It’s the morning of day one here at the Microsoft PDC. This year’s PDC is at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown LA – lucky me since I live in LA. Or.. maybe not lucky me since I have to deal with the traffic that is LA while all the out of towners going to PDC can hop on hotel buses and head to the convention center. Oh well..

We’re all packed in here for the keynote speech which is being delivered by Ray Ozzie – Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. Unfortunately Wi-Fi isn’t working at the keynote so the publication of this live .. erum.. semi live blog is going to have to wait till I get a network connection.

So I’m sitting here blogging on the new Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook – A nice way to try out this new netbook eh?

8:26am – Announcement goes out for everyone to take their seats. It’s pretty packed here at the PDC.. developers, press, you name it. Where are the folks wearing “I’m a PC” ??

Looks like Microsoft is trying to be web 2.0 savvy at the conference – they have a projection screen up with tweets and images from flicker flowing right on by. Funny how none of this stuff is not from Microsoft. I suppose it’s nice to see the company recognize software and services from outside sources.

BTW, I just sent a tweet saying “How come Wi-Fi isn’t working at the PDC” I wonder if this message will show up on the screen.

Lights are dimming.. looks like it’s about to start…

Darn it.. must there be a tall guy sitting in front of me?

Ozzie takes the stage to an applause.

8:37am

Ray is out to talk about what Microsoft has been up to for the last year+. He’s talking about the transformation of the company to embrace services.

Ozzie thanks the developers for betting on Microsoft and for coming out to the PDC

Talking about platform shifts for the industry – Ozzie talks about how he sat in our seats years ago – as an ISV, as a competitor etc (and now he’s the Chief Software Architect – lucky him!)

Three things that kept Ozzie with Microsoft

1. Microsoft always builds it’s own key apps for its platform – provides natural safeguard for customers

2. The company’s key platform has high likely hood of reaching critical mass

3. Microsoft always understood that in order for them to be successful that the ISVs, the partners had to be successful.

Changes are occurring all over the landscape – from increasing broadband speeds to smaller mobile devices, to cheap systems like netbooks (like mine!). The PDC this week will be about Software and Services. Today Ray will be talking about the backend innovations at Microsoft. Tomorrow, they’ll talk about the front end client work.

8:42 am – Now talking about cloud computing,. Companies everywhere are transitioning from inward facing services for internal customers to externally facing companies and services. The result – organizations have to worry about a whole new set of challenges and issues. Ozzie poses a question – Is cloud computing really any different than in the past? The answer is absolutely yes.

8:50am A few years ago, Microsoft embarked on an internal look at its own services. Microsoft realized they built up a great deal of expertise from all the different websites, services they’ve been offering all these years.With all of these services and expertise, Microsoft realized they had nothing for the user – until now. The internet connected service is now a new tier for computing.

The first tier is the PC desktop that the user interacts with. The second is the enterprise tier. The new tier is the web tier which requires computation, storage, networking etc. Services that need to scale on demand anywhere around the globe.

A few years ago, Microsoft embarked on a mission to leverage its learnings to create a new online service. Ozzie acknowledges Amazon and the great work they’ve done. Microsoft is doing something a bit different – they’re planning to be the bedrock for businesses and consumers alike.

Ray is now announcing what we’ve all expected – a new cloud computing product called Windows Azure.

Windows Azure is a new Windows offering targeting the web tier. Think of it as Windows for the cloud. It’s designed to provide the lowest level foundation for building and deploying services.

It’s all about Scalable services, automated service mgmt system, etc.

Developers expect to be able to use existing services and programming environments. Expect open environment, tools etc

Windows Azure needs to be fundamentally different from enterprise computing. Most of today’s apps are designed for scale up path – scale as the need arises. Systems in cloud computing are designed for the next 50 yrs of computing. New types of practices, storage, app models designed fundamentally for a world of horizontal scale and parallel computing.

Windows Azure comes to life today. This is not software for servers.It’s a service housed in Microsoft datacenters. Community Technology Preview being released today in the U.S. initially. Azure designed from the outset for rapid improvement and for scale.

Microsoft is betting on Azure themselves – Microsoft will be bringing out key services onto Azure which will be talked about in a bit.

Windows Azure provides a platform for other services together called Azure Services Platform. SQL services coming to the cloud. Live services is a bridge outward from Azure to client systems like PCs, mobile devices etc. The services on top of Azure include:

• Live Services
• NET services
• SQL services
• SharePoint services
• Dynamics CRM services

Ozzie wants  to get into details and demos.

9:01am – Ozzie intros Amitabh Srivastava – another VP at Microsoft to go into Azure.

