Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Paula Paul" <Paula AT PaulSoftware.com>]

Hi Robert!

We still get compliments on our web site, by the way (Robert designed
our site).

My current project has had me developing in C# with the Microsoft .NET
framework since January.  We're in a .NET development 'early adopter'
program with Microsoft and have been pretty much able to separate what's
real from the long off vision of the future....

> 
> I read this article last night and being mainly a Mac and 
> Linux user found
> it pretty disturbing. I've been hearing about Microsoft's 
> .Net strategy for
> a while now and didn't bother before to look into exactly 
> what it is they
> were aiming to do. 
> 
> I'm curious what others think of this:
> 
> http://www.ecompanynow.com/articles/mag/0,1640,11261,00.html
> 
> 

The term ".NET" is used to mean a lot of different things these days - I
think sometimes that Microsoft uses it to put 'FUD' (Fear, Uncertainty
and Doubt) into the marketplace, so people who are about to standardize
on EJB or other Java based frameworks hold off until they can understand
if Microsoft has something better to offer in .NET.  Standard marketing
warfare...

But, there is actually a great deal of .NET that is real - I think it is
a great framework for building applications that can be invoked and used
via the Internet.  Technically, I'm using two pieces of the whole .NET
puzzle:
- 'Microsoft .NET Framework' libraries (think Java class libraries)
- 'Microsoft Visual Studio .NET' (this is not needed to develop apps
though - any code/text editor will do)

There is another, related initiative called 'Hailstorm' that is what
scares most people.  I'm attaching a summary that we wrote up a couple
of weeks ago after attending a meeting about Hailstorm...

I give some credit to Microsoft for having the balls to take on this
initiative - they have the size and the financial backing (and the
existing user base in MSN) to go after it, but it is a gamble.  If they
are successful, it *will* be a little scary.

> In the last month or so I've had the opportunity to work on a 
> project hosted
> on a Win2000 box and I've got to admit its been really 
> stable. Is Microsoft
> on to something here?

I have to say I've really enjoyed programming with the .NET framework -
it is very tightly integrated with XML and SOAP, so I sit here in sunny
North Carolina and develop class libraries, and expose my methods
through both Microsoft COM *and* SOAP interfaces.  

I then send an instant message to someone and tell them they can start
using my methods at some IP address, deployed on my machine here in NC.
The programmers who consume my methods are my coworkers in Boston and
Ann Arbor Michigan.  Some of them write clients in Java and use the
Apache SOAP toolkit to call my methods using SOAP over HTTP.

It's truly cool to write a program and then tell somebody in Boston to
try calling method 'x' and see if they like the results.  We don't care
what language is used or that I work on a Windows 2000 server and they
work in Java (on whatever platform).  

We've also been pretty close to what's going on with various SOAP
implementations, and the .NET framework does make it pretty easy and
clean to develop applications that can be called through SOAP over HTTP
(the Apache SOAP toolkit has a couple of shortcomings in document style
SOAP messaging that we've worked around).

I've been pretty happy working on Win2000 (it's light years ahead of NT
in reliability), and I guess I do think Microsoft is on to something
with the .NET framework libraries (you don't need to use Visual Studio
.NET as your development environment if you don't want to - just your
favorite code editor and make files).

As for Hailstorm and beyond (which will be based on .NET framework
technology... who knows... but I'm going to keep an eye on it for
sure...

========================================================================
=== 
So what is Hailstorm?

At the very center is the idea of "identity": you establish your
identity on 
the Internet through the MS identity service, which is Passport. They
are 
leveraging their 160M user base (growing at 10M/month) to become the
central 
identity server on the Internet. While establishing identity though 
Passport is rather simple today, this may change. Bob Muglia pointed out

that MS may work with government agencies in the future to guarantee a 
higher confidence of establishing identity. Also, MS made it clear that
they 
are going to be the only identity providers of Passport.

Hanging off Passport are a set of core services that leverage identity:
* myWallet (of course--it's still alive!),
* myCalendar
* myInbox
* myContacts
* myLocations
* myDocuments
etc.

It is important to note that MS intends not just to define the SOAP
based 
XML protocols of these services, but that MS fully intends to
(exclusively) 
*host* these services as well. I.e MS will operate data centers in the
sky 
world wide. What does this mean? Everybody's calendar will be hosted by
MS, 
everybody's documents will be hosted by MS (quote: "we expect to be
hosting 
1PB (!) data in 2 years"). myLocation will be fed by real time cell
phone 
data, allowing MS to know where you are at all times. etc etc.

3rd party vendors will be able to hook into this framework and develop
their 
own services, which will be federated with the core MS services (say 
"myMovies"). But again: it is MS's intent to host (and control) the core

services on a global scale, including the identity service, which is the

prerequisite of all of this. You will need to license your service with
MS. 
Quote: "we will be closely watching 3rd party implementations"
(presumably 
to ensure that they don't bring the whole system down, among other more 
obvious reasons). Also: "we want close cooperation and uniformity".

As I said, the underlying protocol is SOAP, extended with additional
headers 
to ensure identity, authentication (Kerberos based), routing,
intermediary 
support, etc.

They have a notification service, tightly integrated with MS Messenger.
In 
other words: Push is back big time.

MS plans to operate this as a *business*. There will be subscription
fees 
both for individual users and service providers.

Some partners presented early offerings, including MyFamily.com, USPS,
eBay, 
Verizon, Expedia, Ariba, and Groove. While most demos were in the B2C 
sphere, MS made it clear that this is *not* a B2C only platform--they
very 
much see it as B2B as well (Identity can also be a group of people, an 
organization, an abstract entity, etc).

Availability: Beta in Q4; roll out of services starting FY2002.

Note that Hailstorm will integrate with Active Directory, but not in V1.

This seems a major mistake to me--maybe MS itself is not yet fully aware
of 
what they are really doing here, and I actually expect that AD
integration 
(i.e. migration of AD to Passport) will come sooner than they think.
Note, 
and that's interesting for application writers, there are various
services 
(such as myApplicationSettings, and myServices) that will register 
application data and application directories with the MS data centers in
the 
sky.