Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Friends don’t let friends do point to point. Anyone who has designed services to solve a business problem or built a distributed 
composite application using service-oriented techniques has, consciously or not, discovered the hazards of client applications knowing too much about all of the services with which they interact.
In my latest article for CODE Magazine, I provide a scenario-driven approach to introducing the Routing Service in WCF 4.0 including discussions on the following messaging patterns that help enable more flexible composite application designs:
Virtual Endpoint/Message Broker
High Availability
Content-Based Routing
Context-Based Routing
Publish-Subscribe
The article is now available online at CODE Magazine http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=1009051 as well as at news stands including Barnes and Noble.
I hope you like it and as always, I welcome your feedback!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
I have just published the first in a series of new screencasts on WCF 4 for Pluralsight.
The screencast is titled “Introducing Default Endpoints in WCF 4”. In this screencast, I introduce a new configuration improvement in WCF 4 that helps you be more productive by simplifying the configuration experience in WCF.
You can find the new screencast here: http://www.pluralsight-training.net/microsoft/olt/howtovideo.aspx?a=rick-garibay&n=wcf4-default-endpoints. The goal of the screencast is to teach you how seamless getting up and running with WCF 4 is, providing a true File, New Project, F5 experience. I’d love your feedback!
For those of you who may not be aware, Pluralsight is a Microsoft .NET training provider who has established a stellar reputation for being a premier provider of high-quality, razor-focused on-line and classroom training on Microsoft technologies. The talent behind this company is tremendous and I am thrilled to be a part of this team of instructors who share both a passion for Microsoft technologies and a joy for sharing their experience with others to realize the benefits and possibilities of the platform.
One of the cool things about Pluralsight is that their instructors live, eat and breathe the content they cover. The majority of instructors have full time jobs in consulting and/or leading teams in product development around the technologies they cover. I think that this “dog-fooding” approach to training development and delivery makes for a learning experience that is truly unique and worth a nominal membership fee.
So, if you are new to Pluralisight and are considering subscribing to this premier source for authoritative .NET training, please drop me a line and I’d be happy to get the good folks at Pluralisight to work out a trial. I think you’ll be as impressed as I am with the instructors and a very impressive library providing content that is relevant to the work you are doing today as well as cutting edge content to help you prepare for your next project.
I hope you’ll agree, and please, keep the feedback coming!
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Well, its already that time. I’ll be flying into New Orleans tonight at about 9 pm, and am looking forward to connecting with some friends and taking in the sights and sounds of this great city. Its been about 9 years since I’ve been there and am curious to see how the city has changed since the storm.
Conferences are always a great chance to connect with old friends, make new friends, and learn and share with others passionate about technology. TechEd 2010 will be no exception.
If you’re in The Learning Center next week, stop by and say hi. I’ll be at the Windows Server AppFabric, WCF & WF booth (Booth#: TLC/Blue/ASI) doing some demos and talking to folks about the exciting capabilities Windows Server AppFabric brings to the enterprise Business Platform.
I also hope you’ll join me for what I hope will be an inspiring discussion on the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus. You can find more information about the session here: http://rickgaribay.net/archive/2010/04/26/teched-north-america-2010.aspx and make sure to add it to your schedule using session builder by selecting “Birds-of-a-Feather” under Types and “Windows Server AppFabric” under Product Technology (note: should actually be in the Azure AppFabric category, we are working to fix this). This will be a highly interactive discussion with participants influencing the discussion.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
This was a great event as usual, and I really have to hand it to @jguadango, @coneybeer, Devry University and all the volunteers for putting this together. The logistics, facilities, scheduling and planning for 55+ sessions is not easy.
I’ve presented at every Desert Code Camp since the very first one, so I think this one makes 6 or 7. Code Camp is always a great day to interact with Phoenix’s community of technologists through conversation, teaching and learning and this one was no exception.
Below are the goods for each session, and as promised I’ve included videos of my WCF and AppFabric Service Bus demos.
If you have any comments or questions, drop me a line.
Monday, May 10, 2010
As you are probably aware, AppFabric is Microsoft’s delivery vehicle for brining the next generation of on-premise and cloud application hosting infrastructure to the masses.
If you are 
interested in learning more about this new platform and how it can help you build and gain insight into composable applications more easily and effectively while taking advantage of the benefits that Windows AppFabric and Windows Azure AppFabric provides, be sure to check out the launch event on May 20th.
