May 2007 - Posts

Enterprise Library 3.1 Released

Release contains several patches for bugs found in Enterprise Library 3.0 along with core application blocks - Caching Application Block, Cryptography Application Block, Data Access Application Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Logging Application Block, Policy Injection Application Block, Security Application Block and Validation Application Block. Get more details here.

Posted 05-31-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: SQL Server, Misc, .NET

New RS Homepage

Contains some new articles and links and a redefined look :). Read it here.

Posted 05-30-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Extending Document Inspector in Office

Here is a wonderful article that explains step-by-step doing the same.

Posted 05-29-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Office

Webcast Series - SQL Server 2005

Register today for the Webcast Series:

 

Capacity Planning Considerations – SQL Server 2005 - June 20th (2-3 PM IST)

 

Understanding IO and Storage system with SQL Server 2005 - June 21st (2-3 PM IST)

 

Performance Tuning and Troubleshooting – SQL Server 2005 - June 22th (2-3 PM IST)

 

BTW, I will be doing the sessions :) ...

Posted 05-28-2007 by vinodkumar | 1 comment(s)

Filed under: SQL Server

Whatz in Office XML - Office System Track

Back to the Office track :). Now let me move my focus into the session I plan to cover under the Office System Track with Deepak Gulati (deepakg.com/blog). This session would be on Office XML format and working with it. Microsoft Office 2007 introduces new default XML file formats for Microsoft Office Word, Excel spreadsheet, and PowerPoint presentation use. Giving it a XML variation really is a boon to the developers. The new Microsoft Office Open XML Format introduces a number of benefits that will accrue not only to developers and the solutions they build, but also to individual users and organizations of all sizes.

I see these formats realy useful - Unlike in the Binary formats this format will reduce the risk of lost information due to damaged or corrupted files. This format uses compression technologies and hence lower footprint for the document size. Once it becomes a compressed XML files, these documents can easily sent across firewalls without much problems thus increasing the robustness of these formats.

Each file is composed of a collection of any number of parts; this collection defines the document. Document parts are held together by the container file or package using the industry standard ZIP format. Most parts are simply XML files that describe application data, metadata, and even customer data stored inside the container file.

With previous Office versions, developers looking to manipulate the content of an Office document had to know how to read and write data according to the structured storage defined within the binary file. This was the primary cause of corruption of documents when they modify the code for some automation. Moving to the ZIP architecture, there are many tools available today to work with the ZIP format, and using ZIP provides a flexible, modular structure that allows for an expansion of functionality easily. Importantly, Non-XML parts supported as native files (images, OLE objects) and are stored as-is.

As part of security enhancements, the default Office 2007 documents saved in the Open XML Format are considered to be macro-free files and therefore cannot contain code. This behavior ensures that malicious code residing in a default document can never be unexpectedly executed. While documents can still contain and use macros in Office 2007, the user or developer will be required to specifically save these documents as a macro-enabled document type. Now this brings us to the various formats available:

• Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Word 2007 XML Document - .docx
• Word 2007 XML Macro-Enabled Document - .docm
• Word 2007 XML Template - .dotx
• Word 2007 XML Macro-Enabled Template - .dotm
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007 File
• Excel 2007 XML Workbook - .xlsx
• Excel 2007 XML Macro-Enabled Workbook - .xlsm
• Excel 2007 XML Template - .xltx
• Excel 2007 XML Macro-Enabled Template - .xltm
• Excel 2007 Binary Workbook - .xlsb
• Excel 2007 XML Macro-Enabled Add-In - .xlam
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
• PowerPoint 2007 XML Presentation - .pptx
• PowerPoint 2007 Macro-Enabled XML Presentation - .pptm
• PowerPoint 2007 XML Template - .potx
• PowerPoint 2007 Macro-Enabled XML Template - .potm
• PowerPoint 2007 Macro-Enabled XML Add-In - .ppam
• PowerPoint 2007 XML Show - .ppsx
• PowerPoint 2007 Macro-Enabled XML Show - .ppsm

So from a developers perspective we can do tons while working with these documents. So during TechMela, we will take a tour from an Dev angle to extending and connecting to Office XML documents. You can take a look at Deepak Gulati's blog on querying Excel (http://deepakg.com/blog/archives/20.htm) for upload of data. More such tips and tricks to be shown during our fun filled session.

So mark the session on "Office Open XML File Format Fundamentals" on the Office System Track ... And cya soon :) ...

