrix Dynamic Desktop Delivery, Much More than VDI (XenDesktop) (Citrix)
12:00 p.m –  1:00 p.m  “Lunch with the Experts,” Q&A, Evaluations & Drawing

REGISTER: 
Irvine, CA – Tuesday, January 27, 2009
http://registerandcompute.com/citrix/eventinfo/event_details.asp?effortID=86370003&custurltype=true

We recently released the first public beta of the BizTalk Server 2009 and made available RFID mobile features for the current version of the software.

With the public beta release of BizTalk Server 2009, Microsoft is delivering the first customer preview of the multi-release road map announced in September 2008 and is giving customers the first look of the feature-complete download. BizTalk Server 2009 supports the latest Microsoft application platform technologies, including Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. BizTalk Server 2009 also delivers expanded new connectivity options including new integration with Oracle Corp.’s E-Business Suite, as well as updated platform support for the most recent versions of IBM Corp.’s Customer Information Control System (CICS), Information Management System (IMS), DB2, DB2/400, DB2 Universal Database and WebSphere MQ.

Customers will also benefit from BizTalk Server updates in key enterprise focus areas, including connectivity, visibility and platform support, which extend their investments in existing infrastructure, people and applications. BizTalk Server 2009 also delivers improved scalability and reliability through support for SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtualization and enhanced failover clustering. It provides significant new enhancements to both individual and team productivity by enabling new interoperability with Microsoft’s application life-cycle management (ALM) solution Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. This allows development teams to utilize the integrated source control, bug tracking, team development support, Project Server integration, and support for automating builds via MSBuild for a more seamless development and testing experience.

BizTalk RFID Mobile also extends the power of BizTalk Server RFID to mobile devices running Windows Mobile and Windows CE. In addition, BizTalk RFID Mobile delivers simple device management and offline processing capabilities, all of which help reduce the total cost of ownership.

In addition, customers and partners can now expedite development of RFID applications in heterogeneous environments with BizTalk Server support for RFID standards, Tag Data Translation (TDT) and Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP). Also being released today is a community technology preview of the ESB Guidance 2.0, which delivers updated prescriptive guidance for applying ESB usage patterns with improved itinerary processing, itinerary modeling using a visual domain-specific language (DSL) tools approach, a pluggable resolver-adapter pack and an enhanced ESB management portal.

BizTalk RFID Mobile is available at no cost to all BizTalk Server customers with Microsoft Software Assurance as well as new BizTalk Server customers who purchase an edition of BizTalk with Software Assurance. When BizTalk Server 2009 becomes generally available, customers will be able to acquire BizTalk RFID Mobile as part of the software license.

What new functionally will be delivered in BizTalk Server 2009?
BizTalk Server 2009 supports the latest Microsoft platform technologies, including Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 SP1, SQL Server 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. These platform updates enable greater scalability and reliability, and many advances in the latest developer tools.

This BizTalk Server release will also deliver additional customer-requested capabilities around enterprise connectivity, including:

• New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
• Enhanced service enablement of applications (through new and enhanced adapters for LOB applications, databases, and legacy/host systems)
• Enhanced service enablement of “edge” devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile
• Enhanced interoperability and connectivity support for industry protocols (like SWIFT, EDI, etc)
• SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer’s implementations

You can find more details about BizTalk Server 2009 at http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/roadmap.aspx

BETA LINK:
https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=218

UPDATED ESB GUIDANCE:
http://codeplex.com/esb

Wow.  Talk about an announcement storm for Massive!
(Massive for those of you who don’t know, is a company we acquired a few years back that provides in GAME advertising – as in video games.  While a player is playing a video game such as a racer like Project Gotham Racing 4, they might see some in game advertising on billboards in the game and those ads might change depending on what PGR4 downloaded for ads that day.)

• Massive is exclusive in-game ad provider for 18 Activision titles on Xbox and the PC, including “Guitar Hero.”
  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/dec08/12-03ActivisionMassivePR.mspx
  
• Massive teams with Blizzard Entertainment for ads on its Web sites and Battle.net online game service.
  http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/dec08/12-03MassiveBlizzardPR.mspx
  
• THQ names Massive as exclusive in-game ad provider in global, multiyear, multi-title deal.
  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/nov08/11-24THQGameAdsPR.mspx

This package contains the Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager "2" (ILM "2") Release Candidate client and server components. ILM "2" offers a comprehensive solution for managing identities, credentials, and identity-based access policies across heterogeneous environments.

Users can create their own security and email distribution groups and decide who to include in those groups. They can reset their passwords without calling their help desk.

IT Pros can use ILM "2" to manage certificates and smart cards. ILM “2” also embeds self-help tools in Office so users can manage routine aspects of identity and access, gives IT professionals’ rich administrative tools and enhanced automation, and delivers .NET and Web Services–based extensibility for developers. For additional information, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/ilm2 – See also:

• ILM "2" RC Demo Hyper-V VHD
• ILM 2 Datasheet

Here’s a really interesting break down of SMB 2.0 and why it matters.

• SMB2, a complete redesign of the main remote file protocol for Windows
  http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/12/05/smb2-a-complete-redesign-of-the-main-remote-file-protocol-for-windows.aspx