4/19/2008

APR201: Building ASP.NET AJAX Applications with Visual Studio 2008 (Bring Your Own Laptop): Focus on the Server Side  (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Litwin
Stephen Walther
In this hands-on workshop, you learn how to take advantage of Microsoft’s AJAX framework to create Web sites that provide a richer user experience. In this workshop, you learn how to build server-side ASP.NET AJAX applications (see APR202 for a focus on the client side of AJAX). In particular, you learn how to take advantage of the UpdatePanel control to perform partial page updates. You learn how to use advanced features of this control such as its client-side execution life cycle. In this workshop, you also learn about the rich set of server-side AJAX controls included in the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. For example, you’ll learn how to create modal dialog boxes, draggable panels, auto-complete text boxes, and other cool controls.

Note: There is a companion workshop on April 20th that focuses on the client side of AJAX programming. The two workshops may be taken independently but many attendees will want to attend both to get the full AJAX picture. You must come to this workshop with a laptop (with power cord and CD-ROM drive) that is configured with Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express, PLUS SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server Express 2005. There will be no time to debug installation issues so please have the above up and running.

VPR301: Improve Your SOA: Designing a Secure, Reliable, and Scalable System with WCF (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Michele Leroux Bustamante
During the architecture design phase, once you have completed a high-level view of the system, you are in a position to make important choices that impact the overall security, performance, and distribution of system functionality. This tutorial will start by discussion SOA principals and the relevance of WCF in different tiers of your service-oriented application architecture. Then you will learn how to implement architectural patterns common to WCF deployments that address large message sizes, asynchronous functionality, authentication and authorization at every tier, transfer security, distributed transactions, and exception handling. In addition, you’ll learn about the threading model for WCF services and how to throttle access to services, learn the implications of various types of WCF session on load distribution and fail-over, and learn how to build an application router to introduce necessary security boundaries or to monitor and distribute message traffic.

SPR302: SQL Server 2008 Overview for Developers (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Bob Beauchemin
SQL Server 2008 introduces a number of exciting new features for developers, from support for Spatial Data types to a mechanism to store SQL BLOB data using the NTFS file system, to improvements in any development-related area from T-SQL to SQLCLR to XML. This one-day workshop is meant to get you up to speed quickly on the new features and give you some insight into how to most effectively use them to your advantage with either new or existing development projects. Some of the topics covered include:

• Spatial data—how to geocode existing data, import spatial reference data, and use spatial queries and indexes for best performance.
  
• Filestream data—when to store large binary data in the database or in SQL Server’s filestream data storage. How to read and write filestream data with the system streaming I/O functions.
  
• Extended date/time data type support—the specifics of SQL Server 2008’s four new temporal data types and extensions to T-SQL date/time functions.
  
• T-SQL enhancements—learn the “zen“ behind the new T-SQL MERGE statement, grouping set support, table-valued parameters, change tracking, metadata tracking, and improved syntax.
  
• Query performance improvements—besides covering T-SQL syntax, I’ll cover how the new T-SQL statements help to improve performance, as well as covering performance and query plan guide improvements to not only “make SQL run faster“ but also to stabilize query plans.
  
• SQLCLR improvements—covering how to use the improvements in this area, including nullable type support, large UDTs and UDAggs, multi-input UDAggs, and ordered table-valued functions.
  
• Service Broker enhancements—diagnose Service Broker setup problems easily using the new SSBDiag utility and set message priorities on a service/contract level.
  
• XML data and XQuery improvements—include support for additional XML Schema constructs, XQuery, and XML DML language enhancements.
  

SPR301: The Accidental DBA: Survival Tips, Tricks, and Techniques (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Randal
Kimberly L. Tripp
Have you been nominated as “the SQL person“ on your team? Are you a developer who’s suddenly found their test database has become critical for your company’s business? Have you become a DBA—even only accidentally—and do you find yourself managing SQL Server database(s) more and more? Are you sure your data is protected? Are you sure your applications can scale? The one thing you NEED now, to manage this system correctly—is knowledge! We’ll cover all of the critical components related to configuring, implementing, and maintaining a SQL Server system. Topics will include an overview of SQL Server components, protecting and maintaining the data, writing effective server-side components (e.g., procedures and transactions), and many other items that all require server-side smarts. Come to this workshop to find out the things you need to know to successfully manage SQL Server from the beginning—a day spent here will save you many more!