Posted 05-28-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Office, Events, TechMela

Always-On in SQL Track

hmmm ... By now you must be wondering why is Vinod not talking about SQL in TechMela. You bet, I kept the best for the last :). Hehehe ... As guessed, I would be owning the “DB & BI” track too. Super excited and most importantly, I managed to get some rockstar cool speakers to deliver too. So I am excited. As I have done for the other posts, here in this post I will concentrate on one aspect session on the SQL Track. Let me start with the enterprise credible High Availability session + Always On session.

In this topic we can talk on various HA options inside of SQL Server. The common ones being:

1. Failover clustering
2. Database mirroring
3. Log shipping
4. Replication

Let me quickly talk on each of them.

Failover clustering: Failover clustering provides high-availability support for an entire instance of SQL Server. A failover cluster is a combination of one or more nodes, or servers, with two or more shared disks. An application can connect to the failover cluster instance by referencing the failover cluster instance name. The application does not have to know which node hosts the failover cluster instance. However, a failover cluster does not protect against disk failure.

Database mirroring: New with SQL Server 2005 SP1, DM is primarily a software solution to increase database availability by supporting almost instantaneous failover . It can be thought as a mixture of replication and log shipping: all transactions are moved (log shipping) on a transaction level (replication) to a mirrored copy of the database.

Each database mirroring configuration involves a principal server that contains the principal database, and a mirror server that contains the mirror database.
 You can also have an optional witness server in the High-Availability mode for aiding in automatic fail over question. So we have 3 modes in DM as:

High Availability: This operating mode option allows you to synchronize transaction writes on both servers and enables automated failover . For this option to work, you must also have a witness server. Even a SQLExpress Edition can be used for Witness and a single witness can be used for monitor multiple DM servers.

High Protection: This option allows you to synchronize transaction writes on both servers, but failover is manual.

High Performance: This option does not care if the writes are synchronized on both servers, therefore offering some performance gains.

To support automatic failover, the MDAC provides a new parameter on the connection string that allows for automatic redirection when a failure occurs. A typical connection string would look like:

"Server=MyServerA; Failover Partner=OtherServerB; Database=TechMela; Integrated Security=True;"

There is more to talk here, but I will write them as a separate article on my website (I promise :)).

Log shipping: Old and a much proven method in the market as far as SQL Server is concerned. Like database mirroring, log shipping operates at the database level. Log shipping can be used to maintain one or more warm standby databases, referred to as secondary databases, for a corresponding production database that is referred to as the primary database. Each secondary database is created by restoring a database backup of the primary database with no recovery, or with standby.

Log shipping has its own characteristics that makes it different from DM like it involves a user-modifiable delay between when the primary server creates a log backup of the primary database and when the secondary server restores the log backup. Before a failover can occur, a secondary database must be brought fully up-to-date by manually applying any unrestored log backups.

Although similar in concept, asynchronous database mirroring and log shipping have key differences.

• Supports multiple secondary databases on multiple server instances for a single primary database.
• Allows a user-specified delay between when the primary server backs up the log of the primary database and when the secondary servers must restore the log backup. A longer delay can be useful, for example, if data is accidentally changed on the primary database. If the accidental change is noticed quickly, a delay can let you retrieve still unchanged data from a secondary database before the change is reflected there.

An advantage of database mirroring over log shipping is that high-safety mode is a no data loss configuration that is supported as a simple failover strategy and moreover immediate transparent client redirection.

Replication: Most commonly used since the SQL Server 2000 days. Replication uses a publisher-subscriber model, allowing a primary server, referred to as the Publisher, to distribute data to one or more secondary servers, or Subscribers. Replication allows real-time availability and scalability across these servers. It supports filtering to provide a subset of data at Subscribers, and also allows partitioned updates. Subscribers are online and available for reporting or other functions, without query recovery. SQL Server offers three types of replication: snapshot, transactional, and merge. Transactional replication provides the lowest latency and is most commonly used for high availability. Something new that was introduced with SQL 2005 is the non-SQL Server subscribers, Oracle publishing, and peer-to-peer transactional replication.

Peer-to-peer transactional replication is designed for applications that might read or modify the data at any of the databases participating in replication. All nodes in a peer-to-peer topology are peers: each node publishes and subscribes to the same schema and data. Changes (inserts, updates, and deletes) can be made at all nodes. Replication recognizes when a change has been applied to a given node, preventing changes from cycling through the nodes more than one time.

...... I can keep on going. But let me take a stop and not take away the thunder we will have in the session at TechMela. You will see them in action ...

