Straight 2 SQL Server 2008 Webinars

JC Armand is putting on a series of SQL Server 2008 educational webinars. These Live Meeting sessions cover a variety of topics on SQL Server 2008, from both a DBA and a developer's perspective. The sessions occur every Tuesday and Thursday, ending on Thursday, April 2, 2009. Each session is scheduled to start at 11AM EST and last for approximately 1 hour.

2/24/2009: Why SQL Server 2008
2/26/2009: How Windows Server 2008 benefits SQL Server 2008
3/3/2009: Upgrade/Migration strategy & Overcoming upgrade challenges
3/5/2009: SQL Server 2008 based Business Intelligence
3/10/2009: SQL Server 2008 for Developers
3/12/2009: What’s new in Reporting Services 2008
3/17/2009: SQL Server Consolidation Strategies
3/19/2009: Resource Governor
3/24/2009: Upgrade SQL Server clusters to Windows Server 2008
3/26/2009: Database compression & Back-up compression
3/31/2009: Database auditing & Transparent data encryption
4/2/2009: Optimizing SQL Server licensing for your business needs

For more information, or to register, go to http://www.pragmaticworks.com/StraightTo8Webinars.aspx. After registering, links will be emailed for joining each upcoming session, as well as viewing past sessions.

Windows 7 in 6 varieties

On Tuesday, February 3rd, Microsoft described its product lineup plans for its forthcoming Windows 7 operating system launch, expected in early 2010 or possibly earlier. Currently 6 different varieties will be made available:

1. Windows 7 Home Premium for consumers
2. Windows 7 Professional for businesses, with an upgrade path from Vista Business
3. Windows 7 Enterprise for Software Assurance customers only. The enterprise edition will support advanced data protection, lower cost compliance and IT tools to streamline PC management. However, it won't be available from OEMs or retail outlets.
4. Windows 7 Ultimate for enthusiasts who want a full-featured OS, including BitLocker.
5. Windows 7 Starter edition on new PCs for channel partners
6. Windows 7 Home Basic edition intended for distribution in emerging markets.

Windows XP users will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 without paying the full price. However, XP users will have to perform a clean install of Windows 7. Finally, Microsoft is heavily suggesting that Windows 7 will be capable of running on netbooks, which are smaller notebooks that typically use lower cost hardware components. Currently, netbook vendors sell them running a version of the Linux operating system or Windows XP. With Windows 7, Microsoft is on track to have a smaller OS footprint with faster boot-up and shut-down times, and improved power management.

Source: Redmondmag.com

Clouds and Collaboration Special Event

Clouds & Collaboration
How Collaboration and Cloud Computing are Transforming Business and Innovation

Turbulent times are also times of Opportunity. Companies are looking to survive but also to innovate and compete. Increasing the opportunities for innovation and improving productivity are essential. Improving Collaboration AND using Cloud computing will help you address these needs. At this event we welcome you to hear about these trends, and learn about what it can mean for your business.

This will be interesting for:
People defining Business and IT strategy
CIO’s or people reporting to the CIO
Enterprise Architects
IT people interested in innovation

You should attend if you would like to:
Get the latest information on Collaboration and Cloud computingBe inspired & informed
Meet your peers
Be ready to create your strategy around the topic
Register to receive a complimentary copy of our upcoming book on this research topic

Speaker information
The speaker at this event will be Erik van Ommeren, who is managing the US branch of the Sogeti International Research Institute for New Technology. He is an author and public speaker on topics such as innovation, collaboration, service oriented architecture, crowdsourcing and new media. Please note that this event is not sales oriented and is free of charge.


