Today Microsoft released Sql Server 2005 SP1. Along with fixed issues, they added:
- Support for Database Mirroring
- SQL Server Management Studio Express
- Additional options for ISVs
You can check out the press release here, and download it here. The link takes you to the x86, x64 and IA64 editions of the update.
Microsoft announced today that all Visual Studio Express editions will be available at no extra cost. Up until today, you could download them for free, but they would be available for a price (around $50) later in the year. I recommend that you check them out - after all, they're free and almost fully featured.
There's also some interesting stuff being done with those editions. You can check out the press release here.
The Longhorn Server conference finishes today but we had to part yesterday since we had to be in Costa Rica today :( This means that we missed some of the sessions on the last day. The one we regret the most was the second part of Virtualization which has some cool stuff for the future. I will not dive into specifics because I am sure Jose will probably blog about this so keep visiting often to read about how virtualziation on Longhorn will change the ways things are done.
I also had the chance to attend the HPC session. This deals specifically with Windows Server Cluster Edition 2003 which is slated to be released in Summer 06. What does this have to do with 64-bit, you might ask? Well, this version of Windows Server only runs on x64 hardware. It is really cool to see everything pointing towards 64-bit. Applications have been starving for more memory for a long time, and now that we have the tools and OS to get things up and running, we just have to stand back and watch the transition happens.
One session we most definitely enjoyed was Monad, which is a shell that will ship with Longhorn Server. This environment makes it so easy to carry out many tasks that in Unix would require several visits to the man pages again and again. What makes Monad so special is that its a shell in which you type commands that actually make sense from a human perspective - no AWK, GREP. For instance, a Monad command 'get-services', does what you expect, gets the list of services. Once you get this listing, there is a plethora of things you can do by piping to other Monad commands. One that blew me (and the audience as well) was a command to output the result as a series of bar graphs in IE - pretty neat stuff!
Some have asked in the past about building for 64-bit using previous IDEs such as Visual Studio 2003 and Visual C++ 6.0. Even though this is not a supported scenario, it is possible. Please follow this
link in order to get instructions on how to accomplish this.
I cannot stress this enough: if you need to build 64-bit binaries, please use Visual Studio 2005. By doing so, you know that you are dealing with a supported scenario, are most likely to find answers to your problems online, and will make sure you are using the most stable versions of several programming libraries such as ATL, MFC, etc.
I am writing this blog as I sit and am listening to the Virtualization session at the Longhorn Software Review. This one has been particularly interesting. The presenter has talked about what Longhorn develpers have done to make sure that the OS takes advantage of the Virtualization technology that is now offered with most mayor chip vendors.
If you want to take advantage of Virtualization with Longhorn, you will *NEED* a 64-bit box (x64) as this technology will not be supported in Longhorn 32-bit. Running Virtual machines does require a lot of memory and 64-bit is the way to go when you are going to be hosting lots of guest OS. There are many, many things that have happened under the hood to make sure Virtual Machines will run almost at full speed when running under Virtualization. This will definitely make things very interesting in the future for datacenter administrators and test servers. Can't wait to get my hands on one of those development versions
It has been mentioned in the past that we use
Acronis True Image in order to manage our x64 imaging needs. The procedure on how this was done, involved a mix of boot disks and the 32-bit version of True Image.
A couple of weeks ago, TrueImage announced the 64-bit version of both its workstation and server software. I just imaged an x64 server on the fly and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind that TrueImage allows you to create images without the need to reboot, which is a real time saver.
Now if only we could get an Itanium version...
In our sessions, we have taught you to how to use the PSDK compiler and the compiler included with Visual Studio 2005. The Intel sessions have also taught you how to use the Intel compiler and many have asked me lately why would someone use the Intel compiler given that there is a Microsoft C/C++ compiler?
First off, do not think of the Intel and Microsoft compilers are mutually exclusive when it comes to writing code for the EM64T or the Itanium. The libraries and even debugging tools that are generated by both compilers can be used interchangeably without any problems. That being said, you may now start to think that these two compilers compliment each other instead of compete with each other - this is the mayor key giveaway that we want to teach during our sessions.
If you are ever working with matrix multiplication or code that has to do with products between arrays, you might want to give the Intel compiler a try. It can easily vectorize your loops and you will be taking advantage of the 16 SSE3 registers that are now available in the EM64T. Furthermore, if you need to write inline assembly in code that will compile for 64-bit, the Intel compiler will allow you to do this as well.
Hopefully this will clear some doubts...remember, you can use both compilers to your advantage and make them work together so that your code will run a lot faster than it did before.