In general this is a cool topic and guess what, we will have almost 3/4th of the time for demo's in the session talking about Always-on Technologies. So that is the plan ... So dont miss on this session and the event in less than 18 days to go :) ... Countdown has begun ...

More on the SQL track coming your way soon ...

Posted 05-26-2007 by vinodkumar | 1 comment(s)

Filed under: SQL Server, Events, TechMela

IIS 7 in Web Track

The countdown has begun and the heat is on. In this post I thought of writing about a topic that I would be talking at TechMela. This would be on IIS 7.0. There is tons and tons of new features that we can highlight when it comes to working with IIS.

Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS 6.0) was developed around four main areas, or pillars. Those are security, realiability, scalable and system management. I must admit we did some remarkable work in that release with HTTP.SYS, Compression, fault-tolerance etc. But we had to go even beyond this experience and IIS 7.0 features surely are giving me enough confidence that we are on track.

To start with, IIS 7.0 is completely modular. Close to 40 different modules and redundant modules are consolidated giving a completely managed pipleline to work with. Now once you become modular you can exactly pick-and-choose what you want even inside of IIS. This goes to the first pillar of security - reduce the surface of the server for attack.

IIS7 integrates the ASP.NET runtime with the core web server, providing a unified request processing pipeline that is exposed to both native and managed modules. Integrating the two pipelines allows services provided by both native and managed modules to apply to all requests, regardless of handler. Some of the other things that were interesting for me are:

• URLScan is integrated into IIS 7.0. URLScan is widely used to filter requests by URL.
• New public APIs that can be used to extend the server. Modules can be written using managed or native APIs.
• New configuration system
• To extend the schema, a XML file must be created and placed in the appropriate folder. All we need is a XCOPY for deployment :)
• new configuration system is integrated: configuration of IIS and ASP.NET is now in one place
• Cool File-based Management as you can create, backup, modify, and deploy the entire server configuration via a single XML-based file.
• IIS Manager is also available from the command line in the appcmd.exe tool

There is yet another world that is wonderful is the FTP enhancements with IIS 7.0. I will not be talking on this during TechMela, thought I pen down some interesting work nevertheless:

• SSL FTP – also known as FTPS.  You can choose if you want to encrypt just the control/authentication channel or both it and the data channel.
• Non-Windows Authentication – You can create your own users in IIS which is completely separate from any windows authentication.  Cool ain't it?
• Virtual Host Names – You can have two separate “virtual” FTP sites on the same IP and port.  You will get redirected to a particular site based on the username and virtual host name you login with.
• Disk Quotas – You can combine the power of longhorn’s disk quotas with FTP.

Another new thing that you will come across is Windows Activation Service (WAS). WAS is a Windows Vista / Longhorn Server system service that provides process activation and health management services for all types of message-activated applications. WAS provides applications with intelligent resource management, on-demand activation, health-monitoring, and automatic failure detection and recycling. Cool stuff !!!

Before I sign this thread off, I would want to mention briefly on the Diagnostic enhancements. IIS 7.0 includes a new Runtime State and Control API, which provides real-time state information about application pools, worker processes, sites, application domains, and even running requests. This COM API is being exposed via WMI, the new command-line utility, and the new administration tool for quick and easy status regardless of the management environment. IIS 7.0 also includes detailed trace events throughout the request and response path, allowing developers to trace a request as it makes it way to IIS, through the IIS request processing pipeline, into any existing page level code, and back out to the response.

Oh boy, let me stop here and not give away the stuffs I plan during my session. There is enough interesting demos we will have around IIS 7.0. So dont forget to attend my session on "IIS 7.0" :). Cya at TechMela.

Posted 05-25-2007 by vinodkumar | 2 comment(s)

Filed under: Misc, Events, TechMela

Excel 2007 - Office System

Here we go again !!! 20 more days to go ... In TechMela I am the owner for the Office System track and I thought it is high time I wrote something on Office here. There are tons and tons of cool stuff I can write from sharepoint to various pillars of Office system suite. I thought I will write on Excel first because I love this data visualizing tool.

