November 24th, 2009

Can (and will) Microsoft keep Silverlight compatible across platforms?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:47 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Apple, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Linux, Novell, PDC 2009, Silverlight (wpf/e), Windows Mobile, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Corp., COM, ActiveX/COM/COM+/DCOM, Middleware, Microsoft Windows, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Enterprise Software, Software

As Microsoft made plain at its Professional Developers Conference last week, there’s no end in sight to the list of new features and functionality it plans to add to Silverlight.

Some developers who have been on the fence about whether they should be developing Windows applications using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) or Silverlight applications see a light at the end of the tunnel of confusion. Microsoft is adding more and more WPF features to Silverlight (and vice versa). But as Tim Anderson, an IT journalist/blogger noted last week, there is a downside to this strategy: By adding technologies like COM support to Silverlight, Microsoft is doing damage to its story that Silverlight is a cross-platform browser plug-in that supports Windows, Mac — and, thanks to the Mono folks at Novell , Linux — equally.

(The Register’s Gavin Clarke and I talk more about the risks of making Silverlight better on Windows than other platforms during our latest episode of the Microbite podcast.)

The COM object support that Microsoft is promising for Silverlight 4, the version of Microsoft’s Web application framework/plug-in due to ship by mid-2010, is applicable to Silverlight running on Firefox or Internet Explorer on Windows only. Neither Mac OS X nor Linux support COM.

Microsoft officials were quick to note that adding access to COM components was a customer request, not something Microsoft did in a vacuum. When I asked Microsoft about its plans to keep Silverlight in sync across platforms, a spokesperson sent me the following statements:

“In Silverlight 4 we addressed over 8,000 customer feature requests. One specific request was adding support for accessing COM components, enabling common enterprise scenarios such as automating Microsoft Office and providing developers easy access to hardware capabilities such as scanners and security card readers.”

But check this out: Microsoft officials say they are evaluating how to add some kind of COM component access to the Mac version of Silverlight. From the aforementioned spokesperson:

“Unfortunately, the Mac offers no support for COM interfaces and we’re actively evaluating options to get COM-like features on the Mac.”

There’s no further word on when or how Microsoft plans to add this kind of support to Silverlight for the Mac.

Meanwhile, it looks like Novell’s Developer Platform Vice President Miguel de Icaza is itching to create support for the new Silverlight 4 functionality to future implementations of Moonlight, the Novell/Mono team-developed implementation of Silverlight for Linux. After the PDC, de Icaza blogged:

“For the Moonlight team, this means that there is a lot of work ahead of us to bring every Silverlight 3 and 4 feature. I think I speak for the whole Mono team when I say that this is exciting, fascinating, challenging and feels like we just drank a huge energy boost drink.”

Microsoft’s latest Silverlight moves mean that Silverlight is evolving to become a universal run-time for Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime (CLR), the heart of .Net, according to de Icaza. Developing a desktop suite of Silverlight apps isn’t just a pipe dream, de Icaza said; it’s a real, doable project.

Some developers are already dreaming of the possibility of a Silverlight operating system. (For some reason, I think the Windows team might try to derail that effort before it could ever happen, but who knows?) Microsoft has more immediate and pressing concerns, though: It needs to keep Silverlight in sync across platforms if the company plans to play up the “available everywhere” piece of its Silverlight message.

November 20th, 2009

Will Microsoft's Silverlight dampen the appeal of Google's Chrome OS?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:40 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Google, Internet Explorer, OEMs, Silverlight (wpf/e), Web 2.0, Windows client

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Silverlight, Operating System, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft Corp., Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Web Browsers, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems

I’m not one of those ready to write Windows an RIP certificate now that Google has finally taken (some of) the wraps off its Chrome OS. In fact, after reading through industry watchers’ questions and Google’s answers about it, I’m thinking that Chrome OS may not look quite so appealing by the time it rolls out in late 2010. Here’s why.

First, as others have noted, Google’s Chrome OS is a new windowing system layered on top of Linux that is being customized to run on netbooks. Chrome OS is an “extension to Chrome,” the company’s browser, in Google execs’ own words. Google officials are billing Chrome OS, among other things, as a way to provide Web applications with the functionality of desktop applications.