Date: February 19, 2009
Time: 5:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Beacon Place (lower level conference room)
6055 Rockside Woods Blvd
Independence, OH, 44131

RSVP by 2/13/09 to sue.fellner@us.sogeti.com

February .Net Events

Feb 10th: .Net User Group (Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4) in VS 2008). To register, go to http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=net&ID=141

Feb 11th: Cleveland SharePoint User Group (Implementing Dashboards). To register, go to http://www.sharepointcleveland.com/default.aspx

Feb 12th: ONSQL User Group. To register, go to http://www.bennettadelson.com/seat.aspx?sig=sql&ID=141

Feb 14th: GCPCUG General Meeting (Identity Theft Prevention). To register, go to http://www.gcpcug.org/

Feb 19th: Special Event (Clouds and Collaboration). For more information, go to http://clevelanddotnet.blogspot.com/2009/02/clouds-and-collaboration-special-event.html

Feb 24th: TechNet Events (Software-plus-Services, System Center Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager). To register, go to http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032402428

Feb 24th: MSDN Events (Azure, Debugging and Mobility). To register, go to http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032402398

Feb 24th: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group (JQuery). To register, go to http://www.clevelanddotnet.info/

Feb 25th: Cleveland SharePoint User Group (TBA). To register, go to http://www.sharepointcleveland.com/default.aspx

Feb 26th: TS2 Event for Microsoft Partners (How to deliver business value to your customers utilizing Microsoft technologies). To register, go to http://www.ts2seminars.com/liveEvents.aspx

Feb 26th: BPOS Event for Microsoft Partners (An expanded workshop on Microsoft Online Services and the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)). To register, go to http://www.ts2seminars.com/liveEvents.aspx

Application Architecture Guide - v2.0 (Beta 1) Released

Earlier today Microsoft released the 2nd version of the Application Architecture Guide. This is part of Microsoft's Patterns & Practices series. The guide is currently a beta and is available for free download. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics. This guide is a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, product teams, and industry experts. This guide is related to the Application Architecture Guide v2.0 Knowledge Base Project. Download the Application Architecture Guide - v2.0

Listed below is a brief outline of the guide, with hyperlinks to all chapters

Chapters
Introduction
Architecture Best Practices At a Glance
Fast Track - A Guide for Getting Started and Applying the Guidance

Part I, Fundamentals of Application Architecture
Chapter 1 - Fundamentals of Application Architecture
Chapter 2 - .NET Platform Overview
Chapter 3 - Application Archetypes
Chapter 4 - Deployment Patterns
Chapter 5 - Architectural Styles
Chapter 6 - Quality Attributes
Chapter 7 - Layers and Tiers

Part II, Design
Chapter 8 - Designing Your Architecture
Chapter 9 - Architecture and Design Guidelines
Chapter 10 - Designing Services
Chapter 11 - Communication Guidelines

Part III, Layers
Chapter 12 - Presentation Layer Guidelines
Chapter 13 - Business Layer Guidelines
Chapter 14 - Data Access Layer Guidelines
Chapter 15 - Service Layer Guidelines

Part IV, Quality Attributes
Chapter 16 - Performance Engineering
Chapter 17 - Security Engineering

Part V, Archetypes - Design and Patterns
Chapter 18 - Mobile Application
Chapter 19 - Office Business Application (OBA)
Chapter 20 - Rich Client Application
Chapter 21 - Rich Internet Application (RIA)
Chapter 22 - Service Archetype
Chapter 23 - SharePoint LOB Application
Chapter 24 - Web Application

Appendix
Cheat Sheet - patterns & practices Catalog at a Glance
Cheat Sheet - patterns & practices Pattern Catalog
Cheat Sheet - patterns & practices Enterprise Library

Download the Application Architecture Guide - v2.0

Cleveland Silverlight Firestarter

What: Cleveland Silverlight Firestarter

When: Saturday, November 1st, 2008, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, registration opens at 8:00 AM.

Where: Microsoft Office (Independence, OH)

Description: The Cleveland Silverlight Firestarter is a free one day event designed to educate developers on Silverlight. Consisting of 5 sessions, the event will start with introductory level topics at the beginning and accelerate into deep dive sessions later in the day. The content will be delivered by Silverlight experts and authors, known locally and nationwide.

Agenda:
8:00 AM: Registration
9:00 AM: Keynote/Intro to Silverlight 2 (Jeff Blankenburg)
10:30 AM: XAML Basics (Sarah Dutkiewicz)
Noon: Lunch break
1:00 PM: The Tools (Jeff Blankenburg)
2:30 PM: Controls & Data Binding (Matt Casto)
4:00 PM: Server Communication (John Stockton)

Registration: To register for this event, please go to http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032392883&Culture=en-US

MCAD, MCSD, and MCDBA certifications will retire on March 31, 2009

Complete your MCAD, MCSD, or MCDBA certifications before the exams retire on March 31, 2009 and take advantage of price reductions to complete your credential; then save again on your upgrade path to Visual Studio 2005 or SQL Server 2005 certifications Our records indicate that you have completed one or more exams related to Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2003 or Microsoft® SQL Server® 2000.