So, whatz new in Excel 2007 that hits you first? I am sure many will talk about the UI. I will keep the discussion around Ribbon and the focussed result oriented interface for another day because there is some good work behind the scene happening as I write this post from the product team from an dev angle. Excel as such is a wonderful tool+Application one can use in the daily life. We have done some wonderful enhancements for the graphics and formatting part of the worls. I will highlight some of the capacity side of things like:

• The total number of available columns in Excel is now 16,384 (was 256).
• The total number of available rows in Excel is now 1,048,576 (was 65,536).
• The number of unique colors allowed in a single workbook is now 4.3 billion (was 56).
• The number of levels of sorting you can perform on a range or table is now 64 (was 3).
• The number of items allowed in the Filter drop-down list is now 10,000 (was 1,000).
• The total number of unique cell formats in a workbook is now 64,000 (was 4,000)
• The maximum number of characters allowed in formulas is now 8,000 (was 1,000).
• The number of levels of nesting that Excel allows in formulas is now 64 (was 7).
• The maximum number of items returned by the Find command is now 2 billion (was 64,000).
• The number of rows allowed in a PivotTable is now 1 million (was 64,000).
• The number of columns allowed in a PivotTable is now 16,000 (was 255).
• The maximum number of unique items within a single PivotTable field is now 1 million (was 32,000).
• The number of fields that a single PivotTable can have is now 16,000 (was 255).
  ...
  ... and many more.

This is from a desktop client side. There is another spin to the whole tool when you start working with Sharepoint. We have introduced a new concept called as Excel Services. One that allows you to do excel calculation from server side and render in the client as a web-based workbooks. Very very powerful aspect. Dont forget to catch me at TechMeal to know more on this new feature. So you can see we do have some dependency with Sharepoint. So here is a quick pointers which tell you which features of Excel are gonna be dependent with Sharepoint:

• Publish spreadsheets to Excel Services
• Web-based spreadsheet access
• Web-services interface to the spreadsheets
• Ability to create custom Information Property Panels with business logic using InfoPath (helped by forms server)
• Ability to see a document requires workflow actions (approve, sign, etc.)
• Ability to see a document is locked and requires check-out to be modified
• Ability to see relevant corporate policies right in Office

Not to forget the client side add-in we have for datamining and analysis. It blows away peoples imagination whereever I have showcased them. And the list keeps on increasing.

BTW, dont forget to attend the session on "Tips and Tricks with Office System" which I will cover with a complete 1 hrs demo + fun filled stuff ... Meet you at the event :) ...

Posted 05-23-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Misc, Office, Events, TechMela

TechMela 2007 - TechEd Redefined

Yes. This time it is just not TechEd for us in India. It is really big and we are doing TechEd + MEDC + ITPC + Desginer + Enthusiasts Event. This has just got bigger. Let me outline some of the interesting stats we to why we are saying it is big in India.

• More than ~100+ Breakout sessions
• 21 different tracks in 3 days
• ~30+ Chalk talks sessions
• ~50+ HOLs during the event
• Wonderful set of Subject-Matter-Experts with folks from the Product Team also arriving just for this event

Compared to what we had last year with just 40 sessions with 8 breakout sessions, we have made a giant leap. You can run or you can hide, but if you miss this mega event you surely are missing out something big.

Now this doesnt include the 1 day we dedicated to the Business folks. That is a different ballgame by itself.

What am I Doing:

I am content owner for two tracks namely the "DB and BI Track" and the "Office System" Track. I am super excited and I am doing just one session totally on these two tracks. Details to be outlined later. I am also doing two sessions on other tracks though. But I plan to do quite a few Chalk Talks during the event. And I am all game and ear to comments from you. What would you like to listen as informal chalk talks. I will be more than happy to squeeze the same.

Posted 05-17-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Events, TechMela

TechMela 2007 - A Mega Event !!!

Calling all developers, IT pros, architects, designers and technology enthusiasts... Here's all you wanted to know about TechMela 2007     TechMela is a fusion of the latest technologies, business gurus, and structured learning experiences - all you can ask for, in one grand, mother-of-all-tech-events! Creating many pathways to knowledge exchange, TechMela comprises of technology presentations, scenario showcases, experience zones and discussion forums and parallel hands-on learning sessions, besides lots of networking opportunity, and of course - tonnes of fun! This is one event you simply can't afford to miss - no matter which technology stream you work in, or which level you work at.     3 Days  |  4 Theatres  |  7 Streams  |  21 Tracks  |  150 Sessions  |  300 Labs... One place, at one time!   Agenda

