Sessions by Don Box, Kimberly Tripp, and Scott Hansleman, and the like, are always guaranteed to draw a crowd (and rock), but lesser know people can have great sessions too. So, I’d like to take some time and point out what I refer to as “hidden gems”. The names behind the sessions may not be instantly recognizable, but don’t let that stop you. You never know, the next big draw may be in this list:
CSI344 - Versioning Services and Contracts on the .NET Framework
June 8, 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM Room S 320 G
Don Smith
As Web services continue to become the backbone of our connected systems, developers must plan for the profound ways the messages and their contracts will evolve. Failure to plan for this unavoidable evolution will result in increased maintenance and support costs over the life of the system. Unfortunately, there are a few issues with the .NET Framework 1.x that prevent the implementation of a robust versioning strategy for Web services. After briefly reviewing these issues, this session covers the changes in the .NET Framework 2.0 that address these issues. We also briefly discuss the goals and rationale behind a solid versioning strategy for other types of services on the .NET Framework, and approaches developers can implement now in 1.x and in 2.0 to make their versioning transition to Indigo smoother.
OK, Don Smith is a friend of mine, so maybe I’m bias, but you need to attend this event if you plan on doing Web Services. Otherwise, after you implement your web service and you need to make a change and have all sorts of problems because you didn’t plan for versioning, expect me to say, “I told you so”.
ARC314 Passing Messages: A Flexible, Powerful and Extensible Communication Model
Day/Time: Thursday, June 9 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM Room: N 210 E
Speaker(s): Gregor Hohpe, Ted Neward
Over the last decade, focus in inter-process communication has centered on Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) and its object-oriented equivalents. In this session, we discuss the benefits of using another communication approach, messaging, to gain flexibility, scalability, and integration benefits that traditional RPC simply can't provide.
So neither of these guys needs the hype, but you should attend anyway. Just watch out for Ted’s ninja ponytail.
BIN324 Smart BI: Integrating Data Mining Across the SQL Server Business Intelligence Stack
Day/Time: Monday, June 6 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM Room: N 220 A
Speaker(s): C James MacLennan
The SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence technologies enable the DBA and developer to leverage their data assets like never before. Come see how integrating Data Mining with Integration Services, Analysis Services OLAP, and Reporting Services will change your data from something you manage to a new tool in your arsenal. We create self-cleaning data loaders, automatically organizing cubes, and smart reports that filter out data you don't want to see. Sound like magic? Come see the reality of SQL Server Data Mining.
ARC307 Design Considerations for Enterprise Application Frameworks
Day/Time: Tuesday, June 7 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM Room: N 320 D/H
Speaker(s): Kyle Huntley
An application framework can be a powerful asset within the enterprise. By providing a reusable implementation of shared functionality, an application framework can reduce development costs, provide consistent quality over time, and serve as a concrete example of architectural best practices. This session examines some of the design decisions faced by framework architects and provides guidance for extracting the maximum value from an investment in an application framework. Whether you're building your own framework from scratch or looking to incorporate existing solutions like the Enterprise Library in your company's asset portfolio, this session lays the foundation for building a solid framework strategy.
ARC411 Domain Specific Language Tools for Model-Driven Development in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Day/Time: Wednesday, June 8 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM Room: S 210 E
Speaker(s): Jochen Seemann
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects comes with powerful visual modeling tools for class design and the design of service-oriented applications. As part of the Visual Studio SDK, Microsoft offers a new toolkit that allows users to define, generate, and customize their own visual modeling tools using the same modeling infrastructure as the tools in Visual Studio. This session focuses on building graphical design tools for Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) with the new DSL Tools for Visual Studio. We explore how users can define domain-models and the graphical notation of a modeling language to build domain-specific model-driven development tools. We demonstrate a number of generated designers and how they can be used to generate software artifacts from models. Finally, we show how the DSL tools offer key technology to build software factories in Visual Studio 2005.