Here’s the content of the most exciting email I’ve received lately (invite code redacted of course):

Thank you for your interest in Windows® Azure™.

Your invitation code is xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx.

You can now sign up for a Windows Azure account at http://lx.azure.microsoft.com/fs. Please keep this email in a safe place.

This invitation to participate in the Windows Azure Community Technical Preview is subject to the following usage limits:

        Total compute usage: 2000 VM hours
        Cloud storage capacity: 50GB
        Total storage bandwidth: 20GB/day

During the CTP, we reserve the right to suspend your account activity (this does not imply we will delete your cloud storage) if you exceed these usage limits.

Sincerely,
Windows Azure Platform Team

You have received this email because you registered as being interested in the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Windows Azure. As a participant in the Windows Azure CTP program, you will continue to receive emails related to that program unless you end your participation by emailing azinvite@microsoft.com with “END PARTICIPATION” in the subject line.

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I’m very excited to begin learning to develop against Azure in all my spare time. If I learn anything worthy of note here, I’ll share it. Just too many things to dabble in and too little time.

With the release of Silverlight 3 on Friday, I’m wondering whether the enterprise (that mythical stereotype) will adopt Silverlight 3 for line of business (LOB) applications. The official “what’s new” section included the following items that I found very interesting:

Improving Rich Internet Application Productivity. New features include:

• 60+ controls with source code : Silverlight 3 is packed with over 60 high-quality, fully skinnable and customizable out-of-the-box controls such as charting and media, new layout containers such as dock and viewbox, and controls such as autocomplete, treeview and datagrid. The controls come with nine professional designed themes and the source code can be modified/recompiled or utilized as-is. Other additions include multiple selection in listbox controls, file save dialog making it easier to write files, and support for multiple page applications with navigation.
• Deep Linking. Silverlight 3 includes support for deep linking, which enables bookmarking a page within a RIA.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Silverlight 3 enables users to solve the SEO-related challenges posed by RIAs. By utilizing business objects on the server, together with ASP.NET controls and site maps, users can automatically mirror database-driven RIA content into HTML that is easily indexed by the leading search engines.
• Enhanced Data Support Silverlight 3 delivers:
  • Element to Element binding : UI designers use binding between two UI properties to create compelling UI experiences. Silverlight now enables property binding to CLR objects and other UI components via XAML, for instance binding a slider value to the volume control of a media player.
  • Data Forms. The Data Form control provides support for layout of fields, validation, updating and paging through data.
  • New features for data validation which automatically catch incorrect input and warn the user with built-in validation controls.
  • Support for business objects on both client and server with n-Tier data support. Easily load, sort, filter and page data with added support for working with data. Includes a new built-in CollectionView to perform a set of complex operations against server side data. A new set of .NET RIA services supports these features on the server.
• Improved performance, through:
  • Application library caching, which reduces the size of applications by caching framework on the client in order to improve rendering performance.
  • Enhanced Deep Zoom, allows users to fluidly navigate through larger image collections by zooming.
  • Binary XML allows communication with the server to be compressed, greatly increasing the speed at which data can be exchanged.
  • Local Connection This feature allows communication between two Silverlight applications on the client-side without incurring a server roundtrip: for instance a chart in one control can communicate with a datagrid in another.

I’ve just downloaded the bits and will begin exploring the new controls and just how easy it is or is not to build applications. My only criteria at the moment is whether or not the applications are as easy to build as a Windows Forms application. Obviously there are far more important evaluation criteria, but I’m wondering whether my stated criteria here will be the more common question raised in the enterprise. That is, can we build apps faster, easier, better with this? If not, I’m not sure the enterprise will get too awfully excited about it unless a clear case can be made for replacing the often time consuming, error prone web application development process with a simpler Silverlight 3 development process.

One way or another, I’m excited about Silverlight 3 and eager to dive in and have some fun.

Here’s my favorite feature’s of Windows 7 release candidate right after install into a VMware virtual machine.

A few weeks ago I made a major course correction in our choice of ORM data layer. We had planned to use LLBLGen Pro but several issues with the code that it generates continued to bother me. First, it's support for stored procedures lacked the ability to strongly type the resultset. Second, the data entity classes do not easily support serialization over WCF with the option to dress them up with the appropriate attributes.