Microsoft offers an extension not just to its browser, Internet Explorer, but also to Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s own Chrome. That extension is Silverlight. Among other things, Silverlight is a vehicle for providing increasingly complex consumer and business apps via a browser.

At the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week, Microsoft rolled out its strategy and plans for Silverlight 4, the version of its browser plug-in that is slated for final release by mid-2010. Silverlight 4 is adding support for data binding, enterprise networking and printing, and lots of other features that are likely to make the platform more appealing to folks writing not just single-function, lightweight Web apps, but enterprise apps, as well.

Silverlight is a slimmed-down, cross-platform version of Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programming model. Each successive iteration of Silverlight includes more and more WPF functionality (and vice versa).

Some day — Microsoft won’t say exactly when — Silverlight and WPF are going to merge into one Web programming and app delivery model that, most likely, will be known as Silverlight, Brad Becker, Director of Product Management for Microsoft’s Rich Client Platforms, told me this week at TechEd. Now that the two share the same compiled assemblies, tools and the like, that idea isn’t really so far-fetched. Until that happens, Microsoft plans to continue to offer both WPF and Silverlight, steering developers of more complex, resource-intensive applications toward WPF and Web-centric app developers toward Silverlight.

When Google execs were asked during this week’s press conference where they shared more information (but no code or systems) about the Chrome OS as to whether Silverlight would be able to work on Chrome OS, they said no comment. Maybe they see Silverlight might be more foe than friend of the Chrome OS.

I understand Silverlight is not an operating system. But some Google watchers are questioning whether the Chrome OS is actually an operating system, either, or just a glorified browser. Unlike Silverlight, which can run on a variety of PCs and soon, phones, Google OS is going to be a dedicated Linux-based netbook OS that will only work with certain predesignated peripherals. Microsoft already offers a netbook OS — Windows — which doesn’t force you to run all apps inside your browser — and which works with lots of different devices.

Would you go so far as to say the Chrome OS is going to be more of a Silverlight competitor than a WIndows one? I’m thinking right now that may seem a bit far-fetched, but as more and more apps are designed to run in Silverlight, maybe not….?

November 17th, 2009

Three new codenames and how they fit into Microsoft's cloud vision

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:09 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, PDC 2009, Red Dog, SQL Server, Utility/cloud computing, Windows server

Tags: SDK, Vision, Microsoft Corp., Dataset, Microsoft Windows, .Net, Operating Systems, Software, Software Development, Software/Web Development

Any Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) wouldn’t be complete without a few new codenames. On November 17, Microsoft introduced three new ones that all are related to Microsoft’s evolving cloud-computing vision and infrastructure.

During the Day One set of keynotes, Microsoft officials attempted to explain further how the company’s three-screens-and-a-cloud vision will take shape in product and service form.

Last year, when it rolled out its first Windows Azure Community Technology Preview, Microsoft showed a “layer cake” type diagram which showed all of the various Azure layers and components as a comprehensive whole. (See last year’s layer cake at right.)

This year, there was no diagram. The new message is that Microsoft’s cloud is comprised of Windows Azure (the Red Dog operating system), SQL Azure and a new AppFabric development platform. That’s it. Gone are the Live Services, .Net Services, SharePoint Services, and Dynamics CRM Services that wer all part of the original platform.

Did Microsoft decide its original vision was too ambitious? It seems more the case that it has decided some of the original pieces didn’t belong as part of the core Azure platform, such as Live Services, which are now part of Windows/Windows Live. In other cases, Microsoft has repackaged other elements of its original platform in different ways (example: the slimmed-down .Net Services is now part of AppFabric).

In the midst of all this movement, Microsoft introduced the three new cloud-related codenames today. How do they fit into Microsoft’s newly flattened cloud cake?

* Project Sydney: Technology that enables customers to connect securely their on-premises and cloud servers. Some of the underlying technologies that are enabling it include IPSec, IPV6 and Microsoft’s Geneva federated-identity capability. It could be used for a variety of applications, such as allowing developers to fail over cloud apps to on-premises servers or to run an app that is structured to run on both on-premises and cloud servers, for example. Sydney is slated to go to beta early next year and go final in 2010.

