Wade Wegner

Significant Access Control Service (ACS) updates released to AppFabric LABS environment today.  Take a look at the Windows Azure AppFabric team blog for the formal announcement.  I’d rather show you a quick demo.

Quick summary of new capabilities in the Access Control Service:

• Integration with Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) and tooling
• Out-of-the-box support for popular web identity providers including: Windows Live ID, OpenID, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook
• Out-of-the-box support for Active Directory Federation Server v2.0
• Support for OAuth WRAP, WS-Trust, and WS-Federation protocols
• Support for the SAML 1.1, SAML 2.0, and Simple Web Token (SWT) token formats
• Integrated and customizable Home Realm Discovery that allows end-users to choose their identity provider
• An OData-based Management Service that provides programmatic access to ACS configuration
• A Web Portal that allows administrative access to ACS configuration

Try this out yourself.  Use Visual Studio, install Windows Identity Foundation, and go to https://portal.appfabriclabs.com/.

For detailed information and a more verbose walkthrough (i.e. including explanations), listen to Justin Smith’s walkthrough and interview.

I definitely luck out when it comes to the first day on the job.  My first day as an Architect Evangelist was at a team offsite in Las Vegas.  This time around, as a Technical Evangelist, my team hosted a Windows Azure platform Software Design Review (SDR) for customers up in Redmond.  A SDR is an opportunity for customers to join product teams and review current and future states of the technology.  Lots of energy and great conversations.

In addition to the SDR, I was able to move into my new office and spend time meeting with folks from the Windows Azure AppFabric product team – very exciting!

I thought I might capture some thoughts and impressions from the week:

• I love riding my bicycle to the Microsoft campus.  The Sammamish River Trail and 520 Trail are wonderful for cycling.
• There’s an energy on campus.  I can feel it.  It’s intoxicating.
• SDRs are great.  It’s awesome to listen to customers that are actively building solutions on the Windows Azure platform and providing feedback to make it even better.
• I am super excited about new capabilities and features coming with the Windows Azure platform, especially the AppFabric.
• It’s great to have guys like Clemens Vasters and Justin Smith just down the street.
• I have amazing teammates, and I’m humbled to work with them: Ryan Dunn, Vittorio Bertocci, and Zack Owens.
• The Technology Evangelist role is empowering.  Lots of responsibilities and opportunities to execute.
• I’m tickled to have an office for the first time in my career.

While moving itself (including the sale of our house) isn’t the most fun, so far it’s been worth it.  So much great stuff coming, and I get to be right on the edge.  Be sure to follow all the announcements next week at the Worldwide Partner Conference!

If you take a look at the official Windows Azure platform website, you’ll see two definitions for the Windows Azure platform AppFabric (hereafter referred to as the Azure AppFabric) prominently called out:

• “… connects cloud services and on-premises applications.”
• “… helps developers connect applications and services in the cloud or on-premises.”

While the purpose of the Azure AppFabric seems clear to me – enable developers to connect applications and services – there are a couple things that generally cause confusion: execution and branding.  I plan to talk about how to use the Azure AppFabric quite a bit in the future, but in this post I want to address the branding.

The Azure AppFabric has been rebranded numerous times.  This isn’t surprising given that it has largely been a community technology preview, but it has lead to some confusion.

So, some brief history …

Note: this is based entirely on my cyber-sleuthing and personal experience.  I’m sure I have gaps and perhaps an inadvertent inaccuracy, so as I get corrected I’ll update.  I didn’t join Microsoft until early 2008, so the early days of the Azure AppFabric precedes my Microsoft employment.

In April 2007, the BizTalk Server team announced that the CTP release of BizTalk Services was live.  They had created an Internet Services Bus (ISB) that allowed developers to create “Internet scale composite applications more rapidly.”  Clemens Vasters described this new ISB in a post.  Later, in July 2007, the BizTalk Server team talked about Hosted Workflows in BizTalk – an exciting extension to the ISB announcement.  Over time, Access Control was added into the mix as well.

Soon, word of Project Zurich started hitting the airways.  Mary-Jo Foley wrote about “’Zurich,’ Microsoft’s elastic cloud” back in July 2008, describing it as an initiative to “extend Microsoft’s .NET application development technologies to the Internet ‘cloud.’” Close, but not quite right.  My first introduction to Project Zurich came while working on a project with RedPrairie on a supply chain proof-of-concept, that ultimately culminated in a Bob Muglia keynote demonstration at PDC 2008 (around 59 minutes).

At the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2008 the platform was rebranded .NET Services and included as part of the Azure Services Platform.  You can actually still see some of the .NET Services branding on this BizTalk Service page.  By the fall of 2008, .NET Services had emerged as a mature platform (even though still in CTP) consisting of an Internet Service Bus, an Access Control Service (ACS), and Workflow Service.  In June 2009, the .NET Services team announced that they were pulling the Workflow Service.  As Windows Workflow Foundation in .NET 4.0 evolved, it was clear that most customers wanted Workflow Services to also follow to the .NET 4.0 model (not .NET 3.5), which it was not.  Consequently, .NET Services team pulled workflow and focused on the ISB and ACS.