So I took a second look at PLINQO with CodeSmith 5.0, something I had considered some time ago but had decided against because I felt it was not sufficiently mature for our team's use. I wanted to see if the dev team had improved the product to the point that I believed it would work for us. I'm very happy I gave it another try. They have done a great job and restored my confidence in LINQ to SQL.

With PLINQO, I found that I could return to standard LINQ to SQL queries and enjoy many of the benefits I had looked forward to using in LLBLGen Pro such as "disconnected" entities. And much to my satisfaction, PLINQO resolves the two major issues I had with the LLBLGen Pro. The improvements over standard LINQ to SQL may seem small at first but when dealing with a very large, enterprise class database, the enhancements that PLINQO offers are critical, including the separation of entities into individual class files.

There are many more features and benefits with PLINQO than I have time to review here. If you're looking for a better LINQ to SQL than LINQ to SQL, look very carefully at PLINQO. I mean, who couldn't fall in love with code like this all buttoned up for you automatically:

private long _userId;

//// <summary>
/// Gets the USER_ID column value.
/// </summary>
[System.Data.Linq.Mapping.Column(Name = "USER_ID", Storage = "_userId", 
     DbType = "bigint NOT NULL IDENTITY", IsPrimaryKey = true, 
	 IsDbGenerated = true, CanBeNull = false)]
[System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMember(Order = 1)]
public long UserId
{
    get { return _userId; }
    set
    {
        if (_userId != value)
        {
            OnUserIdChanging(value);
            SendPropertyChanging("UserId");
            _userId = value;
            SendPropertyChanged("UserId");
            OnUserIdChanged();
        }
    }
}

In a recent project I wanted to simplify the creation and configuration of a WCF proxy client and enforce programmatic configuration so that the client could only be used in a specific configuration. Here’s the result of that effort. Note that there is a static Create method and the standard ClientBase constructors have been marked as internal to prevent creation of the client in any other way.

public class ControlServiceClient : ClientBase<IControlService>, IControlService
{
    public static ControlServiceClient Create()
    {
        string controlServiceAddress = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["controlServiceAddress"];
        NetTcpBinding tcpBinding = new NetTcpBinding(SecurityMode.Transport, false);
        tcpBinding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = TcpClientCredentialType.Windows;
        tcpBinding.Security.Transport.ProtectionLevel = ProtectionLevel.EncryptAndSign;

        //set other binding attributes
        tcpBinding.CloseTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 30);     //default is 1 minute.
        tcpBinding.MaxBufferPoolSize = 1048576;               //1MB default is 65,536 bytes

        //not allowed by partially trusted 
        //tcpBinding.MaxBufferSize = 262144;                  //256KB default is 65,536 bytes

        tcpBinding.MaxConnections = 10;                       //default is 10:
        tcpBinding.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 4194304;          //4MB The default is 65,536 bytes
        tcpBinding.OpenTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 30);      //The default value is 1 minute
        tcpBinding.ReceiveTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 10, 0);   //The default value is 10 minute
        tcpBinding.SendTimeout = new TimeSpan(0, 1, 30);      //The default value is 1 minute

        EndpointAddress endpointAddress = 
            new EndpointAddress(string.Format("net.tcp://{0}", controlServiceAddress));
        ControlServiceClient client = new ControlServiceClient(tcpBinding, endpointAddress);
        return client;
    }

    internal ControlServiceClient() { }

    internal ControlServiceClient(string endpointConfigurationName) :
        base(endpointConfigurationName)
    { }

    internal ControlServiceClient(Binding binding, EndpointAddress remoteAddress) :
        base(binding, remoteAddress)
    { }

    internal ControlServiceClient(InstanceContext callbackInstance) :
        base(callbackInstance)
    { }

    public string GetData(int value)
    {
        return base.Channel.GetData(value);
    }

    public CompositeType GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite)
    {
        return base.Channel.GetDataUsingDataContract(composite);
    }
}

Every few months I give up on stacking everything on my desk and begin the arduous task of cleaning it up. In my most recent battle with desktop clutter, I came to realize that I am a book addict. Set aside the numerous entertaining novels I've bought and read over the last few months because they don't make it to my work desk. If they did, I'd never get any work done.

