[WCF] TechED 2009 - New features of WCF 4.0

Today I attended at a Session by Christian Weyer that contained information on the new features of WCF 4.0. There are no big changes but many ameliorations that make it much easier and much more comfortable to work with WCF.


WCF is very flexible and easy to use, but there are also some down-sides such as the configuration file management. There are many switches and elements that need to be mastered, configured and maintained.
The next version of WCF will include default settings that will minimize the need to have very verbose configuration files if standard settings are used.


Furthermore, there are now protocol mappings that can be customized and redefined.


A big new feature are the new Routing functionalities. They can be used to have a single entry point for all client requests, that are then dispatched internally to the right business services. The business services can use completely different protocols and bindings. Routing tables and filters can be used to configure routing rules.


WCF services can now be made discoverable, which is also a quite interesting new feature that may fit very well in some use cases.


Rest support was largely enhanced and dynamic content types are now also supported (a feature that already exists in ADO.NET Data Services since some time).


There are some additional little tweaks that further enhance the overall WCF experience.


Don't hesitate and navigate to the Blog of the speaker. He really did a good job and managed to do quite and interesting session.

[WCF] TechED 2009 - New features of WCF 4.0

[Event] TechED 2009 has started

I am right now at the TechED 2009 in Berlin where I am mainly interested in Architecture sessions, WCF 4.0, Dublin, WF 4.0, Visual Studio 2010, BizTalk 2009 and as many Hands-On-Labs as possible.

I will try to post all the news as fast as possible in the next days. So please stay tuned or if you have the possibility come to Berlin and see it for yourself.

[Event] TechED 2009 has started

[Tutorial] UML with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2

As an Architect you get to use UML quite often in your daily work. A good diagram can say much more than text and – if well done - is easy understandable and shareable amongst team members and the management.

Microsoft announced some time ago that it endorses UML and that it set a core focus on modeling. It therefore announced its membership in the standards body Object Management Group™ (OMG™).



The next version of Visual Studio will include a quite sophisticated set of tools and features for UML Modeling and its associated Code Generation.

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 in a Hyper-V Virtual Machine to test these new UML features. The following steps are necessary to use them.

• Create a new project of type “Modeling Project”

• This will create the basic structure for the UML Models

• There are 7 diagram choices currently possible in the Beta 2 release, Add a “UML Class Diagram”

• The Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of classes and class relationships

• Add some elements and design your classes

• Add a “UML Sequence Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of interactions

• Add some elements and design your interactions

• Add a “UML Use Case Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of use cases

• Add some elements and design your use cases (note that it is not possible to declare extension points in the Beta 2 release at the moment)

• Add a “UML Activity Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of actions

• Add some elements and design your actions (note that there are sometimes little display problems, especially when using decision nodes and input pins)

• Add a “UML Component Diagram”, the Toolbox is now filled with elements that are useful for the creation of components and component relationships

• Add some elements and design your components (note that Delegations and Part Assemblies don’t work in the Beta 2 release)

• The “Layer Diagram” and “Directed Graph Document” are no UML Diagrams, so I won’t discuss them in this article

• You can use the new UML Model Explorer to see all elements for all diagrams in one place

[Tutorial] UML with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2

[VS 2010 - .NET 4.0] Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2 for download to the public.

Don’t hesitate to download, install and try out all the new features of those highly awaited versions of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 2 (ISO) :
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/8/A/58ABDB52-684A-4DED-AD14-FD82E9EECAE6/VS2010B2Pro1.iso

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium Beta 2 (ISO) :
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/9/989B6C8D-DA2E-4849-A533-69BE52C4C674/VS2010B2Prem1.iso

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 (ISO) :
http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/C/9/FC9131D2-688C-43DC-91CF-53359D4882E7/VS2010B2Ult.iso

For more details about all the new features of Visual Studio 2010 please visit:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

[VS 2010 - .NET 4.0] Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 2

[Event] TechEd 2009 in Berlin

The Microsoft TechEd 2009 will be from the 9th until the 13th November in Berlin in Germany this year. A vast amount of MVPs, RDs, MCTs and Microsoft employees will be present.

You will be able to see Microsoft product demos, talk with industry experts, get hands-on training, participate in group chalk-talks and learn about Microsoft services and upcoming product.

A must for everybody who is working in the software development sector (especially if you are working with Microsoft product).

I am very happy that I will be attending. We might get into contact if you plan to participate in some of the software development and architecture sessions.

See you there !! Check my Blog postings after the event !!

[Event] TechEd 2009 in Berlin

[MDM] Microsoft Master Data Services

Microsoft has bought Stratature some time ago and will soon deliver its own Master Data Management product (ancient Codename Bulldog). It will be shipped with the release of SQL Server 2008 R2 and will be called Master Data Services.

More information can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/mds.aspx

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/knightreign/

[MDM] Microsoft Master Data Services

[Tutorial] ADO.NET Data Services Part 5 – Custom Data Sources 2/2

The last part described how to replace the Entity Framework with custom Data Sources. This part goes into more detail concerning the necessary modifications in the Host & Client projects.

At the end of this part you will have a fully working ADO.NET Data Service that is based on your own custom Data Structure and Data Sources.

• Open the Client project and add a new Service Reference to the ExampleDataService2

• Change the implementation in the Main function and add a new proxy to the new ADO.NET Data Service

• Change the implementation in the Read function and add a two new function calls in dependency of the user input

• Add the implementation of the new ReadEF and ReadCustom functions so that the correct proxy is used to query for data and display it in the console

• Open the Host project and modify the Main function so that both ADO.NET Data Services are hosted on different addresses

[Tutorial] ADO.NET Data Services
Part 5 – Custom Data Sources 2/2

[Tutorial] ADO.NET Data Services Part 4 – Custom Data Sources 1/2

The last part showed how to host an ADO.NET Data Services and how to create a proxy to consume it. This part describes how to replace the Entity Framework part with custom Data Sources (for example POCO business objects).

By doing this, you will get the full functionality of ADO.NET Data Services but the flexibility to use you own custom Data Sources (Object in Memory, Oracle DB, Data Cubes, Files, etc…).

• Open the ADO.NET Data Service project and add some new classes that will serve as structure for your custom Data  Source  (for example  Invoice, InvoiceLine, Thirdparty and BusinessEntities)

  

• The BusinessEntities class serves as container for the different custom entities that you want to expose, they are initialized in the constructor for the example and must be accessible via public IQueryable properties

• Add a new item of type ADO.NET Data Service

• Change the Data Service code of the new ExampleDataService2 and add as type the custom BusinessEntities

[Tutorial] ADO.NET Data Services
Part 4 – Custom Data Sources 1/2