4/20/2008

VPR302: .NET Roadmap: Where Are We and Where Do We Go from Here? (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Michele Leroux Bustamante
With these rapidly changing times, developers have a lot more on their mind and on their plate than they did at any point in recent time. Although the Visual Studio and the .NET Framework both provide tools that yield an overall increase in productivity during the development cycle, the avalanche of technologies that builds upon these foundations can seem overwhelming if not insurmountable at times. This workshop will take you through a guided tour of the Microsoft technologies available today, tomorrow, and into the foreseeable future...and enable educated decisions on aligning your product road map with upcoming technologies. You’ll discuss language and platform trends for .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and .NET 3.5, including language trends for C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0; advances for developing the data access tier from data sets and readers to the new features available in ADO.NET 3.5 including LINQ and the Entity Framework; platform stacks such as ClickOnce, Windows Forms, and ASP.NET; communication stacks like ASMX, Remoting, Enterprise Services and their future applicability now that WCF is here; the .NET 3.0 stack including WCF, WF, WPF, and CardSpace; the relevance of Microsoft Expression for graphics design, ASP.NET and WPF; perspectives on workflow and BPM; and a review of identity platforms including approaches to federated security with WCF.  In this intense, one-day briefing, you will see numerous demonstrations of these technologies, you will assess the benefits and advantages of the forward trends and you will gain an overall picture of each technology’s place in your development efforts today and tomorrow—for each respective discipline. Developers, architects, and technical leads who would like to gain some perspective on the Microsoft road map, the applicability of each technology, and the choices and the trade-offs will greatly benefit from this workshop.

VPR204: ADO.NET Entity Framework: From 0 to 60 (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Julie Lerman
This full day workshop will provide you with a full overview of the soon-to-be released ADO.NET Entity Framework, Microsoft's new core data platform. In this workshop, you will learn what the Entity Framework is and how it fits into your application and enterprise architecture. We will begin with an introduction to the Entity Data model, how to build it, and how to implement it in its simplest form. Then you will learn how to take advantage of the true power of the Entity Data Model by creating customized mappings and implementing it in real-world multi-tier architectures. You will learn how to query Entity Data Models using LINQ to Entities, Entity SQL with Object Services, and stream data with Entity Client. The workshop will also explore some of the more complex features of object services as well as offer guidance as to when and where to you will want to use the Entity Data Model and which of its core querying methods is right for different scenarios.

APR202: Building ASP.NET AJAX Applications with Visual Studio 2008 (Bring Your Own Laptop): Focus on the Client Side (9:00am - 4:00PM)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Litwin
Stephen Walther
In this hands-on workshop, you learn how to take advantage of Microsoft's AJAX framework to create Web sites that provide a richer user experience. In this workshop, you learn how to build client-side ASP.NET AJAX applications (see APR201 for a focus on the server side of AJAX). This workshop begins with a JavaScript primer for ASP.NET developers who are new to the JavaScript language (or those who might benefit from a refresh). You are provided with an introduction to the JavaScript language and the browser Document Object Model. Next, you learn about Microsoft's extensions to JavaScript included in the Microsoft AJAX Library. You learn how to handle events in a cross-browser compatible manner. You also learn how to build JavaScript libraries that support IntelliSense. We also discuss how you can call Web services from the client. You learn how to call custom Web services and application services such as the authentication, role, and profile services. Finally, you learn how to build client-side, cross-browser compatible AJAX controls that execute entirely on the client.

Note: There is a companion workshop on April 19th that focuses on the server side of AJAX programming. The two workshops may be taken independently but many attendees will want to attend both to get the full AJAX picture. You must come to this workshop with a laptop (with power cord and CD-ROM drive) that is configured with Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Developer 2008 Express, PLUS SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server Express 2005. There will be no time to debug installation issues so please have the above up and running.