In looking at recent poll results, 33% of those surveyed are looking to leverage AppFabric to simplify the composition of their applications and 26% are interested in cloud hosting and connectivity. How are you thinking about leveraging AppFabric for your on-premise and cloud investments?
You can register for this free virtual event here: http://www.appinfrastructure.com/
Friday, May 07, 2010
My new article on WCF 4 has just been published and should be available to subscribers and at newsstands today.
This issue marks the 6th article I’ve contributed to EPS Publishing/CODE Magazine and I am especially proud to be a part of the 10 year anniversary issue of CODE Magazine, writing on a technology that I love. 
This is an amazing organization that has survived the ups and downs of technology publishing, and while many of their competitors over the last decade are no longer in business, CODE Magazine has continued to both innovate while keeping the quality bar highly raised as a technology-focused publication by the developer community and for the developer community.
Believe it or not, maintaining a bi-monthly publishing schedule to an in-print subscriber base of over 10,000 worldwide while providing digital editions both on the web at www.code-magazine.com and via Xiine (a WPF content distribution reader that supports multiple formats of the magazine) as well as Amazon’s Kindle editions takes a lot of work.
The success of this publication is only equaled by the fantastic group of people behind it that make my job so easy. It has been an absolute privilege to share and collaborate with Rod Paddock, Erik Ruthruff, Markus Egger and Cleo Gaither, to name just a few and I look forward to the next 10 years of CODE Magazine!
You can find my new article here: http://www.code-magazine.com/Article.aspx?quickid=1006061
I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Version 2.5 of our flagship messaging product, Neuron ESB is now available for download.
I’ve talked briefly about Neuron ESB here, here and here and you may have seen Sam Gentile’s excellent treatment of the product here: http://samgentile.com/Web/neuron-esb/. Neuron is the only commercial ESB built on WCF and the .NET Framework that is fully supported by a Microsoft Partner. We built Neuron ESB to accelerate SOA adoption by taking sophisticated messaging patterns such as Pub-Sub, Virtual Service, Naming and Discovery, Mediation, Protocol Bridging, and Security (to name a few) and commoditizing them so that they fall into the reach of developers of all disciplines and levels of experience, whether they are veteran WCF developers or have not yet made the leap.
Put simply, Neuron is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and integration platform built entirely with Microsoft technologies. While specific definitions of ESB’s vary, there is consistent agreement within the industry as to the types of capabilities an ESB should provide; Neuron provides all of these, and more.
Some of the capabilities provided by Neuron ESB include:
· Message routing (content based, static, rules based)
· Mediation (protocol bridging, LOB adapters)
· Message processing (transformation, enhancement/augmentation)
· Management (auditing, monitoring,, logging)
· Quality of Service (security, delivery reliability, transactions)
The diagram on the right depicts a fictional Neuron configuration illustrating interconnections in a heterogeneous environment, as well as the major Neuron functional components. You will notice that publishers publish or send messages to the bus on a topic. A topic is a network, or a channel that constrains communication to a business event. For example, there may be a number of different applications/systems that are interested in being notified with a customer places an order. Topics model the business domain, just like events, so any applications that are interested in orders can subscribe to the topic named “Orders”. The topic is configured with a messaging channel such as TCP which will provide very low latency, high throughput and excellent reliability. However, it will not guarantee message delivery in the event that a subscriber is not available at the time the message arrives. In this case, MSMQ might be a better choice. Other systems such as a WCF inventory service, fulfillment application hosted in an ERP or a CRM application might be interested in new orders, so they subscribe to the Orders topic. Now, when a publisher (such as a POS system) publishes a new order, each subscriber receives a notification. The notification may prompt the application to call a service (pull notification) or Neuron may deliver a message according to the interface of the application subscribing to the message. The latter enables the automation of a business process by orchestrating or composing several services to carry out a business process such as order fulfillment. 
Best of all, Neuron ESB integrates seamlessly with both Microsoft and other vendors. It provides WCF binding support out-of-the-box via Client Connectors and Service Connectors to enable WS-I Basic Profile messaging, WS-* and REST. In addition, it provides traditional integration via adapters for working with SQL Server, CRM, Sharepoint, SMTP and FTP to name just a few. Neuron ESB also integrates directly with BizTalk Server via a dedicated BizTalk channel that enables publishers to send and receive messages via the BizTalk MessageBox. This allows customers to expand the reach of the their BizTalk solutions while continuing to build upon their investments in BizTalk Server. The key objective is to allow customers to continue to leverage their existing investments while streamlining development efforts so that you can focus more on adding business value and less on the plumbing.