* Dallas: Microsoft’s “data-as-a-service” offering. Dallas is a new service built on top of Windows Azure and SQL Azure that will provide users with access to free and paid collections of public and commercial data sets that they can use in developing applications. The datasets are available via Microsoft’s PinPoint partner/ISV site. Dallas is hosted on Azure already and is available as of today as an invitation-only CTP. No word on when Microsoft is hoping to release the final version of the service.

* AppFabric: AppFabric is a collection of existing Azure developer components, including the “Dublin” app server, “Velocity” caching technology, and .Net Services (the service bus and access control services). The version of the Windows Server AppFabric on-premises version of the product is available for download today, with final availability slated for 2010. Community Technology Previews (CTPs) of the Windows Azure AppFabric version are slated to be available during 2010. No word on when the final Azure-based version will be out. (Note: The CTPs of the Access Control and Service Bus technologies are still available separately in CTP form today.)

Microsoft made available last week a November release of its own Windows Azure SDK and related tools. The new releases include an update to Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, which extends VS 2008 and VS2010 Beta 2 so they can create, configure, build, debug and run Web apps and services on Windows Azure.

Roger Jennings, a cloud computing expert and author of the Oakleaf Systems blog said that the November release of the Windows Azure SDK includes “something Azure devs have been asking for and needed to compete with AWS EC2 (Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Cloud 2): Variable-size virtual machines (VMs). Using that featue, Azure developers may now specify the size of the virtual machine to which they wish to deploy a role instance, based on the role’s resource requirements. The size of the VM determines the number of CPU cores, the memory capacity, and the local file system size allocated to a running instance, Jennings noted.

In a similar vein, Amazon quietly released on November 11 version 1.0 of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) software development kit for .Net. The SDK allows developers to “get started in minutes with a single, downloadable package complete with VIsual Studio project templates, the AWS .Net library, C# code samples and documentation,” according to a note Amazon forwarded me over the weekend.

November 12th, 2009

PDC 2009: Tune in for our live blogging frenzy next week

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:31 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Big Brains, Multicore/distributed computing, Office 2010/Office 14, PDC 2009, Red Dog, Research, Silverlight (wpf/e), Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii"), Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server")

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Professional Developers Conference Keynote, Blogging, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 kicks off the week of November 16. Like we did last year, a handful of us Microsoft watchers will be live blogging the keynotes as a group.

The PDC keynotes are slated for Tuesday November 17 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. PT and Wednesday November 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. We’ll be using CoverItLive to blog, so the more of you who chime in and comment along with us, the merrier. Your group-blogging hosts (besides me) will be Ed Bott, Kip Kniskern, Paul Thurrott, Rafael Rivera, Tom Warren and Long Zheng

Come back here next week and watch along with us as Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie; Server and Tools President Bob Muglia; Kurt DelBene, Senior VP of Microsoft’s Office Business Productivity Group and more talk about what’s coming for developers in the next year. (I’ll post the CoverItLive viewer on my site during keynote viewing hours next week.)

There will be new info on Microsoft’s Azure cloud operating environment, .Net 4.0, Oslo, Office 2010, Silverlight, SQL Server and more. And more than a few of the “Big Brains” — Microsoft’s Technical Fellows — are on tap to present during the four-day confab.  I’ve already posted about some of what’s on tap (and not on tap) for PDC 2009 over the past few weeks. Expect lots more PDC news on my blog throughout the week next week.

Hope to see you (virtually) and/or live in Los Angeles next week!

November 11th, 2009

Orchard: Microsoft's open-source CMS platform is (re)born

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:27 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Code names, Corporate strategy, Open source

Tags: Developer, Team, Open Source, Microsoft ASP.NET, Microsoft Corp., Content Management System, Content Management, .Net, Team Management, Enterprise Software

The guesses (by me and others) look like they were on target. The “Orchard Project,” which is getting its debut on November 11 at Tech Ed Europe is, indeed, the successor to the Microsoft Oxite content-management system (CMS).

Microsoft made available the first the open-source Oxite CMS bits at the end of 2008. Like Oxite, Orchard will be a free, open-source CMS platform — plus a set of shared components for building ASP.Net applications and extensions. The Orchard code is licensed under an OSI-approved New BSD license.

