Developing software for the Microsoft platform isn’t just about .NET and Visual Studio. Developing for and implementing Microsoft’s server products, including Office SharePoint Server (and Office itself), BizTalk Server, PerformancePoint Server and the various components of SQL Server, is a requirement on more and more projects. Whether you’re building a Business Intelligence solution, integrating your legacy mainframe and a business partner’s system, or setting up a corporate document management workflow application, you need to know Microsoft’s server products. For the first time ever at VSLive!, we’ll have a conference that focuses across these products as a single system and, in keeping with our roots, covers the developer features that make them relevant to you and indispensable like never before.
| SERVER SYSTEM LIVE! | ||
|---|---|---|
| 9:00a | Keynote: Achieving Dynamic IT with Windows Server 2008 | |
| 10:15a- 11:30a |
VS3
Useful Evolution: Programming the New Features in SQL Server 2008 |
VS4
Essential SharePoint Development |
| 11:45a- 1:00p |
VS11
Top 10 T-SQL Features in SQL Server 2008 |
VS12
SharePoint 2007 Forms and Workflow |
| 12:45p- 3:00p |
Lunch and Exhibit Hall Open | |
| 3:00p- 4:15p |
VS19
Making Query Performance Rock-Solid with SQL Server 2008 |
VS20
Building Client Applications that Work with SharePoint Lists |
| 4:30p- 5:45p |
VS27
Building the 25 Billion Row Data Warehouse withSQL Server 2008 |
VS28
Leveraging Web 2.0 within SharePoint 2007 - the SharePointMash-up |
| 5:30p- 7:30 |
Exhibit Hall Reception - Sponsored by Kaseya | |
| SERVER SYSTEM LIVE! | ||
|---|---|---|
| 9:00a- 10:15a |
VS35
SQL Server 2008 Reporting and Dashboards |
VS36
Programming the Office 2007 Open XML File Formats |
| 10:30a- 11:45a |
VS43
Excel and Excel Services as a BI Platform |
VS52
Turn Your Word Documents into Front Ends for Data |
| 12:00p- 1:15p |
VS51
Intro to PerformancePoint Server Monitoring and Analytics |
VS52
Developing Office Business Applications: From the Client to Server and Beyond |
| 1:00p- 3:00p |
Lunch and Exhibit Hall Open | |
| 3:00p- 4:15p |
VS59
Application Development Best Practices for SQL Server 2008 Service Broker  |
VS60
Service Development and Integration with BizTalk  |
| 4:30p- 5:45p |
VS67
Integrated Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2008 |
VS68
Working with BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus Guidance |
| 6:00p- 8:00p |
Wild Wednesday – Special Guests The Code Trip | |
Virtual Tracks:
= Black Belt Virtual Track
= Best Practices Virtual Track
Track Chair
Andrew Brust
Andrew Brust is Chief, New Technology at twentysix New York, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in New York City. Andrew is lead author of Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Microsoft Press), serves as Microsoft Regional Director for New York and New Jersey, is a Visual Basic MVP and a member of Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Partner Advisory Council. Andrew is a Vice-Chairman of the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA), a member of INETA’s Speaker Bureau and is a highly rated speaker at conferences throughout the U.S. and internationally. Often quoted in the technology industry press, Andrew has nearly 20 years experience programming and consulting in the Financial, Public, Small Business and Not-For-Profit sectors. He can be reached at andrew.brust@26ny.com.
Server System Live!: Track 1 – Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Useful Evolution: Programming the New Features in SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Leonard Lobel
10:15 a.m.
Get a jump start on the powerful new features in the next version of SQL Server codenamed “Katmai”. In this jam-packed session, we’ll explore SQL Server 2008 and some of its most significant improvements and enhancements with extensive demos. The new table-valued parameters allow you to marshal entire sets of rows across from client to server, and to pass them between stored procedures. Learn about the new hierarchyid and FILESTREAM data types which take the database platform beyond relational data. We’ll also dig into MERGE, INSERT OVER DML, and GROUPING SETS. Attend this session and be ready for the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008.
Top 10 T-SQL features in SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Vineet Rao
11:45 a.m.
Want to learn about the new T-SQL enhancements in SQL Server 2008? This session will give you an overview with demonstrations on the most interesting TSQL features in SQL Server 2008. Some of the new T-SQL features that this session will cover are: MERGE, Grouping Sets, Table-Valued Parameters, Date and Time data types etc.
Making Query Performance Rock-Solid with SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Torsten Grabs
3:00 p.m.
Are you or your customers worried about reliable query performance when using, or considering on upgrading to, SQL Server 2008? All this sounds way too familiar? Here comes help - with SQL Server 2008! The SQL team has added query plan freezing as a new building block for higher query performance reliability to SQL Server 2008. In this session, you will learn what the different use cases are that the new plan freezing functionality covers and we will show how to implement the following scenarios using the new technology:
- Keeping track of mission-critical query plans over time so that you can always go back to a well-performing query plan.