VPR303: Building Mobile Smart Clients for the Enterprise (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Nickolas Landry
Did you know that today’s Pocket PCs are more powerful than a 1998 desktop? Did you know that the .NET Compact Framework offers over 30% of the full framework functionality in about 10% of the size? Or that you can call standard Web services using a Windows Mobile device and a $25/month wireless Internet connection? Mobile devices, applications, frameworks and wireless networks have come a long way to become key components of the agile enterprise. There is also a wide range of mobile devices and computers you can target, including Smartphones and Pocket PCs built around very varied form factors. This workshop explores mobile enterprise application development for the .NET developer like you. Come learn how to leverage your .NET knowledge to develop powerful smart clients that work with elaborate architectures to fulfill the promise of a truly connected world. Topics discussed include: Visual Studio 2008 for Devices, .NET Compact Framework 2.0 & 3.5, Windows CE, Windows Mobile 5.0 & 6.0 SDKs, SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition, the Mobile Client Software Factory , Pocket PCs, Smartphones, wireless networks (GSM/GPRS, EDGE, UMTS/HSDPA, CDMA/1X, EV-DO, WI-FI, Bluetooth, etc.) and more. All this great content is combined with great demonstrations, basic & advanced coding techniques, enterprise mobility scenarios and actual live devices, all mixed up in true “ActiveNick” style. If mobile development interests you and you’ve got some .NET Framework programming experience, this is the one workshop you cannot afford to miss! This is the best way to kick-off DevConnections and help steer your experience through the Mobile Track over the next three days.

SPR303: Inside T-SQL Querying, Programming, and Tuning—Putting Your Knowledge Into Action (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Itzik Ben-Gan
This workshop is jam-packed with practical advice for T-SQL querying, programming, and tuning. The seminar covers practical problems T-SQL programmers face daily, providing different solutions for each problem, and explains in detail how to tune your code to produce robust and efficient applications. Among the subjects that will be covered: ranking calculations, window-based calculations, islands and gaps, running aggregations, custom aggregations, PIVOT on steroids, unpivoting, auxiliary table of numbers, splitting arrays, TOP on steroids, paging, randomization, maintaining sequences, graphs, trees, hierarchies and recursive queries, T-SQL vs. CLR routines, regular expressions, and more...

VPR201: Introducing Windows Workflow (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Kathleen Dollard
You’ve heard about Windows Workflow Foundation, but no one’s shown you how to implement it for your applications. This workshop starts with an overview of Windows Workflow and why it’s likely to become a key part of your development strategy. You’ll watch the creation of a complex sequential workflow integrating human and computer based actions. Then you’ll see a similar problem solved using a state machine workflow. Each workflow includes standard Windows Workflow tasks, custom tasks, and rule-based decisions. You’ll see interactions with things outside the workflow—including notifying people and other systems, handling events, and implementing data exchange services. The workflow becomes more sophisticated as it integrates with the Visual Studio 2008 features that integrate with WCF. Workflows don’t just handle process—they also manage the grimy details of robust systems—transactions and compensation, tracing, status reporting, and exception management. You’ll see how to implement these details and understand the role of the host in providing necessary services. Before closing you’ll circle back around to designing workflows. Workflow design presents new challenges to developers, particularly since you can share this design experience with power end users—actually letting them design portions of the workflow. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to recognize good workflow candidates, make decisions on workflow granularity, determine how to share design responsibilities, and implement workflow details.

HPR202: SharePoint Server 2007 Installation and Deployment (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Ben Curry
This workshop begins with the logical architecture and design of SharePoint Server 2007, including how Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 fits into the picture. Next, we installing binaries and the first server in the farm and cover best practices of installation including minimum security, database creation, and SQL Server setup that is relevant to SharePoint Server 2007. There are several installation options--and they do not mean what you think they mean! You’ll learn some best practices and lessons about the installation process. We will also cover best practices in configuring your farm operations and application management,  followed by real-world farm setup and scaling. We will actually build a four-server farm live, so you can see the entire process and what decisions you must make when scaling your own farm. This includes NLB, Host Headers, and a split Intranet/Extranet configuration using extended Web applications, Web application policies, and Zones. All of these Web applications require a Shared Services Provider (SSP), so the basics of SSP configuration will be shown as well. As part of the farm configuration, we will create multiple search servers and propagate indexes to the multiple query servers. Nothing to hide here, it will done right in front of you! The workshop will end with disaster recovery best practices and the minimum info you need to get your farm back up and running.