There is much more to Neuron ESB than I can capture in this quick blog post, but some additional benefits of Neuron ESB include the ability to:
— Quickly integrate your systems and applications
◦ Insert/retrieve data from databases with no coding
◦ Interconnect heterogeneous systems, legacy applications, and the newest technologies with no coding
— Leverage your existing assets
◦ Utilize current developer skills. No retraining, or special tools required
◦ Use adapters to connect to your applications and systems
— Easily extend your applications
◦ Add workflow with no coding
◦ Add pipelines, with rules, transformation, logic, etc., with no coding
— Gain visibility into your business
◦ Extract basic information from messages for business indicators
◦ Populate data warehouses, and analysis stores in real time
— Create a powerful, reusable infrastructure
◦ Common code is in the ESB, not applications
◦ IT resources can manage infrastructure with no impact to applications/services
◦ Evolves with you, and in support of your objectives
◦ Get monitoring, management, admin for “free”
◦ Utilize industry standards
We are very excited to make this new release available for evaluation. You can find more information about Neuron ESB 2.5 here: http://www.neuronesb.com/default.aspx
If you have any questions, would like a demo or want to talk about some of the key scenarios that Neuron can help you attain, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
TechEd 2010 is drawing closer and closer and I am especially exited that this year’s event will be in New Orleans. New Orleans has always had a sense of mystique for me and I am really excited to visit the city since the unfortunate storm.
To that end, I will be doing a BoF session on Azure AppFabric Service Bus called “Enabling the Ambient Cloud with the Windows Azure Platform AppFabric Service Bus”.
You can view the details here: http://northamerica.msteched.com/Topic/List?fbid=0ITpdgd9SPP (filter on BoF) and I’m providing the full abstract here in hopes that it will peak your interest:
The key value of Service Bus may not be what you think it is! We build services that can be composed with other applications and services, regardless of platform or protocol. But to realize these benefits, applications and services must be consumable beyond the same walls that created the silos that service orientation strives to overcome. The service needs to be able to call the client, even through NATs and firewalls. To achieve the benefits of Software + Services, these walls must be brought down without disrupting the security and peace of mind that entire careers have been dedicated to preserving. Come discuss and share your experiences of how Azure AppFabric Service Bus is changing the game. How are you using, or thinking about using, the Service Bus to transcend network boundaries and expand the reach of your services and applications to the Internet and beyond?
BoF sessions are unique in that they are highly collaborative and encourage conversation, so I really hope you’ll consider attending.
In addition, I’ll be helping out on the Connected Framework labs in the Lab Center, so be sure and stop by and say hi.
See you at TechEd!
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Content download for Las Vegas and other cities is available here: http://rickgaribay.net/archive/2010/03/13/visual-studio-2010-ultimate-event-content-download.aspx
New date added in Las Vegas in celebration of the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Launch! I will be joined by Mickey Williams, VP Technology Platform Group, Neudesic. Register now by clicking on event link below and use invitation code: 7CC0A0 
Join us for a sneak peek of Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010, which will be a landmark release of the premier development toolset for Windows®, Web and Cloud development. ![c8946faa-fb1c-46b9-8f1c-fb6942b1881a[1]](http://rickgaribay.net/Images/CustomContent/TheUltimateEventVisualStudio2010TeamFoun_C8F5/c8946faafb1c46b98f1cfb6942b1881a1_thumb.jpg "c8946faa-fb1c-46b9-8f1c-fb6942b1881a[1]")
I will be speaking at the Phoenix and Salt Lake City events. Below is more info and a complete list of dates.
The Ultimate Event is your exclusive opportunity to hear about Visual Studio 2010 from experts before the product is launched this year. Microsoft has made significant investments to and improvements of Modeling and Testing/QA tools in Visual Studio 2010. At this event you’ll get a comprehensive overview of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, which is the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) core of Visual Studio. We’ll present enhancements in version control, reporting, project management and build management.
Spend the day with us to learn how to take software development to the next level with Visual Studio 2010!