The 64-bit workshop in Dallas last week was a great success. We had 7 people porting their applications to Itanium systems. Of the seven, three managed to port their apps - one was a C# application that was ported in 15 minutes!! Another participant ported his C++ application to Visual Studio .NET 2005, but didn't have the Itanium compilers installed. So let's make it 3.5 ports. :o)
So we can say we had a 50% success rate. Great workshop, can't wait for the next one!!
The recording for the webcast I gave last week, titled "Proven Techniques to automatically convert your J2EE code to C# and .NET", is now available! You can check it out here.
The webcast is mostly about the techniques we have developed here at ArtinSoft to succesfully peform migration projects using the Java Language Conversion Assitant and the JLCA Companion. When performing J2EE to .NET migration there are several things that you have to keep in mind - for example, J2EE applications often rely on third-party components. These components are usually not migrated automatically by the JLCA, since there is no way to include all these APIs in it. By using product like the JLCA Companion, you can automate the migration of these components, siginificantly speeding up your migration efforts by reducing the amount of manual work you need to perform. In the webcast, we show you a smalll demo of the JLCA Companion, how it works, and how it can be used in your migratino projects.
In the web cast, we also cover:
- An overview of the nxt initiative by Microsoft
- An overview of ArtinSoft and ArtinSoft's migration expertise
- Why should ISV consider automated software migration when moving to a new platform
- A summary of various Java to .NET concepts
- A detailed description of the migration process followed here at ArtinSoft, using the JLCA Companion
- And, finally, we have two live demos, one about using the JLCA Companion, and another one about a complete migration of a web application that is accomplished in just a few minutes!!
So, check it out, and enjoy :-).
ArtinSoft has been involved with 64-bit awareness and training programs for well over a year now - last year we worked on the Route 64 program, and we are currently working on the succesor to Route 64, called 64-bit Advantage. Because of our involvement in this programs, we're also doing the Windows 64-bit tracks of both the Itanium Solutions Alliance's Developer Days and for the HP and Intel Itanium workshops.
Next week there's one such workshop in Dallas. I'll be at the HP and Intel® Developer Workshop, taking place in Dallas, TX, from April 4-6, doing the Windows track.
Some of the perks of the workshop include (from their website):
- Three days of interactive lectures
- An HP Integrity rx2620 server (yes, you get a server with the registration fee)
- A license for the Intel Development Tools
- Addtional developer resources
The cost of the registration is well worth it, in my opinion. And the subjects we cover during the sessions are very interesting as well - you should learn quite a bit, plus you get the oportunity to try to port your own code to 64-bit, using native hardware!
I will be giving a live webcast next week!!
The webcast is titled Proven Techniques to automatically convert your J2EE code to C# and .NET, and it is as part of Microsoft's nxt initiative, aimed at moving ISVs to Microsoft's platforms.
The webcast is next Tuesday at 10:00AM PST. You can register for the event here: Event Link
For those of you who didn't know, ArtinSoft's main operation is based in San Jose, Costa Rica. Here in Costa Rica we've been on a technology boom in the last few years, starting with Intel opening up a big plant here in the country and with the appearance of several software companies doing business abroad during the 90's. There's a lot of outsourced development going on around here, and people everywhere in the world are taking notice.
Here is a nice article at the Los Angeles Times that talks about the phenomenon. There's a couple of quotes from our CEO, Dr. Carlos Araya, and from our Project Director, Roberto Leiton, in the article.
Enjoy the read: Costa Rica Rides High-Tech Wave
Yep, it is official. Vista will not be widely available until January 2007. It will be available for corporate customers on November 2006, so there's still a chance that I'll be able to get my hands on it before Christmas :-)
Press Release
The Atlas framework is now
available!!
For those of you that are not familiar with Atlas, it is an
AJAX-based framework for ASP.NET. I've been playing with it a little bit, and it has a lot of potential for bringing rich, interactive Web 2.0 technolgies to the mainstream. There's a nice video demonstration on the Atlas website that will give you a better idea of how it works.
I recommend you give it a try!
Hi All!
Welcome to my brand-new blog. Even though I have been blogging for the last few weeks on the 64-bit Advantage site, I finally decided to have my own blog. I work in the consulting side of the company here at ArtinSoft, so I will be mainly blogging about my experiences with customers. I will also be talking about the different technologies we get to work with here at ArtinSoft.
If you have any particular interest on which you want me to comment or research, feel free to leave a comment!!
In our Intro to 64-bit, we mention that the limit for a 32-bit process (by default) in Win-32 is 2 GB. Likewise, we mention that the limit for a 64-bit process is 8 TB. I recently received a mail in which the author was telling me that he wrote a 64-bit app that requested memory by means of malloc and that it would stop around 6 GB, which was nowhere close to the 8 TB we talked about.