- Enforcing stable query plans across SQL Server upgrades.
- Testing query performance on a Q&A system and migrating the performance reliably to a production system.
- Ship an application with pre-canned query plans so that the support team of this app never has to worry about database query plans.
- And last but not least: top it off with combining plan freezing with the new resource governor functionality.
Join the experts from the SQL Server 2008 plan freezing team as they walk you through these demo-rich scenarios one-by-one!
Building the 25 Billion Row Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Torsten Grabs
4:30 p.m.
Do you wonder how to get enterprise-class performance out of the new DW features in SQL Server 2008? If so this is the right session for you. In this session, you will learn about the new DW features in the SQL Server engine and how the SQL team used them to build an enterprise-class data warehouse with 25 billion rows in the fact table. The main objective of this session is to enable you to make good use of those features for better data warehouse performance in your customer engagements based on the findings and experiences of the SQL team. In the session, we will jointly walk along the DW stack from ETL to relational reporting queries for decision support and look into how to combine the new technologies to build a truly world-class enterprise data warehouse. The SQL team will share experiences and best practices from their Enterprise DW Scale effort on SQL Server 2008 to build their 25 billion row fact table data warehouse on a 32 way machine using customer and industry benchmark workloads, and you will understand what performance improvements to expect when using the right technology and applying the best practices shared in this session.
Server System Live!: Track 2 – Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Essential SharePoint Development, Intermediate
Bill D. Baldasti
10:15 a.m.
In this training we look at numerous examples of development for both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Examples include document conversion, web parts, custom search, branding/themes, content importing, user management, custom workflow and more. The focus will be on scenarios that involve writing code rather than SharePoint configuration or administration. Included in the in the session are strategies around automated build, deployment, and configuration management. Attend this conference workshop for an accelerated jump start on SharePoint development for the enterprise and beyond.
SharePoint 2007 Forms and Workflow, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
3:00 p.m.
Forms drive business processes through workflows. This session presents best practices for connecting list views and InfoPath forms to SharePoint 2007 hosted workflows. Forms are deployed to document libraries, specific content types are configured, and properties are promoted and demoted. Forms are filled out in the client and browser interface including mobile devices. Windows Workflow Foundation logic is created using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2008. Data connections to Excel Services, the Business Data Catalog, and SQL 2008 are also covered.
Building Client Applications that Work with SharePoint Lists, Intermediate
Robert Green
11:45 a.m.
SharePoint can store all kinds of information in lists, anything from work items to contacts to documents. You can work with this information in the browser of course, but in this session, you’ll learn how to build Windows and WPF client applications that work with the information stored in lists. You’ll see how to use the SharePoint Lists Web service to retrieve and add items. You’ll also learn how to download a document from a SharePoint site, make changes to it and then how to upload it back to the site.
Leveraging Web 2.0 within SharePoint 2007 - the SharePoint Mash-up, Advanced
Bill D. Baldasti
4:30 p.m.
During this session we'll leverage SharePoint 2007 as a powerful Enterprise platform to build a real-world solution. We'll present an actual solution that leverages Microsoft's Virtual Earth platform, AJAX and SQL Server to provide a cutting-edge user experience for a web-based application that was used to handle the emergency evacuation during the Southern California forest fires. This session will present an overview of the technologies, best practices architecture an interesting case study!
Server System Live!: Track 1 – Wednesday, April 2, 2008
SQL Server 2008 Reporting and Dashboards, Intermediate
Bill Wolff
9:00 a.m.
Learn about advanced techniques for building reports with SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and the Visual Studio-based Report Designer. Topics include rich formatting with the new Tablix control, new chart options from the Dundas library, rendering as Word or Excel using the SoftArtisan technology, defining expressions, parameterizing reports (data driven, multi-valued, and hierarchical), supporting multiple data sources (including relational, multidimensional, and XML), and making reports interactive. You will see how to manage and distribute reports in Report Manager and SharePoint 2007 integration including Performance Point 2007. There will be walkthroughs of sample reports and tips and tricks for using the Report Definition Language (RDL) and Report Builder.
Excel and Excel Services as a BI Platform
Andrew Brust
10:30 a.m.
Since the release of Excel 2000, the ubiquitous spreadsheet application has had important BI capabilities through its support for querying OLAP cubes in PivotTables. With the release of Excel 2007 and Excel Services (a SharePoint-enabled front-end to Excel workbooks), the BI plot thickens, by quite a lot. Excel now has support for the full Analysis Services 2005 feature set, new formula functions for doing OLAP queries outside of PivotTables, a revamped charting engine, and, with Excel Services, the ability to present all of it in a Web-based dashboard hosted in SharePoint. Add .NET development with Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) and you’ve got a high-caliber, programmable BI platform for the desktop, the Web and custom applications. Come to this session and learn how to make the Excel BI platform work for you, and your data.