From the Orchard page on the Microsoft CodePlex code-repository site:

“(T)his core (Orchard) team will use their experience working with ASP.NET and Oxite to deliver a fundamentally new architecture that is the Orchard CMS. We have deliberately chosen to start development, with the guidance and contribution from the community. Over time we expect this project to become a viable successor to Oxite v1 and we know that providing a migration path for users of that existing application will be a high priority.”

The Orchard team includes various ASP.Net developers; two of the principal developers of Oxite, Erik Porter and Nathan Heskew; and Louis DeJardin, the creator of the SparkViewEngine for Model View Controller (MVC).

Despite its origins and team, Microsoft officials are claiming that Orchard is “not a Microsoft project,” according to the Orchard Web page. From the CodePlex page:

“Some of the initial (Orchard) source code and specs are available for review and comment but there is no downloadable release at this time. We encourage interested developers to check out the source code on this site and get involved with the project in these early stages.”

There is no public timetable (so far) for when a test build of Orchard will be out or when a final version will be released.

(Thanks to @kellabyte for the Orchard pointer, via Twitter.)

Update: As one reader (thanks, @karlseguin) noted, Oxite was anything but a big hit with developers, including many of those in Microsoft’s own .Net community. There have been many complaints about Oxite, from the development process, to the scope of the project, to the quality of the code and the way Microsoft explained the concept/product. Perhaps that’s one reason why Microsoft is starting over with a new codename and claiming this is not a Microsoft project…

November 10th, 2009

Microsoft whittles away at Oslo; now plans to fold it into SQL Server

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:23 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, Oslo, PDC 2009, SQL Server, Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Windows server

Tags: Oslo, Microsoft SQL Server, Server, Microsoft Corp., Databases, Research & Development, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Business Operations

There are few initiatives at Microsoft that have undergone as many twists and turns as Oslo, Microsoft’s modeling platform/strategy.

On November 10, Microsoft announced the latest Oslo shift: Oslo’s three main remaining components are going to be be renamed “SQL Server Modeling” and be folded into some future release of Microsoft’s database.

In 2007, Microsoft first discussed publicly its plans for “Oslo” — an amorphous multiproduct effort that encompased future releases of .Net, Visual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server. By the fall of 2008, Microsoft had decoupled .Net, VIsual Studio, BizTalk and SQL Server from Oslo. When officials said Oslo, they meant Microsoft’s evolving modeling strategy and technologies, specifically the M language, the Quadrant tool and the metadata repository. This past summer, as part of one of Microsoft’s countless reorgs, the Oslo team was combined with Microsoft’s Data Programmability team (which manages Astoria, Entity Data Model (EDM), Entity Framework (EF), XML, ADO.Net and tools/designers).

Going into the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 next week, Microsoft is planning to make available a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of Oslo, which will be its first since May 2009. This new CTP will be known as the SQL Server Modeling CTP.

According to a November 10 blog posting by Product Unit Manager Doug Purdy, this new CTP “will begin to demonstrate how developers will use these (Oslo) technologies in concert with things like T-SQL, ADO.NET, ASP.NET and other parts of the .NET Framework to build database applications.”

“All of these components are now part of SQL Server and will ship with a future release of that product,” Purdy blogged this week. (Purdy doesn’t specify a ship date target, but I’m doubtful it will be in time for the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 R2, which is due out in the first half of 2010.)

As of next week, Microsoft also plans to integrate the Oslo” Developer Center and the Data Developer Center into a new site, http://msdn.microsoft.com/data.

On Twitter, the overwhelming sentiment about the latest change in Oslo’s direction are largely negative. Here are a few reactions:

Scott Banwart: With this announcement, I no longer see the point of Oslo.

Tomas Restrepo: Cynical thought of the day: Oslo == Longhorn. OK, could’ve been worse (i.e. Cairo).

James Hart: Any expectations anybody had for what Oslo might turn out to be came from their own imagination. Disappointment was inevitable.

Ryan Rinaldi: The Oslo story just got more confusing.

Steve Bohlen: good lord; Oslo follows in the footsteps of WinFS; big (if nebulous) idea degenerates into dull implementation w dubious value

Sean Munger: Friends dumbstruck at flying saucers descending over Oslo. (Oops. Maybe a different Oslo)

Any developers out there see a silver lining in the latest Oslo moves? Or is it time for the aliens to rush in and take over?

