OK, I finally get to talk about *something* from the MVP summit!
As for 9 AM Pacific Windows Server AppFabric Beta 2 is available on the Developer Center on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/appfabric
First publically announced at PDC 2009, Windows Server AppFabric is a set of application services focused on improving the speed, scale, and management of Web, Composite, and Enterprise applications.
Developers and IT pros can expect the following benefits from Windows Server AppFabric:
- Faster Web Apps Made Easy - Windows Server AppFabric helps developers improve the speed and availability of web applications through distributed in-memory caching and replication technology that works with current ASP.NET applications.
- Simplified Composite Apps - Developers can simplify the development of composite applications with the pre-built application services in Windows Server AppFabric, used in conjunction with Visual Studio tools and .NET Framework capabilities (ASP.NET, WCF and WF).
- IT Pros can also simplify the deployment, monitoring, and management of composite applications with configuration and monitoring capabilities that are integrated with familiar tools (PowerShell, IIS Manager, and System Center).
- Enterprise Performance and Availability - An enterprise's most important and demanding applications can achieve elastic scale, performance, availability, and reliability (benefits often associated with the cloud) with the help of Windows Server AppFabric. These and countless other benefits from an unparalleled partner ecosystem utilize familiar skills from the .NET Framework and Windows Server.
Here are some additional links which may also be of interest:
Note: If you installed App Fabric Beta 1 and are having problems uninstalling, please see Damir Dobric’s post here and follow instructions from clean removal of Beta 1: http://developers.de/blogs/damir_dobric/archive/2010/02/19/uninstalling-of-appfabric-beta-1.aspx