After some e-mails back and forth I found the specs for his system: EM64T with 4 GB of memory. It just so happens, that the memory your application can use is limited by how big your page file is + the amount of physical RAM you have.
In this case, the machine had 4 GB of RAM, the page file size was about 4 GB. If you open your task manager and look under the performance tab, you will find stats for "Limit" which is how much memory is available in your system. This number should be very close to your page file size + your physical RAM.
You can change the Page file size under the performance properties of your computer, and by doing so, you could modify the settings so that your "Limit" can increment.
In our tests we incremented the page file size to 11 GB. When our "memory hog" application was running, the limit was dynamically increased and could allocate about 17 GB of RAM. Keep in mind that the more paging you are doing, the slower things will be.
During our interoperability sessions we have talked plenty about the WoW64. We have touched base on topics such as changes that happen in the file system and in the registry. Of particular interest is the topic of registry reflection, which is the mirroring of keys from the 32-bit and 64-bit sections of the registry so that they share same information. If you recall, one of the many reasons why registry reflection happens is so that an out-of-process COM LocalServer (aka COM EXE) can be accessed by a 32-bit or 64-bit application.
Even though this works like a charm, there are some cases in which you might not want your COM LocalServer to be registered to both 32-bit binaries and 64-bit binaries. Since Windows Server 2003 SP1, you can disable registry reflection on a specific key by using the following function:
RegDisableReflectionKey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sysinfo/base/regdisablereflectionkey.asp
By doing so, when this key is registered, it will not be reflected. Why on Earth would you want to do something like this? Say for example you are registering a 64-bit COM server that handles and sends data segments that are bigger than 4 GB to the caller. You would not want this COM server being accessed by a 32-bit application at all. That’s one I can think on top of my head, can you think of any other reasons on why you would like to use this function?
It has been about 4 years and still the article that pops up first in Google when searching for "VB Migrations" is an article published in the dawn of .NET: Lori Piquet's "Abandoning the Fantasy of VB Migration Wizardry" (http://www.devx.com/vb/article/16822 ).
It is clear that the article was published to drive readers more than to provide a tool to help customers make a decision. Since I was the person who supposedly provided the reasons to demonstrate that a VB conversion was not possible and since it has been 4 years, it is about time I "defend" myself against her claims.
So, if you have read this blog, you must know by now that VB upgrades are not only possible, but they are actually a very good option for companies that wish to leverage their software assets. In fact, during the past 4 years there have been many demonstrations of this fact and corporations are doing VB6 conversions and they are quite happy with the results. With the publication of the VB Upgrade Guide from Microsoft (with strong input from ArtinSoft), the assessment tool, and ArtinSoft VB Upgrade Companion the magic is actually happening!
Lori said: "After a developer is sufficiently comfortable with .NET and has spent several weeks in studying the migration process with the tool, Zoufaly says that a migration should progress at an average rate of just 7,000 to 10,000 lines of code per week. Therefore, a 1 million-line VB6 application will take 100 weeks—two years—to upgrade. Seems a little slow for something that Microsoft had the hubris to dub a migration "wizard."".
Well, how many production quality lines does a great software developer writes per week? A few hundreds maybe? So, if there is a process that automatically allows you to pretty much rewrite your application to a new platform in a very consistent way, allows you to bridge the obsolescence gap at a rate that is more than an order of magnitude the normal rate of development? How would you call it? I think “Wizard” is not such a bad name after all. I am certainly not trying to say the process is magic and I also believe that "File-Open-Convert" from inside Visual Studio might not be the right gesture to set up proper expectations in terms of a conversion project, but it is true that the process is there and it works very well.
By the way, I am not making up the productivity statistics for software developers. The Software Productivity Research Institute (www.spr.com ) publishes such statistics and they more than confirm what I am saying.
I guess time was on my side and, today, nobody would argue about weather VB6 automatic conversions are magical or not. It is clear that there is a methodology behind, it is clear that they cannot be approached as ad-hoc projects and it is clear that they benefit customers and are less risky, and more cost-effective than manual software rewrites.
As always, I invite you to share your experiences. Don’t forget that I still have prizes for you!
Getting started: Tips for VB6 to VB.NET 2.0 migration
Another PODCAST with more information on VB migration. Your comments welcome.
Mark M. Baker
Federico Zoufaly promotes automated migration to .NET for significant investments in legacy apps. Federico also discusses the advanced ArtinSoft VB Companion tool.(MP3, 16:23 mins.)
http://devnet.developerpipeline.com/podcasts/dotnetcast/