Servers and Services tracks recorded at TechDays 2009 Belgium

http://www.microsoft.com/belux/techdays/2009/track.aspx?tid=servers_services&engine=MSDN

In this track you will find sessions on SQL Server 2008, SharePoint Server (MOSS), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) in .NET Framework 3.5. Claims and authentication is also addressed as well as the Azure Services Platform.

Building RESTful Applications with Microsoft Tools

Applications today are expected to expose their data and consume data-centric services via REST. In this session we discuss ADO .NET Data Services and see how we can REST enable your application. Then you will learn how to leverage existing skills related to LINQ and data access to customize the behavior, control-flow, security model and experience of your data service. Then switching gears we will focus on consuming of REST services from any platform (including Ruby on Rails) using Visual Studio and LINQ to REST. We will then see how to enable data-binding to traditional ASP.NET controls as well as Silverlight. We will conclude with developing offline applications with the ability to sync back to the online data service.

Session level: 300

Building Workflow Services in .NET Framework 3.5

About creating business processes in Workflow Foundation and integration with other applications using WCF. The Workflow first approach vs. the Contract first approach. The use of the wsHttpContextBinding. Big demo of a real life scenario based where a public webapplication start a process, internal applications are communicating with the process and at the end thirdparty services are called.

Session level: 300

Enhancing the SharePoint Developer Experience

This session will focus on best practices for SharePoint development based on lessons learnt. You will learn how to approach SharePoint development to build solutions in an effective way. This is not only about knowing the right tools and techniques to speed up the SharePoint development process but also about how to avoid mistake and making the correct design decisions.

Session level: 300

Inside the Architecture of the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

Join this session to know more about the design of the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint, how SharePoint Server 2007 is used out of the box, and which components have been developed and how: rating, commenting and rating, native Zune support, Silverlight 2.0 for playback and robust upload, streaming, grid view, mobile views etc… Scaling, performance and deployment will also be discussed. We’ll also share lessons learned from the current Academy Mobile implementation within Microsoft.

Session level: 300

Putting authentication in its place: claim-based identity, services and Geneva

The code that takes care of authentication is traditionally one of the nastiest spot of every distributed application. The current situation derives from multiple causes, from tightly coupling with specific technologies to trusting non-experts to write security code. Microsoft has been among the thought leaders who proposed a strategic solution to the problem, the Identity MetaSystem and its claim based identities, achieving vast consensus across the industry. Come to this session to learn how you can finally put that vision in practice thanks to the new “Geneva” products line.

Session level: 300

SQL Server 2008 for Developers

Lynn’s demo-filled presentation will give .NET developers an overview of the numerous new capabilities in SQL Server 2008: from support for Spatial Data types to a mechanism to store SQL BLOB data using the NTFS file system, and several things in between. There are also improvements in the area of SQL CLR and XML, Reporting Services, etc. This presentation will take a technical dive into the new things you will find in SQL Server 2008. Lynn’s sessions are always highly interactive, educational and a lot of fun.

Session level: 300

WCF Tips & Tricks

Applications communicating over the Internet or being provided in the cloud need certain infrastructure functionalities. Authentication, authorization, powerful communication options and support for workflows seem to be a common need. Microsoft’s .NET Services – as part of the overall Azure Services platform – offer exactly all this with their Access Control Service, Service Bus and Workflow Service. In this session Christian Weyer sheds a light on how these services fit into the Azure picture, how they work and fit together in a practical manner, based on first experiences in customer projects.

Session level: 300

Northwind Office Business Application

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/OBANorthwind

This sample demonstrates a simple Office Business Application used by the new Northwind Traders built with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. It follows the workflow of accepting purchase orders through email all the way to shipping. It shows how to expose LOB data using ADO.NET Data Services as well as interact with it in Outlook, Word, Excel and SharePoint 2007.

Please read the companion article series for step-by-step information on building this sample:

Building an Office Business Application
OBA Part 1 – Exposing Line-of-Business Data
OBA Part 2 – Building an Outlook Client against LOB Data
OBA Part 3 – Storing and Reading Data in Word Documents
OBA Part 4 – Building an Excel Client against LOB Data
OBA Part 5 – Building the SharePoint 2007 Workflow

This sample was built using Visual Studio 2008 Professional Service Pack 1 and it demonstrates:

1. A way to easily expose LOB data using ADO.NET Data Services
2. An Outlook Add-in that displays LOB data in a WPF control
3. How to store and retrieve structured data from Word 2007 documents
4. An Excel document customization that edits LOB data provides data visualization
5. A SharePoint 2007 Document Library Workflow that adds Order info to the database by reading word documents and updates and reports order statuses based on changes in the database using ADO.NET Data Services

Download the latest release here

PLEASE READ THIS
This sample uses the Northwind sample database you can download here. The sample contains a database project that includes change scripts to add EmailAddress to customers and employees tables as well as OrderNumber to the Orders table so please make sure you run those before attempting to run the sample. You may also need to update the connection string located in the Web.config of the NorthwindDataService project.

OBA Part 3 – Storing and Reading Data in Word Documents

http://blogs.msdn.com/bethmassi/archive/2009/02/12/oba-part-3-storing-and-reading-data-in-word-documents.aspx