Best to think of Azure as the kernel to the Microsoft Cloud. It’s a platform or really an operating system designed to help developers create killer applications for the net. Features that make Azure unique:

• Scalable hosting – each processor optimized for hypervisor virtualization. Lots of security. Provides a layer of abstraction to all the IT issues that you’d normally have to deal with.
• Automated Service Management – Separates the app from the underlying OS. OS and Apps are managed separately. Fabric controller maintains the health of your service. It manages services – not just servers, this automates the lifecycle of a service.

Model your service including roles and groups, channels and endpoints, interfaces, and configuration settings

All service models are stored as XML file.

You provide the code and a service model to Azure when you’re interacting with it.

• High Availability – data replication, adaptive replication, etc. No user intervention needed
• Rich Developer Experience – MSFT offering familiar desktop environment. No need to deploy to the cloud for initial testing.

Leverages current tools – managed and integrated code

Steve Marks comes out to demo a familiar application – “Hello World” or in this case – “Hello PDC”. He demos this under Visual Studio which goes to show this is all a simple ASP.NET application.

The demo is pretty cool and definitely very easy. He creates the app, builds it and then publishes to Azure online.

Partner comes out in the form of Bluehoo which is demoing their online application now – they Azure as their backend platform.

Shows how easy it is to scale nodes. Quote of the morning – “Its so easy even a CEO can do it” (the audience claps). Edits an XML file to simply move the number of nodes from 2 to 20. Download from m.bluehoo.com. Free and available for download today.

Back to amit.

Azure is an open platform

• Command line interfaces
• REST protocols
• XML file formats
• Managed and native code support
• We welcome 3rd party tools

Microsoft will be exposing Azure in a staged way with a technology preview initially to PDC developers.

• Scalable available hosting platform
• Rich developer experience
• Model driven service lifecycle management

Now introducing Bob Muglia – senior VP at Microsoft.

We’re now in the fifth generation of computing. 70s were monolithic computing, 80s client server, 90s web, today, SOA, and 2009+ services

Services platform builds on today’s platforms. Most of today’s apps do not scale out well. Azure is designed to scale out from the onset.

Service requirements including interoperability, identity and security, data mgmt and compliance, and services mgmt. These requirements remain true in building out a services platform.

One of the goals of Azure is to make it possible for you to build applications to take advantage of the computing power available in the data centers – reducing your up front capital costs and management costs. Lower cost solution for the deployment of large scale applications,

Talking about .NET services now. .NET services are built into Azure, Services within Windows need to scale out naturally also. .NET services are a pool of services available to you.

Focused on identity management – federated identity platform, Microsoft Geneva is a part of this. The goal is to make access control as seamless as possible.

Microsoft SQL Services – scaled out implementation of SQL Server. SQL server underneath this service.

Another partner customer coming out – Shawn Davison, VP of Red Prairie coming out to show off app. Demoing a one button product recall application which is extremely complex.

Azure gives them a chance to focus on their core competency.

9:43am Now talking about system center and Microsoft’s own project called Atlanta which provides a snapshot of Azure to administrators of services.

Atlanta uses the message bus to connect and securely transmit data from companies firewalls to azure services. Three databases running SQL Services. Expects hundreds of GB a day.

Now showing a programming demo with SQL services.

Another key buzz phrase – Windows Azure is a new generation of a platform which leverages your current skill set.

Introducing next gen modeling platform – Oslo – handing out kits this week. Incorporates  a new language called M.

This reminds Bob of the Windows NT rollout back in 1993.

9:51am – Introducing Dave Thompson to talk about higher level services. Customers need best in class services, need to stay up to date, lower predictable costs, have scarce IT resources, higher security and availability

Talking about Microsoft Online Services – enterprise class software delivered by subscription services including Exchange online, etc. All enterprise offerings will be made available through Microsoft Online services.  Software + Service is all about the power of choice.

Microsoft Services Connector links local Active Directory server to Microsoft’s Federated Gateway.

Lots of pictures being displayed now..

OK.. the battery is starting to die so I’m going to need to shut things down soon. Yes, I wish this netbook had a six cell battery instead.

Ozzie’s coming back to the stage to summarize today’s announcements and what’s to come.

The best thing to get involved is to write code to Azure.

Starting at noon today,PDC attendees can download the SDK today at Azure.com – for all PDC. Attendees will be provisioned and activated over the next two weeks and then will be opened to more. Azure.com. Preview will be free during initial cycle – no charging initially. Microsoft will be unlocking more and more capabilities over time.

Windows Azure will have a straight forward business model. Costs will be based on Apps Service Function and Service Level agreements – Prices will be competitive to the market place. Azure service offerings will be available through the web and through partners.

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