4/14 Las Vegas Schedule:
| Time | Topic | Speaker |
| 8:30 AM-9:00 AM | Registration, Welcome | |
| 9:00 AM-10:30 AM | Lap Around VS 2010 | Rick G. Garibay |
| 10:45 AM-12:00 PM | Agile Management with TFS | Mickey Williams |
| 12:00 PM-12:30 PM | Lunch | |
| 12:30 PM-1:45 PM | No More "No Repro" | Mickey Williams |
| 2:00 PM-3:15 PM | Architecture for Everyone | Rick G. Garibay |
Dates: Register now using the link below, space is limited.
| Date | Location | Event ID |
| 3/2/10 | Bellevue, WA | 1032439179 |
| 3/2/10 | San Diego, CA | 1032439178 |
| 3/4/10 | Los Angeles, CA | 1032439180 |
| 3/9/10 | Mountain View, CA | 1032439176 |
| 3/9/10 | Irvine, CA | 1032439181 |
| 3/10/10 | Phoenix, AZ | 1032439183 |
| 3/11/10 | Salt Lake City, UT | 1032439996 |
| 3/11/10 | Portland, OR | 1032439182 |
| 3/16/10 | Denver, CO | 1032439184 |
| 3/16/10 | San Francisco, CA | 1032439177 |
| 4/14/10 | Las Vegas, NV | 1032447728 |
Invitation code for Vegas is: 7CC0A0
Hope to see you there!
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
AZGiveCamp is a massive weekend event where the software development community comes together to support charities and non-profits by developing or improving their web sites and applications. It's fun, it's agile, it's geeky, and it's good for the community. More about AZGiveCamp here: http://azgivecamp.org/FAQs/FAQ.aspx
WHAT
We are in the process of identifying and selecting charities and are looking for Dev Leads and BA/PM Leads for each charity team.
The Dev Lead and BA/PM Lead forms the leadership team for each charity team, with immediate responsibilities including:
- The Dev Lead will be responsible for partnering with the BA/PM Lead and the charity team to conduct requirements elicitation, draft a vision statement and develop the charity sponsor relationship to scope and commit to what the team hopes to accomplish the weekend of AZ GiveCamp.
- The BA/PM Lead will be responsible for partnering with the Dev Lead and the charity team to conduct requirements elicitation, draft a vision statement and develop the charity sponsor relationship to scope and commit to what the team hopes to accomplish the weekend of AZ GiveCamp.
- The Dev Lead and BA/PM Lead will be responsible for building a team of 3 to 5 additional volunteers to deliver the project over the weekend of AZ Give Camp. This means coding, building, configuring, testing, etc all weekend until the job is done.
- The Dev Lead and BA/PM Lead will be responsible for self-organizing, mentoring, guiding and managing risk on the project team the weekend of the event from the evening of 5/21 through the afternoon of 5/23.
Note: While there will be plenty of room for creative license, the name of the game is scale so the vast majority of *new* charity work will entail the delivery of CMS using Sitefinity, Sharepoint 2007/2010, WordPress as the main delivery platforms. Exceptions can always be made so any ideas are welcome as long as they don’t entail re-inventing a wheel that already exists.
WHEN
May 21st - 23rd, 2010
WHERE
Chandler Senior Center
ACTION
Everyone in the community has an opportunity to make a visible impact on this event. If you are interested in volunteering to be a Dev Lead or BA/PM Lead please contact me here.
If you are not interested in the leadership role, but would like to be an individual contributor, register ASAP with a preferred team name and if you don’t have a team name yet, please enter “PCSUG” here and we can change it later: http://azgivecamp.org/Volunteer.aspx You will then be interviewed and matched with the appropriate charity team based on your skillset and interests.
*** IMPORTANT***
Please be mindful that regardless of role chosen, this is a hard commitment that you are making to be engaged and involved in this event from the time you volunteer through the evening of May 23rd. There will be ebbs and flows and periods of intense commitment. You are volunteering to make a marked impact on this event and giving up your entire weekend on the evening of 5/21 through 5/23.
OTHER WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE
Know of a killer charity that would kill for a CMS to get them up and running? Little r me and I will get you connected to our charity director. Please note that we are particularly interested in helping smaller, local charities and non-profits.- Have some Sharepoint licenses sitting around or have a connection with a friend at Microsoft to get some Sharepoint love to a charity in need? The more the merrier! Please contact me here.
Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to working with you to make the first AZGiveCamp a huge success!