Got all my tokens and got all the accounts up and running. Now need to write some code. 
Month: October 2008
EC2 for Windows now available
Amazon’s EC2 is now available for Windows – squeaking in just before PDC was to kick off. This is quite exciting as it allows you to scale out and try something at a very low cost on Windows.
If you want to manage your EC2 environment, you can use the Firefox add-in called Elasticfox; there is also a C# library which wraps EC2’s web service API making them easier to consume from .NET.
Amazon is also going to release more features (fairly soon) across the board – load balancing, auto scaling, monitoring, etc.
It will be interesting to see the competitor offerings from Microsoft – should get public details at PDC.
PDC’ing
I am going to be at PDC – anyone else I know going to be there? If you are reading this, and are going to be there then it is quite likely you know how to ping me and let me know you going. It also might be a good idea to check out the Devil’s field guide to the PDC.
I will be blogging from there – but not during the sessions – need to ensure I am not distracted – especially as the Avalanche is coming! Expect to get some posts later in the evenings.
Is Cloud Computing workable?
I think this post brings up some interesting aspects of cloud computing and the scenarios within which you should look at to use this. If you are an enterprise then this might be more of a moot point – but the fact is one cannot take things for granted.
It is quite timely as I was thinking of syncing up Meenakshi’s calendar from Outlook to Google. Her laptop had crashed and she was without her calendar – interestingly she missed not having access to her calendar more than her emails – but that is another post for another day).
I think I will skip syncing it up Google Calendar now and instead use one of the other services I get from where this domain is hosted.
64 Core, 64 GB, need I ask more?
Cray (yep those guys are still alive and kicking – I know, I know I am as surprised as you). In any case these clever guys have released a “personal super computer” called CX1 which can have 64 Cores and address 64 GB of RAM and can run either Windows HPC 2008 Server or RHEL. Now, once I have stopped drooling, just need $30K (or so) to get this sweet sweet machine at home. 
Win 7 called Win 7
Not since the days of NT 4.0 (which stood for New Technology btw) has this happened that Microsoft is calling a Windows version what is really is – so Windows 7 will be called Windows 7! I say Yay! It is about time the stop all the malarkey about funky code names and boring “release names”.
The Microsoft “Avalanche”
No, I am not referring to any new codename or product but rather talking about the slew of new products and technologies that are in the works and coming out in the near future from Microsoft. Below is a list of things (in no particular order) which either were just released or in the pipeline.
I wish I could talk more about some of these – maybe after PDC when most of these are out in the public domain and the NDA’s are relaxed – until then all the links are only to material already in the public domain.
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- SQL Server 2008
- Windows “7”
- Office “14”
- Visual Studio 2010 (“Rosario”)
- “Red Dog”
- “Strata”
- “Zurich”
- “Oslo”
- .NET 4.0
- “M” and “Quadrant”
- Mesh
- SQL Server “Kilimanjaro” and Project “Madison”
- “Dublin”
- Exchange “14”
Sigh, so much to learn/play-with and so little time! 
Update: Added #16