Once again, here are some very rough notes on the general session that just ended, typed in real time.

Bob Muglia

  1. Trends on server.
    1. 2005 - Windows Server 2003 R2
    2. 2006 – Monad, WinFX, Windows Compute Cluster
    3. 2007 - Longhorn Server
  2. Reviewed Windows Server 2003 R2.
  3. DEMO: AVIcode Intercept Studio debugging a server side .NET application. Uses System Definition Model (SDM) to model application.
  4. DEMO: Windows Compute Cluster Solution. New Windows SKU introduced in 2006. Can create supercomputer clusters in Windows, most people doing this today in Linux, but distinct challenges there. Using Windows as a compute cluster allows integration with AD in the Enterprise. In this example, Excel front end generates the compute job. Muglia pulled out the network cable to show fail over in the compute cluster, job failed over onto another machine without loss.
  5. MMC 3.0. Allows .NET development of MMC snap-ins. Lots of work happening at MSFT around creating new MMC snap-ins.
  6. Monad. New scripting environment for Windows. Object-oriented, built on .NET. Slide mentioned Python but this wasn’t demoed. Goal is to have new MMC 3.0 snap-ins build on Monad objects, project to put Monad objects into all server products.
  7. WS-Management is new open standard to allow cross platform WMI-like features. Submitted to DTMF as potential standard today. Good work with partners to exploit WS-Management. I noticed Sun, Novell, and Intel logos in the list of companies co-submitting the standard.
  8. 75% of enterprises use AD as their primary identity management solution, and it’s growing.
  9. DEMO: InfoCard used with federation to provide cross-organization identity management. Uses WS-* protocols for cross-platform support.
  10. PDC attendees get Longhorn Server CTP. New disks arriving today hot off press. First preview of IIS 7.
  11. Longhorn Server will ship in 2007.
  12. Longhorn Server has transacted file system. You can delete a file and then do a rollback.
  13. Longhorn Server has new Event Log features for logging metadata.
  14. Longhorn Server is highly modularized. Server Core is basic services for Server, then can add roles on top of that. Doesn’t have shell, need to add Server Core Plus for that.
  15. IIS7. Major new release of IIS. Also, highly modular. Built on Windows Activation Service, standard service for starting web or WCF protocols. ASP.NET deeply integrated into IIS7. Very thorough set of diagnostics and tracing tools.
  16. DEMO: IIS7. Metabase is dead. Uses web.config instead. All config for IIS, WCF, and ASP.NET done through the same config file. Solves metabase deployment issues. Brand new Win32 API being introduced, allows much deeper customization than ISAPI. Can unload modules, e.g. if you don’t need CGI, disconnect that module. Don’t even need to reboot to do configuration. Built .NET HTTP Module interface into IIS7, so you can do ISAPI style filters that affect all pages, not just ASP.NET pages. As an example, you can use ASP.NET forms authentication to protect a classic ASP application. As an example, you can write a new logging module to replace the IIS logging module using .NET. Demo showed replacing the directory listing module to show graphical directory listing.
  17. Longhorn Server includes new hypervisor service for improved virtualization support.
  18. Call to Action:
    1. Build SDMs and Management Packs
    2. Create Monad command applet and MMC 3.0 snap-ins.
    3. Get going on Compute Cluster.
    4. AD enable applications.
    5. Implement WCF for web services.
    6. Add workflow foundation for business process.
  19. 64-bit is everywhere, 32-bit is now legacy. Just assume that EVERYTHING works in 64-bit.

Things that impressed:

  • IIS7. In 1996, I was writing ISAPI filters for custom security solutions. It worked, but it required C++ coding and understanding the internals of IIS and HTTP. Now, any VB programmer can rebuild any component of IIS, and any admin can choose a custom IIS configuration for a site.
  • Transacted file system. I saw another demo of this earlier in the week. You can start a transaction, delete a file, rollback the transaction, and the file still exists. Bringing ACID transactions to the file system will make life way easier for developers who interact with files.
  • Supercomputers on Windows! Yes!
  • Monad. Takes scripting to the next level.