Intro to PerformancePoint Server Monitoring and Analytics
Andrew Brust
12:00 p.m.
Microsoft’s PerformancePoint Server represents an important milestone for Microsoft’s Business Intelligence strategy. For the first time ever, Microsoft now has a full BI stack, including the base OLAP database platform in Analysis Services, sophisticated analytic capabilities acquired from ProClarity, Reporting Services, Excel and SharePoint integration, and PerformacePoint’s full planning and dashboarding capabilities, all “under one roof.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? But the reality is that this vast array of products, and understanding how to use them together, can create a barrier to adoption and comfort with the technology. Technologists’ relatively low familiarity with BI creates even more friction.
In this session we’ll learn how to build an advanced dashboard in PerformancePoint, but we’ll also get a quick understanding of OLAP cubes, and see how to combine tools like ProClarity and Excel Services, and their output, into our dashboard. Come learn the headline product, as well as its supporting components.
Application Development Best Practices for SQL Server 2008 Service Broker, Advanced
Ketan Duvedi
3:00 p.m.
This talk will give an overview of the different scenarios in which it is beneficial to use SQL Service Broker with special emphasis on the Data Push scenario. It will cover the common programming pitfalls and the recommended best practices to maximize your application performance. Experienced service broker folks will get a chance to learn about the configuration and runtime troubleshooting enhancements in SQL Server 2008.
Integrated Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2008, Intermediate
Fernando Azpeitia Lopez
4:30 p.m.
Databases in general need to move forward and to grow beyond the traditional realm of relational data and cover an increasing amount and variety of unstructured and semi-structured information, be it speech, documents, XML, bioinformatics, chemical or multi-media. Search has proven itself as a key technology capable of working with vast amounts of such data: it is scalable, low-latency and very user-friendly. It is just what we need to make a database the best place to store all types of data.
SQL Server 2008 is introducing a new integrated Full-Text Search Engine (iFTS) into the relational database and making search as fully integrated a feature of a database as SQL query or indexing or any other "traditional" database service. This will provide a strong base for delivering some innovative new features and capabilities in the near future which combine the strengths of search and database query.
Server System Live!: Track 2 – Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Programming the Office 2007 Open XML File Formats, Intermediate
Ken Getz
9:00 a.m.
Once you’ve figured out how to manually work with the new Open XML file formats, if you’re a developer, you’ll want to be able to programmatically manipulate the contents of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. WinFX provides a set of classes that make it easier to crack open documents, but from there, it’s all about manipulating XML. This session provides many examples showing how to programmatically interact with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and provides code you can use to get started modifying, creating, and examining these documents without requiring a copy of the host application.
Turn Your Word Documents into Front Ends for Data, Intermediate
Robert Green
10:30 a.m.
Word documents contain information: anything from dates, names and addresses to pricing, contract terms and orders/order details. If the information is entered in Word, how do you get it into a data store? If the data already exists in a database or an XML file or is coming from a Web service, how do you get it into Word? This session will explore the tools you have available to automatically extract data from and insert data into a Word document. We’ll cover using custom XML parts to store data, using the Packaging API to manipulate Word documents and using Visual Studio Tools for Office to bind content controls to various data sources.
Developing Office Business Applications: From the Client to Server and Beyond, Intermediate
Steve Fox
12:00 p.m.
This session will provide an overview of the why, what and how of Office Business Applications. Technologies that will be covered in this session include Office client customizations using Visual Studio, SharePoint development using the Business Data Catalog, and LOB system (for example SAP and PeopleSoft) integration through Web services.
Service Development and Integration with BizTalk, Intermediate
Kent Brown
3:00 p.m.
When you think of integration you may think of clunky old messaging formats (flatfile, EDI, HIPAA, SWIFT, FIX, etc.). Sure BizTalk does all that and it's important stuff. But BizTalk also plays very well in the Service-Oriented space. With the WCF Adapters in R2, BizTalk is perfectly suited to build and host your course-grained business-focused services and broker, or "Orchestrate", to your fine-grained services built in WCF or ASMX. In this session you will learn the capabilities, the How-to, and the Best Practices of using BizTalk to consume and expose web services.
Working with BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus Guidance, Advanced
Kent Brown
4:30 p.m.
SOA is all the rage nowadays, and one of the popular terms/concepts/products in the industry is the "ESB", or Enterprise Service Bus. BizTalk fits well in this area because of it's service-oriented nature and pub-sub architecture. However, there are a handful of features that BizTalk lacks out of the box to make it a true "ESB". Coinciding with the release of BizTalk 2006 R2, the Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has released the "Microsoft ESB Guidance", which includes software components and architectural guidance to help customers use BizTalk as an ESB. This is cutting edge stuff! We will go over the architecture, the functionality, and how and why to use it on your SOA projects.