These exams, which are required to earn the Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), or Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) certifications, will retire on March 31, 2009. This is your last chance to complete the certifications.

View a list of exams scheduled to retire

If you no longer work with Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000, we recommend that you pursue certification related to the technology you work with today or will work with in the near future. Whatever the certification you hold today, upgrade paths make it simple and efficient for you to certify on newer technologies. To help you complete your certification goals, we have reduced prices by 40 percent on all MCAD, MCSD, and MCDBA exams scheduled to retire and the related upgrade exams. No promotion code is required; the reduced price will be automatically applied when you register with Prometric.
•
Learn more

Your next step: save 40 percent with a price reduction on retiring and upgrade exams

Working on MCAD or MCSD?
Complete your MCAD or MCSD before March 31, 2009, and then follow your upgrade path to Visual Studio 2005.

Have MCAD or MCSD?
Upgrade to Visual Studio 2005 certifications and get ready to become certified on Visual Studio 2008 with a one-exam or two-exam upgrade.
Focusing on Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Earn your first Visual Studio 2008 certification--on Windows Presentation Foundation Applications, ADO .NET, ASP .NET, or other key technology areas--in just two exams. Get to know the 2008 certifications.

Working on MCDBA?
Complete your MCDBA before March 31, 2009, and then take advantage of the upgrade path to Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Have MCDBA?
Upgrade to SQL Server 2005 and then get ready to earn a 2008 certification.
Focusing on Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Become certified in business intelligence, database administration, or database development--in just two exams. Get to know upcoming SQL Server 2008 certifications.

Sharepoint SDK and Best Practices

Microsoft recently announced the ship of both the online MSDN Library and the downloadable SDK.

Download the MOSS SDK 1.4
Download the WSS SDK 1.4

The August 2008 update is version 1.4 and reflects feature enhancements that were part of the recent Infrastructure Update. For more information on SharePoint Products and Technologies updates, you can start here on TechNet.

Which SDK do I need to download?
If you are only writing code that utilizes the Windows SharePoint Services platform, you can download the WSS SDK. However, if you want the superset of all documentation and samples, you should install the MOSS SDK, and then you’ll get all the platform and technology information as well. You don’t need to download both, but you will need to uninstall all previous versions.
Note The SDK 1.4 downloads are full releases that include all previous tools and documentation.
What’s New in this release?
The SDK updates in 1.4 include:
Custom Federated Search Web Part with a Credentials UI (also available at MSDN Code Gallery)
Federated Search SQL Server Connector (also available at MSDN Code Gallery)
Federated Search HTML to RSS Connector (also available at MSDN Code Gallery)
Federated Search Virtual Earth Map Connector (also available at MSDN Code Gallery)
Updated documentation files, including updated, offline versions of MSDN Library Technical Articles and Developer Guides

To find out more about what's new in the documentation, check the following links:
What’s New in the MOSS SDK 1.4 Documentation
What’s New in the WSS SDK 1.4 Documentation

Lots of new documentation for Records Management APIs.
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.Holds
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.InformationPolicy
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.RecordsRepository
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.Reporting
Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.SearchAndProcess

While you’re updating your SharePoint development tools…
You can also update the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint Services. Here is the link to the installer: VSeWSS 1.2. The extensions were updated on 7/1/2008 and now work with Visual Studio 2008!
Don’t forget to download the user’s guide: version 1.1

Recently, Microsoft released the Infrastructure Update that provides fixes and even a new set of Search Federation features. They also announced support for Virtualization technology like Hyper-V and SQL Server 2008. In addition, they announced the availability of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit 2.0 which provides functionality to run highly available and geographically dispersed SharePoint deployments.

Today, Microsoft announced the SharePoint Best Practices Series. These consumable and actionable guidelines are based on real-world experience from Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) and the product team. They are aimed to help SharePoint developers and administrators avoid some of the common SharePoint deployment pitfalls and keep their SharePoint environments available and performing well. The SharePoint Customer Team, part of the core product team dedicated to providing real-world feedback inwardly and outwardly, has put this guidance together working with a number of teams within Microsoft.