HPR201: SharePoint Workflows (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Robert Bogue
SharePoint Workflows are a powerful addition to the platform. From the out-of-the box workflows which ship with WSS and MOSS to SharePoint Designer workflows to Visual Studio developed workflows there are an array of options for adding workflow to your SharePoint solutions. In this workshop, we’ll walk you through a ground up understanding of Workflow. Starting with the out-of-the-box workflows we’ll show you how they’re used and what their limitations are. We’ll show you how users can create their own workflows with SharePoint Designer and why you need to be careful about when you let them do that. From there we’ll develop our own workflows in Visual Studio including the creation of tasks, the addition of association and instantiation forms, a task edit form, and even how to develop your own custom activity. In this jam packed workshop you’ll get everything you need to move from novice to expert in SharePoint workflow--all in one day.

APR203: Silverlight Bootcamp: Present and Future (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Dino Esposito
Silverlight is the Microsoft solution for delivering animation, graphics, audio, and video over the Web in a cross-platform way. Based on a small subset of Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight 1.0 enables the creation of content and applications that run within multiple browsers, currently on both Windows and Macintosh systems. Silverlight requires a lightweight free browser plug-in, is programmable using JavaScript and works very well with ASP.NET AJAX. While it's still not ready yet for building the presentation layer of line-of-business applications, Silverlight 1.0 is an excellent tool for delivering rich content to Web sites from little movies to animated spots, from vectorial graphics to simple presentations. In this full-day workshop, you'll see what's in Silverlight 1.0 and what is slated to be in the next version tentatively named Silverlight 1.1. These two versions have far different purposes and goals and are, in a certain way, distinct products. After illustrating the features and capabilities of version 1.0, we'll move on to consider what's coming along. Which is the most juicy part.

SPR304: SQL Server 2008 Overview for DBAs (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Randal
Kimberly L. Tripp
SQL Server 2008 offers an impressive array of capabilities for professional developers that build upon key innovations introduced in SQL Server 2005. The use of many of these will have manageability and infrastructure implications for a database—and hence the DBA! There are also enhancements to existing high-availability technologies, plus a variety of new tools to aid in managing performance, scalability, administration, and troubleshooting. This workshop will help you understand how to exploit the new toolset and how to manage a database that makes use of the new features in SQL Server 2008. Come to this workshop so your developers don’t surprise you with new demands once your company upgrades!

Post-Conference

4/24/2008

SPS303: A Day of SQL Server Security (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Don Kiely
There are few corporate assets as valuable in the information age as data. Enterprises spend billions to collect and generate it, slice and dice it in every conceivable way to mine marketplace intelligence from it, and replicate and back it up using elaborate, redundant schemes. Yet it is all too common to slack on security. Sure, SQL Server is designed to be “secure by default,“ but once you add databases and start letting users and their applications access the server you have already poked holes in the security. SQL Server comes with plenty of features that let you secure data, but it can be hard to get a handle on the right ones to use in your environment. During this day of security, we’ll explore myriad security features in SQL Server, including granular permissions and how to design an effective authorization system, owners and schemas and how they can help secure a database, the security issues and dangers with running SQLCLR code, how to run T-SQL code in different security contexts, the comprehensive encryption features that can protect data, creating and enforcing password policies, how SQL Server protects catalog views and secures metadata, protecting against SQL injection attacks on the server, and more. You’ll see lots of code and get lots of practical ideas for how to secure your database.
Prerequisites: You’ll need to have a good understanding of the basic database features and functions of SQL Server for this session and it helps to have butted heads with SQL Server a time or two trying to get something to work without completely disabling security. The session will focus on SQL Server 2005, with a look at what SQL Server 2008 brings to the security table.

