Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : PHP, Partnerships

More on the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components

hjanssen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:24:00 GMT

Well, there is no easy way to say this, so I am simply going to start this blog with the following line.

Microsoft just submitted source code for the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components to the Linux Kernel Community Under GPL v2.

Well, there's a conversation starter! Are you still all sitting in your chairs???

Let me summarize:

Yes, our device driver code was released directly to the Linux Kernel
We released the code under GPL v2
We are working with Greg Kroah-Hartman so it is ready for the next release of the Linux Kernel, version 2.6.32
We will continue to update the driver code to enhance interoperability on an ongoing basis, but it's our hope that other developers in the community will find the code useful and worthy of collaboration.

Fallen off your chair yet?

Microsoft developed the Linux device drivers to enhance the performance of Linux when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. My team and I were responsible for testing and validating the driver components that were contributed for this first release.

Now, my team and I will be responsible for further developing this code going forward. (Yes, that does mean that I have gone back to leverage my very early roots as a Kernel programmer. Let the world be warned!!!!). Haiyang Zhang has been working on this code with me, and he will continue to work with me on this going forward.

When I joined Microsoft three years ago, the primary reason was to put my money where my mouth was. You see complaining about something is easy, but it becomes a little more complicated when somebody offers you the opportunity to be part of helping change what you have complained about.

So, three years after taking the job that made me put my money where my mouth was (and still often is!), I for one am EXTREMELY happy to see one of the most significant fruits of our work here in the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center (OSTC). But I have to say, even I would have been hard-pressed to think three years ago that we would consider contributing to the Linux Kernel.

As you know, two years ago Microsoft announced a partnership with Novell, and Tom Hanrahan ran the lab on a day to day basis till about 9 months ago. Since then I have had the pleasure of running the technical side of the execution of that lab under Tom Hanrahan for the OSTC. One of the primary tasks for that lab is to make sure Windows runs well on top of XEN and Linux runs well on top of Hyper-V, and we do this in very close cooperation with Novell.

We do most of this work as an extension to Mike Neil's Hyper-V team.

As part of this, we were asked to help develop and maintain a crucial part of this work called the Linux Integration Components. This code is designed so that Linux can run in an "enlightened mode" on top of Hyper-V (enlightened mode is roughly the Hyper-V equivalent of "paravirtualized mode" for the Xen hypervisor). Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels. It is this device driver code that we are releasing today, directly to the Linux Kernel.

We're not talking a few hundred lines of code here; we're talking about roughly 20,000 lines of code.

Is this a Dump and Run from Microsoft? Absolutely not! We plan to enhance the functionality of this code, and we will continue to work with the Linux Community to support the drivers and to ensure continued interoperability.

As you can imagine, this was the result of a lot of hard work: Hiyang Zhang, who has been co-writing this code; Hashir Abdi, who has been testing all this stuff; as well as Vijay Tewari and Mike Sterling from the Hyper-V team who have been taking care of the Hyper-V side.

And last, but certainly not least, Greg Kroah-Hartman, who has been helping me to make all this code land in the right area in the kernel. He has patiently worked to help me correct my obvious mistakes and to get the code contributed into the kernel.

So where are we today? Well, Greg Kroah-Hartman will make the code visible to the outside world today. (For those who want to get a head start, the code will sit under <your kernel tree>/drivers/staging/hv). After it becomes visible, I will write a few more blogs this week that should help you to understand, build and run them.

The titles I am thinking for these blogs are:

Where do the Linux ICs reside in the kernel tree and how do I build them?

And

How do I install, configure and run the Linux IC's?

I had almost forgotten how wrapped up you can be once you start writing code again. So I have not gotten much sleep this past week, but it has been a joy to get back into coding again!

Announcing the PHP SDK for Windows Azure

Peter Galli — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:29:00 GMT

Vijay Rajagopalan, a Principal Architect here at Microsoft, is at TechEd India, where he will demo later this week a new set of interoperability projects related to PHP.

These projects include the PHP SDK for Windows Azure, an open source effort for which Microsoft has provided funding, with development by RealDolmen, whose goal is to provide high-level abstractions that enable PHP developers to interoperate readily with Windows Azure.

The PHP SDK for Windows Azure focuses on REST and provides PHP classes for Windows Azure blobs, tables and queue, helper classes for HTTP transport, AuthN/AuthZ, REST and error management, as well as manageability, instrumentation and logging support.