The SharePoint Best Practices Resource Center on TechNet highlights the different best practices for IT Professionals and Developers and helps you navigate through the resources. IT Professional topics include Operational Excellence, Team Collaboration Sites, Publishing Portals, Search and My Sites. Developer topics include Common Coding Issues, Using Disposable Objects, Search SQL Syntax Queries and Customization Best Practices. We will continue updating and publishing new Best Practices based on real-world experience.

Cleveland SharePoint User Group June Meeting

Cleveland SharePoint User Group June Meeting
Wednesday, June 25th from 4pm – 6:30pm
Cleveland Microsoft Office
6050 Oak Tree Blvd.
Independence, OH 44131

If you plan on attending the June meeting and have not yet registered, please do so, as we are working with our sponsors to make the event a success!

Be sure to Join the Group (so we can keep you updated on SharePoint User Group meetings and other SharePoint events in the community) and to register for the June meeting (so we are able to ensure appropriate accommodations are made for all June meeting participants).

Topic: Workflow Foundation + SharePoint
This talk covers the basics of Microsoft’s workflow technology (Workflow Foundation) and how it can be applied to typical .NET programming scenarios. SharePoint offers a way for humans to interact with workflows built with this technology. We’ll take a look at what SharePoint workflows offer and how they can be used to complement your business processes.

Presenter : Jeremy Sublett, MVP SharePoint Server, MCSD, MCT
Jeremy Sublett is a software architect and senior partner with Composable Systems, LLC, specializing in SharePoint-based business solutions. Prior to becoming a SharePoint MVP, Jeremy was focused on using the latest Microsoft technology to implement service-oriented applications. Jeremy has worked professionally with Microsoft development technology since 1994 and is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) for .NET as well as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). Jeremy contributes regularly to the Microsoft development community by speaking on topics such as ASP.NET, WCF and SharePoint 2007. Recently, Jeremy was asked by Microsoft to be one of three people nation-wide to teach SharePoint development for Microsoft partners.

Please forward to others that may be interested in attending.

The Cleveland SharePoint User Group site is available at http://www.sharepointcleveland.com/.

Stay updated on announcements by following SharePointCLE on Twitter.

Lansing Day of .Net

The Lansing Day of .Net is scheduled for Saturday, June 21, 2008. A few developers from the Cleveland area are organizing a car pool/convoy to the event. If you're interested in joining, please reply to this post or e-mail sam@clevelanddotnet.info.

CodeStock 2008

CodeStock 2008 is now open for registration!

The event is scheduled for Saturday, August 9th in Knoxville, TN. There are 30 sessions available, a keynote address by respected author and Microsoft MVP Jeff Prosise, and a place to hang out with speakers and other attendees in open spaces style.

CodeStock 2008 will be held at:
Pellissippi State Technical Community College
Lamar Alexander Bldg
10915 Hardin Valley Rd
Knoxville, TN 37933.

Register at: http://codestock.org/Pages/Register.aspx

If you are looking for hotel accomodations, go to http://codestock.org/Pages/Directions.aspx

Pass this on to your friends and coworkers. You can also follow the event on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CodeStock.

For more info, go to http://codestock.org/

If you're interested in attending this event, please reply to this post or e-mail sam@clevelanddotnet.info. If we get enough people we might be able to hop on the Microsoft bus for the trip down south!

SQL Server RC available

Shortly after TechEd 2008, Microsoft announced the availability of Release Candidate 0 (RC0) to TechNet and MSDN subscribers at the following links:

Download SQL Server 2008 RC0 (MSDN subscribers)
Download SQL Server 2008 RC0 (TechNet Plus subscribers)

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 (RC0) will automatically expire after 180 days. To read more about the new features offered with the new release of SQL Server go to http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/default.aspx.

For some of the highlight articles, check out the following links:
Record Performance Benchmarks
Virtual Launch Experience
SQL Server Data Services
Brochure
Overview Demo
Product Overview
Virtual Labs

Open Night at Brulant

Register today online at http://www.brulant.com/Pages/Events.aspx