Professional Developer Conference 2008 - Day One Summary

Key Note - Azure Services Platform

During the key note, Ray Ozzie announced Microsoft's Azure Services Platform (code name "Red Dog"). This is a "services platform" for the cloud. This platform has been used to build Live Services and will be the building blocks for .NET Services, SQL Services, SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM Services.Service Level Agreements (with financial guarantees) are scheduled for 2009. It should be noted that it's unlikely there will be an explicit Version 1 - these services will constantly evolve.

Details and analysis here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/azurehttp://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-27PDCDay1PR.mspx
• http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2008/10/27/live-mesh-how-does-live-mesh-relate-to-azure.aspx
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/27/microsoft_amazon/http://weblogs.asp.net/pgielens/archive/2008/10/27/a-lap-around-windows-azure.aspx

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP

The PDC kicked off with Microsoft releasing a CTP of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0. Please note this does not include any Oslo features, Oslo integration with Visual Studio will come in a later CTP.

Details here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=922b4655-93d0-4476-bda4-94cf5f8d4814&DisplayLang=en#filelist

Silverlight 2.0

Microsoft released Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and Mac. This is an important release as it includes a cross platform implementation of the .NET Framework. The original moniker for this project was WPF/E "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere" and was originally announced by Jim Allchin at the last PDC in 2005.

Details here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/27/silverlight_two_review/ 

Microsoft Federation Gateway

The Microsoft Federation Gateway is an identity hub that brokers identities across disparate applications and services. For seamless integration with Active Directory, Microsoft has released a server component called the Microsoft Services Connector. It should be noted that this is implemented using open standards. This appears to be an implementation of Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).

Details here:

http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2008/10/27/420.aspx

Windows Live & OpenID

Windows Live publicly committed support for the OpenID platform enabling users to use their Windows Live ID to sign into any OpenID site.

Details here:

http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2008/10/27/421.aspx

More information on OpenID here:

http://openid.net/

Oslo Developer Centre

Microsoft announced the Oslo Developer Centre. You can download an Oslo CTP now from this site. This CTP includes documents and tools for working with the “M” language.

Main site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/oslo/default.aspx

Oslo SDK direct link:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/2/3/423FFDF3-B0B9-4EF0-990F-82DDE530B672/RepositoryOct2008CTP.msi

WCF REST Starter Kit

This is a preview of the REST features for WCF 4.0. Find it at the WCF Developer Centre.

Main site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/wcf/rest

WCF REST Starter Kit direct link:

http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet/Wiki/View.aspx?title=WCF%20REST

Day One Summaries and Digests

S. Somasegar, Senior Vice Preseident of the Developer Division sums things up here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2008/10/27/announcements-from-pdc-2008.aspx

Steve Martin, Director of Product Management for Microsoft's Connected Systems Division talks about where the Azure Services Platform is going and what is available now:

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/archive/2008/10/27/pdc-day-1-azure-services-platform-ctp-availability-and-much-more.aspx

Matt Milner from Pluralsight talks about the Azure Services Platform in more depth:

http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/matt/archive/2008/10/27/pdc-keynote-day-1.aspx