November 10th, 2009

New tool aids .Net developers in writing Linux, Mac OS X apps

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:48 am

Categories: .Net Framework, App Compatibility, Apple, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Novell, Open source, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii")

Tags: Mono, Developer, Linux, Tool, Teamprise Add-on, .Net, Development Tools, Microsoft Visual Studio, Productivity, Open Source

Not all .Net developers are writing Windows apps. Some (besides Miguel de Icaza and his merry band of Mono folks) may be interested in writing Linux, Unix and Mac OS X apps, too.

On November 10, Novell rolled out the final version of a new Visual Studio add-on aimed at these developers. Known as Mono Tools for Visual Studio, the product comes in three flavors: A Professional Edition (individual) for $99; Enterprise Edition (for one developer in an organization) for $249; and Ultimate Edition for $2,499 which includes a limited commercial license to redistribute Mono on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and includes five enterprise developer licenses.

Mono Tools for Visual Studio allows developers to port their existing .Net Windows apps to non-Windows operating systems, as well as to write brand-new apps. The new product is based on Mono — which is an open-source implementation of .Net — but doesn’t require it.  Novell has been testing externally Mono Tools for Visual Studio since September.

The goal of Mono Tools for Visual Studio is to make it easier for programmers to use Visual Studio’s testing, debugging and deployment features, which may be more familiar to some developers than the open-source-specific tool alternatives, said de Icaza, Mono project founder and Vice President of Developer Platforms at Novell.

The new Mono Visual Studio Tools also enables integration with SuSE Online, a tool for building and testing turnkey virtual appliances that are based on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or openSuSE.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced some tool-interoperability news of its own; the Redmondians are buying Teamprise and plan to make it an add-on to Visual Studio. The Teamprise add-on is designed to allow Java developers using Eclipse-based development environments to collaborate with .Net developers via Team Foundation Server.

November 9th, 2009

Microsoft 'builds a branch to Java developers" with Teamprise buy

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 4:45 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Visual Studio 10 ("Hawaii")

Tags: Java Developer, Java, Microsoft Corp., Eclipse, Teamprise, Java Development Tools, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Development Tools, Open Source, Development Tools

Microsoft has bought the Teamprise assets from SourceGear LLC for an undisclosed amount, company officials announced on November 9.

Teamprise allows developers using the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) running on operating systems including Unix, Linux and Mac OS X to build applications with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. (Team Foundation Server is Microsoft’s team-collaboration tool for developers.)

Microsoft plans to release a Microsoft-branded and -updated version of Teamprise that will plug into Visual Studio 2010 on or around the same date that it launches Visual Studio 2010, which is March 22, 2010, officials said.

“We just built a branch to Java developers,” said Dave Mendlen, Senior Director of Developer Marketing. “Many customers have developers targeting Java using Eclipse, as well as .Net using Visual Studio. They need a common repository and source-control tool. This is unified through Team Foundation Server” with the Teamprise add-on.

Microsoft is acquiring three Teamprise technologies as part of the arrangement: A plug-in for Eclipse that integrates into the Eclipse IDE; the Teamprise Explorer user interface; and a command-line client. The plug-in supports Eclipse and Eclipse-based  IDEs, such as Rational Application Developer, JBoss, BEA Workshop and Adobe Flex Builder. Microsoft also has hired some of the Teamprise developers as part of the deal, Redmond officials said.

Under terms of the agreement, Teamprise — a Microsoft partner — will continue to do sales and support for Teamprise until Microsoft releases the Microsoft-branded version of the product. After that point, existing Teamprise users will be upgraded to the Microsoft-branded product.

New users will be able to buy Team Foundation Server plus Teamprise shipped as a single package. The bundle will be offered as part of Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate SKU or at retail for approximately $799.

November 6th, 2009

Microsoft 'Geneva' identity wares approach the finish line

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:35 pm

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Development tools, Oslo, PDC 2009, Security, Utility/cloud computing, Windows server

Tags: Geneva, Microsoft Corp., Research & Development, .Net, Microsoft Windows, Application Servers, Development Tools, Middleware, Business Operations, Software Development

Microsoft is making available for download the near-final Release Candidate (RC) test build of its “Geneva” framework, the technology officially known as Windows Identity Foundation.