Participation Fee INR 9,000/- per participant Early Bird Offer INR 1,000/- off on the Individual Conference Participation Fee (offer ends 22nd May, 2007) For group discounts, write to techmela@endtoend.in Star Speakers Bijoy Singhal, Developer Evangelist Derek Snyder, Product Manager - Mobile and Embedded Devices Group Gurpreet S Pall, Director Janakiram M S V, Developer Evangelist Loke Uei Tan, Technical Product Manager - Mobile and Embedded Devices Group Mel Sampat, Program Manager - Windows Mobile Mike Hall, Senior Technical Product Manager - Mobile and Embedded Devices Group Pandurang Nayak, Developer Evangelist Ranjana Jain, IT Pro Evangelist Ravi Shankar, IT Pro Evangelist Vignesh Doraiswamy, Embedded Developer Evangelist Vineet Gupta, Dev Evangelist Vinod Kumar, IT Evangelist

For further details or queries, email techmela@endtoend.in MUMBAI: BANGALORE: CHENNAI: DELHI: RSVP: 022 - 6502.1700 | FAX: 022 - 4005 9922 RSVP: 080 - 4116 1411 | FAX: 080 - 2521 3656 RSVP: 044 - 2472 8113 | FAX: 044 - 2473 4247 RSVP: 011 - 4655 2158 | FAX: 011 - 2622 3485       www.techmela.com

Gold Sponsor   Exhibit Booth Sponsors

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Posted 05-16-2007 by vinodkumar | 1 comment(s)

Filed under: Events, TechMela

MCTS : SQL Server 2005

I wrote an exam after a long time and it was a good experience. Nice to see a bit of simulation questions being asked in the exam. SQL Server 2005 surely has tons of new features introduced. This exam was based on technical specifics. Lovely exam for all DBA's and Developers too. Helps you get your concepts clear and if you have worked with SQL Server Management Studio for a while then you will be able to do the simulation scenarios with ease.

All the best for folks who are planning to take the 70-431 exam.

Let me next see if I can take on the BI exams too :) ... But currently I am busy with a whole bunch of activities lined up.

Posted 05-10-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Misc, Non-Technical

Insight AJAX from MSR

SAw this nice read on fine tuning web-applications from the MSR. Read it here.

Posted 05-09-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: SQL Server

Microsoft Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0

This toolkit helps you bring the power of .NET to your existing VB6 applications, by allowing them to display .NET Forms and Controls from within the same application. Instead of upgrading the entire code base, these applications can now be extended one form at a time. The goal is a phased upgrade, with production releases at the end of each iteration containing both VB6 and VB.NET forms running in the same VB6 .exe process. Download it here.

Posted 05-08-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Misc, .NET

Wonderful - Best Practices Articles

SQL Server 2005 Deployment Guidance for Web Hosting Environments - by Alex DeNeui
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/SQL2005DGWHE.mspx

Resolving Common Connectivity Issues in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Connectivity Scenarios - by Carl Rabeler
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/CISQL2005ASCS.mspx

Implementing Application Failover with Database Mirroring - by Michael Thomassy, Sanjay Mishra
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/implappfailover.mspx

Posted 05-07-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: SQL Server

Forefront + System Center Launch - India

Grab a great opportunity to upgrade your technology skills! Be there for the “You’re in Control” launch event and witness the debut of Microsoft’s latest infrastructure management solutions - Microsoft® System Center and security solutions - Microsoft ForefrontTM.   You’ve heard him before. Now meet him in person! The major highlight of this event will be an address by Steve Riley, Senior Strategist and Worldwide Security Evangelist from Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group. Steve is a global specialist in network and host security, communication protocols, network design, and information security policies and process.  Don't miss this oppurtunity to hear him live and meet him in  person. At the launch event, learn how Microsoft® System Center and Microsoft ForefrontTM will help you develop products that help: • Plan, deploy, and optimize a family of leading IT management solutions • Improve protection and control, by integrating and simplifying management of security   The event will also give you an opportunity to: • Get front row access to the latest technologies and Microsoft solutions • Network with technology partners, your peers and experts Event Locations City Date Venue New Delhi 15 May 2007 Hotel Intercontinental Eros, Nehru Place Mumbai 17 May 2007 Taj Lands End, Bandra Bangalore 18 May 2007 The Leela Palace Kempinski, Airport Road Agenda 09:00 am - 10:00 am Registration 10:00 am - 10:15 am You’re in Control 10:15 am - 11:15 am System Center Launch (including Demos) 11:15 am - 11:45 am Tea Break 11:45 am - 01:00 pm Forefront Launch (including Demos) 01:00 pm - 01:15 pm Intel V Pro session; Intel 01:15 pm - 02:00 pm Lunch 02:00 pm - 04:30 pm Attack Trends and Incidence Response Strategy

Posted 05-03-2007 by vinodkumar | no comments

Filed under: Events

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