VPS401: Advanced WCF (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Juval Lowy
Tired of people explaining to you again what an endpoint is? Read every article and found yourself needing more? Had enough of fluffy talks? This day is packed solid with advanced topics, often shedding light on poorly understood or documented aspects of WCF. You will learn not only advanced WCF techniques, but also relevant design guidelines, best practices, and pitfalls. The material presented includes Juval’s original techniques and utilities and go well beyond anything you can find in conventional sources. Topics discussed include service contracts factoring and design, publish-subscribe frameworks, error handling extensions, transaction propagation modes, service and callbacks synchronization context and UI thread management, queued response service, and a declarative security framework. Don’t miss on this unique opportunity to master WCF with Juval Lowy, who has been part of the strategic design effort for WCF from the beginning and who offers a profound insight on the technology and its applications.

APS202: Building Web Applications Using the ASP.NET MVC Framework (9:00am - 4:00PM)
Add'l Fee $399
Stephen Walther
This workshop provides an in-depth look at Microsoft’s implementation of the Model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern and compares it to the existing ASP.NET development model. Attendees will be provided with pros and cons of the MVC pattern and see how you can use it to separate data entity classes, business rules, data access code, and the presentation layer into flexible and re-usable layers. Additional topics covered include customizing controller mappings, creating controllers with action methods and attributes, displaying data using views, adding action links, and unit testing controllers.

SPS301: Pragmatic Workload Performance Tuning (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Gert Drapers
Performance tuning can be approached in two ways: impact a set of best practices and try if they work or you can reason in an almost mathematical way about how the system is architected and works and use this knowledge to tune your system. The workshop covers how you can tune your database workloads using the latter approach. It will provide a structured approach and framework on how to tune your SQL Server workloads. This is based on the same methods the presenter used while he was a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory and was tuning many workloads of real-life SQL Server implementations.

SPS302: SQL Server—Put Your Knowledge Into Action (Bring Your Own Laptop) (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Randal
Kimberly L. Tripp
After a week of learning and watching demos—spend your last conference day putting your knowledge into action and diving deeper into the implementation details. Bring your own laptop to install our VPC environment setup with hands-on lab exercises to walk you through some of our most important features in Database Maintenance and Disaster Recovery. All labs will be ILLs (instructor-led labs) with supporting hands-on lab content *and* you will walk away with your own copy of the DVD to continue the exercises back at your office. You can attend without a laptop but your experience will be significantly better with one! This is meant as an advanced workshop and will expect a reasonable laptop configuration in order to participate:

• Virtual Server or Virtual PC—already installed
• At least 1 GB of physical memory w/512 MB dedicated to the VPC environment (2 GB is preferred w/1 GB dedicated to VPC)
• 12 GB of physical disk space (20+ GB is preferred)
• DVD drive

HPS301: Web Content Management (Bring Your Own Laptop) (9:00am - 4:00pm)
Add'l Fee $399
Paul Stork
Ben Curry
In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to leverage Office SharePoint Server 2007 to build “Content Driven” Web sites that are updated by the content owners while still maintaining a strong corporate branding. We’ll follow a recurring pattern of a short slide presentation followed by a longer “hands on” demo/lab. Attendees will be provided with handouts that contain click-by-click instructions that describe how to accomplish the lab. If you prefer not to have a computer in front of you, you’ll get just as much out of watching us demonstrate. All code snippets and materials needed to complete each lab will also be provided to the students. Attendees will complete the hands-on labs on their own laptops (or at home after class). The agenda for the day will include the following lessons.

• Introduction to “Content Driven” Web Sites
• Maintaining Corporate Branding with a Customized Master Page
• Controlling Content Input with a Custom Field Control
• Managing Content Placement with a Custom Layout Page
• Customizing SharePoint Navigation
• Optimizing Performance with Output Caching Profiles and the Object Cache
• Automating Content Deployment

All attendees should have their laptop, or a virtual server, with the following software installed on it.

1. MOSS 2007 with a Web application created on the default Web site on port 80 and a site collection created on the same Web application, based on the Publishing Portal template.
2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SharePoint Designer. MS provides a MOSS virtual PC for download on MSDN. The image MS provides works just fine, and will save attendees time building their own virtual PC. All the attendees need to do to the virtual PC MS has available on the MSDN is to install Visual Studio 2005.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&DisplayLang=en>
Note: Be sure to download and install the image before coming to the class. The download is about 4GB and will take a substantial amount of time to download. There will not be time during the Workshop to download or troubleshoot images, and an Internet connection will not necessarily be available, so come ready to start.