(For all you Microsoft codename trackers out there, “Geneva” is the next version of Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). The programming framework supporting the next version of ADFS originally was codenamed “Zermatt,” then, later, also took on the “Geneva” codename. Microsoft’s Windows Cardspace is the third component of what Microsoft calls “Geneva.”)

On November 6, Microsoft released the RC bits of the framework, which are designed to provide developers with a new programming model and software development kit for creating identity-aware .Net applications. According to a blog post on the Forefront Team Blog, Windows Identity Foundation “provides developers pre-built .NET security logic for building claims-aware applications, enhancing either ASP.NET or WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) applications.

Geneva and the Geneva framework also are related to Microsoft’s Azure environment, as the next version of ADFS is part of the Azure Services layer in Microsoft’s cloud. (Microsoft’s current Azure diagrams don’t show ADFS as part of Azure, but I hear any new ones we see at the Professional Developers Conference in mid-November will include it.) The goal of Geneva is to provide developers and users with a single, secure sign-in capability across both cloud-based and on-premise applications.

In other PDC-related news, Microsoft is planning to distribute a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of its Oslo modeling platform. This will be the first CTP that team has provided since May and it will require Visual Studio 2010 and .Net 4 Beta 2 to work. It’s due out on November 17. (Thanks to MVP Doug Finke for unearthing the Oslo link.)

November 6th, 2009

Microsoft puts more Azure cloud plumbing in place

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:39 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Code names, Corporate strategy, Development tools, PDC 2009, Red Dog, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization

Tags: Content Delivery, Content Delivery Network, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is continuing to lay the groundwork for the commercial version of its Azure cloud environement, rolling out a new content delivery network (CDN) capability, as well as the November update to its Azure developer services.

On November 5, Microsoft delivered the November Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of its Service Bus and Access Control Service — both of which are feature-complete. Those two elements are known as .Net Services. (Workflow services, queuing and routers also originally were set to be part of the first .Net Services release, but the team decided to pull those components in order to sync with Microsoft’s .Net 4.0 release, due out in March, 2010.)

Microsoft also rolled out on November 5 a new CDN capability that extends the storage piece of the Windows Azure cloud operating system.

(A quick refresher: Windows Azure, codenamed “Red Dog” is what networks and manages the set of Windows Server 2008 machines that comprise the Microsoft-hosted cloud. At the highest level, Red Dog consists of four “pillars”: Storage (like a file system); the “fabric controller,” which is a management system for modeling/deploying and provisioning; virtualized computation/VM; and a development environment, which allows developers to emulate Red Dog on their desktops and plug in Visual Studio, Eclipse or other tools to write cloud apps against it. Azure services including .Net Services and SQL Azure sit on top of the Windows Azure operating system)

The new Windows Azure CDN is designed to allow developers to deliver high-bandwidth content more quickly and efficiently. Here are more details from a November 5 blog post by Brad Calder, who is a leader of the Windows Azure Storage team:

“Windows Azure CDN has 18 locations globally (United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America) and continues to expand. Windows Azure CDN caches your Windows Azure blobs at strategically placed locations to provide maximum bandwidth for delivering your content to users. You can enable CDN delivery for any storage account via the Windows Azure Developer Portal. The CDN provides edge delivery only to blobs that are in public blob containers, which are available for anonymous access.

“The benefit of using a CDN is better performance and user experience for users who are farther from the source of the content stored in the Windows Azure Blob service. In addition, Windows Azure CDN provides worldwide high-bandwidth access to serve content for popular events.”

For the remaining CTP period, Windows Azure CDN access will remain free to testers. (Pricing information isn’t yet available.) Microsoft is recommending caching blobs less than 10 GB in size for best performance.

Speaking of the remaining CTP period, while Microsoft officials have said for the past few months that they planned to remove the beta tag from Azure at the Professional Developers Conference in mid-November, Microsoft isn’t closing the CTP until the end of December. Developers and customers won’t be charged for Azure until February, 2010.