Here's a list of just the books currently floating in the stacks on my desk. No, I am not making this up. And no, I'm not going to give you a link to each one of them. You can always hit www.amazon.com or your favorite alternative and look them up. Many of these come from my local Borders store and others from Amazon. My Amazon Prime account has more than paid for itself.

I must also confess that some of these were not purchased recently but have somehow made their way back off my shelf and onto my desk in recent months. The order is of no particular import except to note that it is essentially a LIFO list which may provide a quasi reverse chronological order to my wandering interests and/or problems/challenges.

• Agile Principles, Patterns and Practices in C# by Martin and Martin
• The Data Model Resource Book Volume 1 by Silverston
• The Data Model Resource Book Volume 2 by Silverston
• The Data Model Resource Book Volume 3 by Silverston and Agnew
• Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005 by MacDonald and Szpuszla
• SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 with MDX by Harrinath and Quinn
• Windows Workflow Foundation by Scribner
• Programming WCF Services by Lowy
• Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform by Troelsen
• jQuery in Action by Bibeault and Katz
• Building a Data Warehouse by Rainardi
• Programming Collective Intelligence by Segaran
• Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System by Mann
• Pro SharePoint 2007 Development Techniques by Bruggeman and Bruggeman
• Regular Expressions by Friedl
• Regular Expression Recipes for Windows Developers by Good
• Microsoft SharePoint Buidling Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 by Hillier
• C# Cookbook by Teilhet and Hilyard
• Refactoring Databases Evolutionary Database Design by Ambler and Sadalage
• SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices by Curry and English

Update: Wandering through the house, I found several more at various favorite reading spots. They've now taken their proper place on my desk piles. Here they are:

• Pro Silverlight 2 in C# 2008 by MacDonald
• Thinking in C++ Second Edition Volume 1 by Eckel
• Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling by Crawford
• A Programmer's Introduction to C# Second Edition by Gunnerson
• Visual C# 2005: The Base Class Library by Balena (I won this one)

Yes, this is a sad but not unhealthy addiction. The only detriment here is to my pocketbook and the fact that I'm running out of shelf space. Do you any of you have similar addictions?

Yesterday's post dealt with Len Silverston's Party Role model and how to take it to a physical model using ER/Studio. After re-reading the post, I realized that while a party may have a role that distinguishes it as a person rather than an organization such as "Employee," a party might also have a role that is indistinguishable such as "Customer." So if I have a PARTY ROLE with a ROLE TYPE of "Customer," how do I know whether this customer is an individual or an organization if I have some business rule that must handle an order for one in a different way than the for the other?

The answer, I believe, is in adding a PARTY TYPE which tells me what "sub type" the party is but does not tell me what role the party may play in the system. This distinguishes a "type" from a "role" in that the party can only be one type but might play one or more roles in the system at the same time or at different times. Here's what I ended up with (see update 01/04/09 for corrected diagram):

In this way, I can always determine through query what sub-type the party is regardless of the role. Of course, I could perhaps deal with this by having roles that uniquely apply to a specific sub-type but I think that would defeat the purpose of Len's model.

I'd like to hear what you think.

Update: Browsing Len's Volumne 1 on data modeling, I discovered that this is indeed covered in the Party Role model on page 440. And Karen is right about the relationship. I was too eager to post up the image and so overlooked the fact that I'd created the wrong type of relationship between the PARTY TYPE and PARTY entities in ER/Studio. I'll post up a fix soon.

Update 2 (01/04/09): Here's the corrected diagram with the non-identifying relationship. See Karen's comment.

Yeah, that looks better.

A central theme in my current work is the idea of a universal data model. Research in this direction led to noted author and consultant Len Silverston and his work on the subject which led to licensing ER/Studio and Len's models from Embarcadero. Soon after that, we invited Len to our offices to help us better understand his approach to data models and the process of data modeling. It was an informative and very productive three days. I wholeheartedly recommend his books and his consulting services to you. (See www.univdata.com.)

One of the most difficult concepts to grasp, for me at least, in the realm of data modeling is the transition from logical data model to physical database schema. When I look at boxes and lines with crow's feet connectors, I think of physical database tables. So looking at a logical model like this one makes me think of twelve tables.