At PDC 2009, .NET Services went through it’s most recent branding change, and was eventually launched in 2010 as the Windows Azure platform AppFabric.  Of course, this is a really long name, so most people just end up saying Windows Azure AppFabric or just Azure AppFabric. 

The biggest challenge I see today with the name is that, at PDC 2009, we also rebranded “Dublin” and “Velocity” as the Windows Server AppFabric – almost too much name overloading, although there are some good reasons for it that will emerge over time.  To make things clear, I’ll always say either Azure AppFabric or Server AppFabric.

If you really take a look at how this all has evolved, you can start to see how Microsoft’s cloud platform strategy has evolved over the last several years.

So, where does this leave us?

In my opinion, it leaves us with a technology that is a key differentiator in Microsoft’s cloud platform.  I’m not just saying this – I really believe it, or I wouldn’t be moving my family up to Redmond so that I can focus on it.

In closing, let’s be clear on two things – in Azure AppFabric, there’s both a Service Bus and Access Control Service.

The Service Bus is an Internet-scale enterprise service bus that makes it easy to connect applications over the Internet. Services that register on the Service Bus can easily be discovered and accessed across any network topology.

The Access Controls Service helps you build federated authorization into your applications and services, without the complicated programming that is normally required to secure applications that extend beyond organizational boundaries.

Okay, now that I’ve spent a little time  covering some history and the past, expect to see a major focus on what you can do today – and lots of code and examples.

Hope this helps.

I am excited to share that I’m taking the role of Technical Evangelist for the Windows Azure platform, focused on the Azure AppFabric.  I’m joining James Conard’s team that focuses on Windows Azure platform evangelism, working with David Aiken, Ryan Dunn, Zach Owens, and Vittorio Bertocci – truly an all-star team!  Oh, and I hope to spend a lot more time with Jack Greenfield, Clemens Vasters, Justin Smith, and everyone else on the AppFabric team!

So, what is the Windows Azure platform AppFabric (other than a mouthful)?

That’s one of the things I hope to de-mystify in my new role.  Expect to see me talking a lot about it in the future.

The best part about focusing on the Azure AppFabric is that it doesn’t restrict me to just one technology – because the Azure AppFabric is the glue that integrates and secures applications across the Internet, I’ll get to leverage the entire Windows Azure platform, various mobile platforms, web technologies, and almost everything else in our technology stack – not to mention interoperability with other platforms!

So, what does taking this role mean?

• I’m moving the entire family to Redmond, WA. Incidentally, want to buy a house in Glen Ellyn, IL?
• I hope to spend more time in Visual Studio than in Outlook.
• I’m going to spend a lot more time writing blog posts and recording screen casts.  Lots of really neat things to share.
• I’ll continue speaking at events like PDC, TechEd, and MIX, and hope to hit even more online and local events.
• I want to work with all of you to find new and interesting ways to leverage the Azure AppFabric.

I am leaving an amazing group of people here in Central Region DPE.  I want to thank everyone on my team – both local and extended – for making my time as an Architect Evangelist enjoyable and fulfilling.

See you soon in Redmond!

Last week I presented at the Wisconsin Azure User Group for the second time, along with Clark Sell.  Our goal was to provide an overview of everything announced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009.  We made a ton of announcements, and I recommend you check out the Microsoft PDC website for more information, including videos and decks from all the presentations.

Shameless plug: watch my session on migrating applications to the Windows Azure platform with Accenture, CCH, Dominos, and Original Digital – Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform.

While I was supposed to only spend twenty minutes talking about updates to the Windows Azure platform, I ended up spending over an hour.  There was too much information to share; here’s a short outline:

• Rebranding of the .NET Services as the Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
• Microsoft Codename “Dallas”, a content brokerage and discovery platform available as a CTP at commercial launch.
• Windows Azure platform integration with Microsoft Pinpoint.
• Enhanced service architectures (i.e. inner role communication, worker roles exposed outside the datacenter, etc.).
• Enhanced diagnostics in Windows Azure.
• Ability to use existing NTFS APIs to store data in durable drives in Windows Azure (called Windows Azure XDrive).
• Administrator privileges in the Windows Azure virtual machines.
• Deployment of pre-configured virtual machine images while still benefiting from the Windows Azure service model.
• User-selectable geo-locations for replicas of Azure storage.
• Secondary indices on Windows Azure tables.
• Content Delivery Network.
• Remote terminal server access to virtual machines.
• Tool for data synchronization called SQL Azure Data Sync, built on the Microsoft Synch Framework and ADO.NET Sync Services.
• Claims-based access control for REST web services through the Access Control Service.
• Commercial launch in and paid usage in February, 2010.
• Datacenter options in USA, Europe, and Asia.

Thanks to everyone for their patience – especially Clark – as I went on, and on, and on …

Don’t forget that you can request and redeem tokens for the Commercial Technology Preview (CTP) at http://windowsazure.com/.  This provides you free usages, with quotas, through February 1, 2010.

Here’s the deck I presented:

Thanks to everyone that attended – I had a great time!