Here are some random links to sites, tools and other things going on in my life right now:
- Windows Workflow Foundation beta 2 released!
- I'm still finishing some prototyping with the WWF v1.2 and Office 12 beta1 I received after PDC05, but I'm very excited to see this updated release. Time to retry my Activities and see what has changed.
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider
- Yay! Now we can actually try to evaluate TFS without orphaning all "legacy" apps.
- Visual Studio 2005 Code Snippets
- Cool stuff! Snippets for Refactoring as well as dozens of other pragmatic problem-specific snippets to help in every day coding.
- Enterprise Architecture Online Group
- Sometimes I think I know what EA is about, then I read something like their NAAF proposal and I start to wonder....but its always nice to find new views that make you rethink things.
- SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Feature Matrix
- Since my last post on "Sql Server Reporting Services Scaleability and Licensing" I discovered that the SRS 2k5 product offerings, and associated licensing have become richer and more diverse than what I saw during the beta. Its likely I missed the Express and Workgroup editions since I only use the Enterprise Edition. I wonder if I will have to eat some of my words on licensing from that last post....
- Microsoft Careers site
- Submitting my resume via the MS Careers site was far less painless than I expected, and the job-research tools they offer are more like what you expect from CareerBuilder or Monster.
- Thomas Pink iPod Tie (via David Findley via Engadget)
- oooh! Now my damn tie has a purpose beyond The Firm's dresscode.
- New Lanyard Headphones for iPod Nano
- I'm seriously considering buying the newly updated model of the Layard Headphones now that they offer an in-ear earbud instead of the traditional (lossy) earphones shipped with most iPods.
- Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000
- I bought one of these gems today at Fry's. A few weeks ago, I was instantly impressed by the features of this mouse when Jon Robbins used one during his presentations during his Wintellect class "Advanced .NET Debugging with VisualStudio.NET 2005" that was held at Microsoft - Las Colinas, TX. Specifically the built-in magnifier button and associated driver/software were awesome during the presentation.
- Columbus Crew signs my cousin.
- Rusty has always been an outstanding athlete, but in his past couple seasons in the MLS, he had some unlucky injuries so unfortunately when his new coach at the expansion team Real Salt Lake decided to clean-house he was left hanging. Now that Rusty is healthy again, I really don't think RSL yet realizes what they lost when they gave him up, but it will be fun to see the results when they play each other again this spring.
From now on, I will simply refer to my employer as "The Firm" for simplicity's sake.
Last week, The Firm had a meeting to explain our "new" methodology which I had been jokingly calling "Iterative Waterfall". The funny part is that my boss actually used that phrase in the meeting... 
Now that I am on a roll, maybe I need to coin (warp) another name - maybe Incapeability Immaturity Model Integration (IIMI) instead of CMMI?
I often read newsgroup posts complaining about licensing issues surrounding Sql Reporting Services. However, I think most of the complaints are overblown. In mosts cases, you simply need to reconsider why you are having to deal with these licensing issues in the first place. Typically this issue first arises when you try to architect your SRS implementation to be more scaleable - beyond a single-server install.
When addressing scaleability and availability you should start by using a remote ReportServer DB instead of hosting Sql Server on the same box as SRS. This 2-tier approach is what MS recommends for scaleability - and is covered by the standard SRS licensing that says gives you 1 license per Sql Server license.
Tier 1: Report Manager UI & ReportServer WebService
Tier 2: ReportServer Database
Where I most often see people lamenting the licensing costs is when they are trying to further split the web-sites into a third, Web Services, tier such as:
Tier 1: Report Manager UI
Tier 2: ReportServer WebService
Tier 3: ReportServer Database
My question is; what problem are you trying to solve by creating this architecture?
Typically I have seen this approach when trying to deploy SRS within an existing Web Farm that already has a 3-tier archicture:
Tier 1: Web UI
Tier 2: Web Services & Application Services
Tier 3: Database
From my experience this is not a good idea for Sql Reporting Services for 3 reasons;
A) due to the large payload for PDF and other potential rendering outputs, the performance characteristics of SRS is substantially different than a typical website or web-service. So it is usually bad to mix-in these services with an existing web-farm since it will likely cause both to perform differently (usually worse).
B) the SRS Report Manager, the ReportServer Web Service, and the ReportServerService (Windows Service) all do report rendering - they simply share the same underlying codebase for Report Rendering (at least in SRS 2000, but I havent checked SRS 2005)
C) both websites require the ReportServerService for activation, which would require you to have it installed on both tiers. This defeats any attempt to create a clean seperation of web and app functionality - which is often at the core of trying to scale-out the number of tiers.
From what I have read, Microsoft's proscribed approach to scaling SRS is; First split the data and web tiers - using a remote SQL Server instance (instead of installing SQL locally). Second, scale-up the CPU's and memory - with a max of 8 logical cpu's (4 HT CPU's) recommended. I don't think you can actually add "too much memory", but my experience has shown that 4GB is ample. Third, to scale-out the above SRS farm - by duplicating this setup across multiple servers and using load-balancing. Basically, stick to the 2-tier architecture, then scale-out the SRS application. I have not seen any additional benefit from further splitting the web tiers.
Following this approach, the licensing costs do not increase until you have hit the limit of a single server or if you desire to increase availabilty via load-balancing or clustering. In my experience, addressing availability (for redundancy) typically happens long before you start dealing with scaleability (load-balancing) issues.
Obviously, at this point you may need to purchase additional Sql Server licenses. However, keep in mind that its also likely that if you are pushing enough volume to require this level of scaling, then you may already have multiple SQL Server licenses that you can leverage to cover your licensing requirements for SRS.
NOTE: if you are running SRS 2005, there is one additional thing you can do to squeeze a bit more performance. Change the configuration to use "Filesystem Snapshots" (see books online or helpfiles) instead of the default SQL Snapshots for report-caching and histories. This can reduce your network and SQL overhead - at the expense of local server file IO which is often a worthwhile trade-off.
I hope this information is useful, and as always your comments are welcome - since there are always gaps in my knowledge, or scenarios that I havent yet considered.
Later this year, SysInternals/WinInternals founder Mark Russinovich and David Solomon are offering a top-notch class on troubleshooting that covers current OS versions as well as upcoming changes to the OS in Vista (next Windows version)
http://www.sysinternals.com/Troubleshooting.html This class appears to be similar to the PDC05 precon session some of us went to last fall, except it is 5-days instead of a 5-hours! If you want to understand Windows to the Nth degree, this is definitely the class.