Rajagopalan will also announce the launch of a series of projects that offer samples and a toolkit that enable PHP developers to include Silverlight controls, Microsoft Virtual Earth maps and IE Webslices and Accelerators in PHP web applications; as well as automatically generated a simple "Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD)" PHP application from a table in SQL Server.

These projects, for which Microsoft has provided funding and which are available on Codeplex under a BSD license, are yet another proofpoint of the company's commitment to interoperability, and developers will be happy to know that the first batch of these have already been developed by Accenture.

Read Rajagopalan's full blog here for all the details.

The Azure Services Platform has been designed to be open, standards-based and interoperable, and its support for XML, REST and SOAP standards means that any of the Azure services can be called from other platforms and programming languages.

Microsoft has provided funding for two other SDKs that support third party programming languages: Java SDK for Microsoft .NET Services and Ruby SDK for Microsoft .NET Services so as to facilitate interoperability between the Azure Services Platform and non-Microsoft languages and technologies.

The inclusion of FastCGI in Windows Azure's hosting environment was announced at MIX 2009, and the protocol enables developers to run web applications on Windows Azure that were written using third party programming languages, including PHP. This opens up new options for PHP developers to deploy their applications.

A Technology Preview of the PHP SDK for Windows Azure will be released under a BSD license, while a functionally complete version of the SDK, which will support tables and queues, should be available for download by this fall of 2009, but the team is calling on developers to provide feature requests, test the toolkit, and join the user forum.

So, stay tuned, as there's a whole lot more to come!

Helping Facilitate Open Government

Peter Galli — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:03:00 GMT

Microsoft will announce on May 7 an initiative to help government agencies and developers publish and interact with their data in Windows Azure, the company's cloud computing platform.

One of these is the Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI), a cloud-based approach to housing public government data in Windows Azure, making it accessible in a programmatic manner via open standard protocols and application programming interfaces.

The source code for OGDI is being made publicly available through CodePlex, Microsoft's open source hosting site, so that developers may reuse it and provide feedback. Sample code is also being provided for technologies widely used on the Web, including PHP, Python, Flash, JavaScript, and Silverlight.

This initiative helps to provide government with tools focused on increasing responsiveness and access to critical services, streamlined processes and services.

For their part, Microsoft and its partners have developed a robust enterprise architecture approach that enables agencies to meet the technology requirements of government mandates with a familiar set of tools - built on an enterprise-ready, scalable, and easily-managed software-powered architecture.

So, in short, the goal of ODGI is to reduce the cost of publishing government data, and simplifying data access by leveraging cloud computing and open standards.

More information on Microsoft's Open Government Data Initiative can be found here.

To see an implementation of a data service in Windows Azure, using a sample of publicly available government data, visit this reference beta site.

These moves are part of Microsoft's ongoing open government efforts aimed at helping government organizations meet goals of transparency, participation and collaboration, particularly as an ever increasing amount of data becomes necessary and available.

As such, new methods need to be opened up to allow interaction with that data, and Microsoft's OGDI is designed to help public sector entities meet these goals.

This software, which underscores the importance of programmatic access to government data rather than having to download it, will give developers the ability to write programs that access data via Web-friendly programming methods without having to download or host the data; and let them write applications using any technology via open standards.

It also provides easier access to a broad array of government datasets, enabling the building of new and unique applications, while governments will be able to automatically refresh data without having to buy and maintain servers.

Cloud computing is the ideal platform for government data, and the technology is finally available to make it happen, says John Miri, Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Government.

"The qualities that government looks for in an information management platform - things like flexibility, scalability, security, performance, and cost efficiency - are all better in a cloud model. As we see demands for government to become more transparent, collaborative, and interactive, a shift like this in technology architecture just has to happen, " he says.

For governments to become truly open, citizen access to public data in standards-based and interoperable ways is essential at all levels of government.

Given that most federal, state, local and education entities implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), they can meet open government goals of oversight, transparency and accountability through cloud and on-premises solutions such as Microsoft Stimulus360, which helps public sector agencies track, measure, and share information about federal stimulus programs through graphical dashboards and maps.

