Anjana's Arena

While we have the Microsoft Certified Architect program for certifying the experienced and senior Architects,
Microsoft has also come up with a program for all junior architects or aspiring architects called ASAP(Aspiring Software Architect Program). Ya but though this was meant for aspiring architects i did find many experienced also attending it.

Few days back i got certified in this :) 

The ASAP program focusses on providing the key architecture skills and information that enables to create the right soultions for clients business problems. It also helps to drive technical leadership and guidance to the developer team.

It was a good experience for me , especially the case study portion.

It was a 10 days training spread across 5-6 months. Vivek Bhatnagar, Microsoft Architect Evangelist was my trainer.
The training was a mix of classroom and webcasts. There were lots of open discussions during the trainings.

• Broadly the following topics were covered
• Architecture Types and role of architects
• Understanding Requirements and constraints
• Analysing the viability
• Patterns and Frameworks
• Functional & Operational Aspects
• Non-Functionals like Security, Availability,Performance
• Documentation Styles and methodologies

Each of the topics had an associated case study to solve in teams

But at the end of the training there was one big case study to be solved by each individual. 
Every individual have to complete and submit this  case study to be get certified.

Microsoft has also released a series of ASAP webcasts that can be viewed by anyone.
Interested people can check some of them here

But as far the training and certification, i believe right now it's available only for partners and ISVs.

I happened to the attend the recent Synergize2Engergize TFS sessions at Hyderabad on 23rd of this month. In general the sessions were good, and especially the sessions by Tejaswi Kumar were very good.

Majority of the audience seemed matured enough to already have some knowledge about the technology. Many of them were either implementing TFS in their projects or were planning to implement the same.

I had to miss the last 30 minutes as i ahd to rush back to office to respond to an RFP, so do not know what happened at that time, but in general below were the common questions asked by audience during the sessions

How many users can connect to TFS
[Answer] 3500 users on the TFS Server

Why do we have only 'Windows' team explorer. My PM uses Macintosh at home, why there is no team explorer for other Platforms
[Answer] Microsoft would provide tools for Windows platform only. However third party vendors can extend the APIs to build for other platforms as well

Microsoft now have two version controls, VSS and TFS Source control. How to decide when to use which one
[Answer] TFS is more than just a source control. I's an integarted environement with source control, build automations along with process implementations. Whereas VSS is only a source control. For large teams spread across geographical locations TFS would be a better choice. Smaller teams can continue to use VSS

Database objects checkins from SQLServer 2005 is now possible for VSS, but is it available for TFS Source control?
[Answer] A Database developer SKU called 'VS Team Edition for Database Developers' would be released sometime in November. That would have source control integration with SQLServer 2005

Are there any statistics available on migration from VSS to TFS Source control
[Answer] Microsoft is currently doing lot of dog fooding on internal applications and would come up with the statistics soon

Do i need to know XML for changing the process customization templates. Are there any tools to do that
[Answer] There is a PTE (Process template Editor) that comes with VSIP SDK for industry partners . And there are some third party tools also available.

I work on a multiple technology project like .NET,Java, PHP etc. Can i use TFS for source control and build automation for other technologies as well.
[Answer] Microsoft provides a set of services and APIs that can be extended to develop for other technologies. Using the same many third party vendors have come up with good tools. Some details can be found at http://www.teamsystemrocks.com

Few Quick Things to remember if you are migrating to Vista and you have your application using SQLServer:

• SQL Server 2000 and previous version are not going to be supported on Windows Vista or Windows Server Longhorn .This includes MSDE as well.
• SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 or later will run on Windows Vista.
  SQL Server Developer Edition, Workgroup Edition, SQLServer Express Edition and SQLServer Everywhere are supported with Vista.
• Desktop Applciations compatible with Windows Vista can access a SQL Server 2000 databases on a separate server. Windows Vista will ship with the standard drivers that support OLE DB or ODBC access.
• As MSDE is not supported in Vista, migration of MSDE applications to SQLServer 2005 Express or Workgroup edition is required.
• MSDE features like DTS or SQL Agent are not supported in SQLServer Express edition. In such scenarios alternatives like using the DTS 2000 runtime which is a part of SQLServer 2005 backward compatability components might help. Also alternatives technologies like Service Broker might help to replace SQL Agent's Scheduling functionality.
• MSDE 2000 may still sometimes get installed on Windows Vista and probably some functioality may still work. But this is not properly tested and documented by Microsoft and is not supported by Microsoft. Hence it would be at the risk of the owner to try using MSDE with Vista.

More Details here http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/sqlonvista.mspx

Windows Vista Home: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista

Yesterday, we had a core meet followed by grand luncheon at Kakatiya. We have discussed on lots of interesting things that would come up soon @ MUGH. And one of them is Community TechEd/Devcon 2007 ...or call it whatever...name yet to be decided:). But the idea behind it is to take the TechEd sessions to the community members who could not attend TechEd this time. Most probably we would have it sometime at the end of September or Early October. More to come...

The other good thing coming up soon is the SQLCON Newsletter scheduled to release this month end. Hopefully we will be on time in releasing it now and going forward as well:)

BTW...does this below pic remind you SQLServer mirroring ;)  

Just came across this link which has the Competitive Market Analysis of BI by IDC. Interesting read!

IDC estimates the value of Microsoft’s BI tools at $353 million, which puts the
company into fourth place with a 6.2% market share. And the growth percent in the year 2005 has been 25%

A set of web 2.0 developer readiness webcasts have been scheduled my Microsoft this month. It covers the technologies like ATLAS, ASP.NET, .NET 3.0, WPF and SaaS which are essential for  Web 2.0 development in Microsoft platform. There are 21 sessions scheduled between 4.30 PM to 6.00 PM from 16-Aug to 13-Sep 2006.

For more info visit here http://www.microsoft.com/india/webcasts/