The model depicted above (created using ER/Studio) is a simplification of Len's party role logical model that he talks about in his book Data Model Resource Book Volume 1. I've marked the entities that are "logical" and not physical in nature with a yellow background. ER/Studio allows me to mark these entities in the model as "logical" so that they will not be generated in the physical model that the modeling tool will create for you. The only problem is the PARTY ROLE TYPE entity, if marked as "logical," does not get generated and the relationship and foreign key does not get created in the PARTY ROLE table in the physical model.

When you add attributes such as those that PERSON and ORGANIZATION have that are unique to a sub-type, you have to push them to the physical model. Where the sub-type has no unique attributes but can be represented by a unique value record in the super-type entity/table, that entity can remain "logical only."

So now I modify the model and remove PARTY ROLE TYPE and create a relationship between ROLE TYPE and PARTY ROLE and then generate a physical model and this is what I get:

From the physical model I can generate a database script and create a database. Perhaps it is not practical to generate the physical model from the logical model in all cases, but where it can be done in order to avoid maintaining two separate models and risk synchronization issues, I would encourage it.

I'm looking forward to getting Len's next book that focuses on patterns in data modeling which ships next week. Amazon already has my order.

I've recently been looking for simpler and more effective tools for collaborating with geographically distributed teams. The first order of business is to find something better than a whiteboard that can be shared amongst multiple users. After some brief searching, I found Dabbleboard at www.dabbleboard.com. This gem was just recently launched and I'm impressed. The image below was created using the free version of the tool online in just a few minutes. I highly recommend that you give it a try.

The next order of business is to find a better way to prototype a business application that will allow us to define data and business logic in code and sharing that in a prototype that will allow users to interact with the business model without having to build a complex UI prototype and without having to map business objects to the database. While wandering around a site called InfoQ I found through Markin Fowler's blog, I ran into Naked Objects for .NET. I was dubious at first but spend some time watching the videos and wandering around the site. I like what see.

I'm just beginning to use these two tools in a real effort to determine whether they will really make my job and life easier. I am hopeful and impressed with what I've seen so far. The drawing I've created and included in this post illustrates how the Naked Objects technology might be used in what I'm building for my employer. I'm not sure if it represents exactly what will happen in the future but the guys at Dabbleboard have certainly made it easier to envision and to share with my colleagues no matter where they are.

After a long search for the right business process management platform that would allow us to integrate and extend with .NET, my team selected the Ultimus BPM Suite. The primary factors in the decision were the comprehensive nature of the solution which would allow us to deploy process management without requiring the use of some other tool such as InfoPath or SharePoint. Additionally, the solution would allow an incomplete process to be deployed and have assigned "process experts" make final decisions about business rules that may not have been clear or available at the time the process was designed.

I spent all of last week at their North Carolina offices in a "jumpstart" training course and met many of the key players at the company. Good people all around. Their technical expertise and willingness to listen to our team's concerns were impressive. There were a few minor UI glitches that we brought to their attention such as some scrolling issues when designing a process with limited screen real estate. The Ultimus people were genuinely interested in our input.

Having initially found and recommended the product, I was even more impressed with the product as we went through detailed training that brought out a number of features and illustrated an architecture that gave me even greater confidence in the product. This was particularly true in the area of integration points with existing systems and the ability to extend the process using custom developed controls or even process context aware ASP.NET pages hosted outside of the process server.

Our only disappointment was that some of the the training session content could have been improved as at times some of the class members were left a little lost and fell behind. This was in part because the "jumpstart" course was designed to fit a lot of material into a few days, but it was in part due to a lack of maturity in the content and presentation. We were very candid with the Ultimus training director about this and he took our input eagerly and promised improvement. Based on my conversations with key Ultimus employees, I believe that will happen.

If you are looking for a better way to deliver business process management and enterprise human-centric workflow solutions, you should consider Ultimus. There were other systems that were much more expensive that may have fit our requirements, but this was the only one we found that allowed us the freedom to extend and customize using our .NET dev skills without requiring coding skills to design and modify and manage processes.

I'll be writing more about Ultimus as our experience with the product continues.