Update: PHP 5.3 on Windows

hanrahat — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:53:00 GMT

Congratulations to the PHP community on its PHP 5.3 alpha 2 release in December. In roughly one month, there have been over 80,000 downloads of the alpha 2 release from unique IP addresses.

You can see that interest in PHP on Windows is growing significantly when you compare this to the 40,000 or so Windows downloads of PHP 5.2 alpha and beta combined over nearly five months.

One of the critical accomplishments in 5.3 has been updating the code base so that the core engine can be built under the latest version of Visual C (VC9). This update has enabled members of the community to focus on optimizing the PHP core to run on Windows. Already, with alpha 2, the release is proving itself to be a stable, robust implementation.

The community anticipates hitting general availability for 5.3 in the spring. Interest in that release is already running high and should continue to grow in the coming weeks.

FastCGI and Zend Core 2.0

MichaelF — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:45:00 GMT

Following-up on the announcement of the Microsoft/Zend technical collaboration from October, we wanted to make sure the Port 25 community was aware of the first set of deliverables.

The technical preview of Microsoft FastCGI for IIS 6 and IIS 7 can be found here: http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=1000051

Zend Core 2.0, which includes the Windows version of the Zend Enabler technology can be found here: http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core

Combined, these solutions provide a 200-300% performance improvement for PHP on Windows offering comparable performance to PHP on Linux.

If you try this out, we'd be interested in hearing about your experience.

-michael

Zend & Microsoft Technical Partnership: Enhancing PHP on Windows

billhilf — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:30:00 GMT

Today I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Zend/PHP Conference and Expo in San Jose. I was here to announce a technical collaboration between Zend and Microsoft that will improve the performance of PHP on Windows Server (and down the road Longhorn Server). You can read the specific details of the collaboration here.

As part of my presentation, we performed a demo showing a before and after scenario. We first showed PHP running on Windows Server before the enhancements- then again after. On the latter, I’m pleased to say that we consistently achieved 100% performance gains and on some applications a 150% improvement. All treats, no tricks…that’s right 100-150%.

So what are we doing exactly?

Core PHP and IIS Collaboration. Zend and Microsoft are working to develop PHP performance improvements to increase the performance of PHP on Windows. Microsoft will work with engineers from Zend and the PHP community to identify and implement improvements for PHP on IIS6 (part of Windows Server 2003) and IIS7 (Windows Server ‘Longhorn’ 32 bit and 64 bit editions). These improvements will be submitted under the PHP license to the PHP community. Additionally, Microsoft will develop and release an IIS add-on component (FastCGI) that will serve as the interface between PHP and the IIS webserver. This FastCGI component will be made freely available from Microsoft for users of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server ‘Longhorn.’
Continuous Testing & Engineering. Zend will establish a Windows testing lab and conduct regular tests and performance improvements to maintain high performance of PHP on Windows as Zend, PHP and Microsoft technologies evolve. This lab will be comprised of a cluster of Windows Server boxes (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and a testing framework which will be used to run tests prior to major releases of PHP. The results of these tests will be used by the engineers to identify and fix bugs.
Community Participation. Zend and Microsoft will continue to actively participate in the community to answer questions and, in general, help out.

PHP, being the third most popular development language today, is an important addition to the options available to developers who want to leverage the Windows Server platform, and the overall Microsoft ecosystem. According to Zend’s internal statistics, the majority of PHP developers already use Windows as their application development platform – over 70%. Improving their experience with running PHP applications on Windows for production is a natural next step.

In the end, we believe the real winners in this technical collaboration are PHP developers who now have viable options when thinking about platform of choice for their PHP applications. Of course, that means our mutual customers benefit from PHP applications as well as the choice of technologies that best suit their needs. To make sure this not only happens today, but going forward, both Microsoft and Zend will be active participants in the PHP community to ensure open communications and a continually improving experience for PHP developers in Microsoft environments.

As I have said before, interoperability does not happen by accident. This announcement is the result of a lot of hard work by people from both Microsoft and Zend. I personally want to thank Andi Gutmans, CTO and co-founder of Zend Technologies. Andi and I have been in discussions for a long while now and I’m very happy to see the great results from a conversation started long ago. We have been working with Zend over the past 6 months to put all of the pieces in place. From the technical work on FastCGI to helping Zend create an engineering lab to improve PHP as it develops over time. This is the first step in an ongoing relationship.

And for those of you in North America, Happy Halloween!

-Bill