Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Video, Windows Server

Team Microsoft Sings "Them Incubator Blues" at ApacheCon

Peter Galli — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:33:00 GMT

As you probably know, Microsoft was both a sponsor and active participant at ApacheCon 2009 in Oakland, California last week.

But what you might not know is that we also showed our lighter, more fun side, when we participated in the Lightning Talks, which were held on Thursday evening, November 5, during a reception with plenty of popcorn, beer and wine.

As my colleague Jas Sandhu noted in his blog about this - and where you can also find the song's lyrics - the talks are a lively, spontaneous ApacheCon tradition with speakers getting about 5 minutes to poke at each other, the projects, technology, community etc ... and have a bit of fun!

The singing and dancing Microsoft team was led by Kent Brown, the Product Manager for Windows Communication Foundation, who was not only the singer, songwriter and guitar player, but also the author of 'Them Incubator Blues,' which is very tongue-in-cheek and loosely based on his experience participating in the Stonehenge Project and working with the community.

He was joined by me, Microsoft's open source community manager; Tanya Young, our chief cat herder at the conference; and Jas Sandhu, a Senior Technical Evangelist. It was great fun and we hope you enjoy it!

Video courtesy of Mladen Turk from Red Hat.

MindTouch, Microsoft, and Social Enterprise Collaboration

Peter Galli — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:33:00 GMT

In this, our second video filmed at an open source company, the spotlight falls on MindTouch, whose Deki Wiki enables users to connect teams, enterprise systems, publishing systems, Web services and Web 2.0 applications.

The first video talked to developers at BitRock about their product as well as their thoughts on open source versus proprietary software, and can be viewed here.

The MindTouch Deki, which is built on top of the Mono, the open source .Net implementation, is downloaded some 2,000 times a day.

You'll see and hear Damien, a graphics designer, talk about his one-eyed fish and the disappearance of Phil, the filter feeder, and how he is only going to have community fish in his next tank, fish who like one another and work well together.

Aaron Fulkerson, the CEO and one of the company's founders, talks about his passion for getting the product running on Windows, with Windows Server 2008 and a Microsoft installer. For him, it really doesn't matter what technology the solution is implemented on, as long as the company has delivered a great product to the market that is "free, as in freedom, as in free speech."

While there is a groundswell of community adoption around MindTouch's Linux deployments, lots of large companies are also asking for deployments on Windows. In fact, its core market is those people who like both .Net and open source.

Take a look for yourself, and see what they have to say.

Powershell in Action! Hank interviews Bruce Payette

MichaelF — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:00:00 GMT

We get quite a few requests to provide more information about Powershell so Hank and I decided to go straight to the person who just finished writing the book on Powershell: Powershell in Action, Bruce Payette. Bruce was one of the founders of the Powershell team here at Microsoft and is an expert on not only Powershell but according to Jeff Snover, on any number of popular and obscure languages.

In this interview Hank and Bruce discuss Powershell and Bruce gives us a demo. While we couldn't show everything here, if there is interest, we can go back and have Bruce show us specific scenarios and examples. Let us know if there is anything you'd like to see...

Check out the link above to see Bruce's book and read a couple of sample chapters.

Video: Powershell in Action! Hank interviews Bruce Payette

First Consulting Group: Building Physican Portal on JBoss & Microsoft

jcannon — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:21:00 GMT

In our final video interview featuring University Hospitals of Cleveland and their new Physician Portal, we have the opportunity to meet Joe Yelanich, Sr. Account Executive from First Consulting Group (FCG). FCG has a long history in the medical IT industry, and choose to deploy their solution on top of JBoss JEMS and Microsoft technologies.

Joe offers insight into the considerations and platform choices made from a consulting perspective, and why FCG chose a mix of JBoss, Java and Microsoft technologies to build their healthcare portal. More information is available on the technical and healthcare aspects to this solution in the previous segments. More information on FCG can be found on their website.

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Duration: 6:58

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University Hospitals of Cleveland: Healthcare Perspectives

jcannon — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 22:31:00 GMT

Yesterday, we published the first of three video interviews with University Hospitals of Cleveland, discussing their new Physician Portal, a healthcare solution built on top Windows Server and JBoss middleware system. Ed Marx, Hospital CIO, discussed the IT needs of the hospital, and how they arrived at a solution that built on - and took advantage of - both open source and Microsoft technologies.

Today, we get an opportunity to speak to Dr. Nathan Levitan, Chief Medical Officer & Senior VP of University Hospitals, and Dr. Ed Michelson, Chairman of Emergency Medicine. Each doctor provides insight into the healthcare impact of how different, disconnected legacy systems materially impacted the quality of care provided to patients, and how the implementation of the portal has been successful in linking patient information among, and within, its various network of 150 locations. In addition, management, usability and security are also covered from an end-user's perspective.

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Duration: 10:16

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University Hospitals of Cleveland: Physician Portal built on JBoss and Microsoft Solution

jcannon — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:43:00 GMT

In late 2005, you may recall that Microsoft and JBoss announced a joint technology agreement to explore ways to better enhance interoperability between JBoss Enterprise Middleware Systems (JEMS) and Windows Server. This was an exciting announcement and a great opportunity to explore ways in which the two companies could work together for our joint customers.

Recently, we had the fortunate opportunity to visit one such customer, University Hospitals of Cleveland, who has implemented a joint JBoss/Microsoft solution. The result, a new hospital-wide Physician Portal, allows hospital clinicians to access multiple, diverse patient care systems as though they were one. The reduced complexity and enhanced interoperability not only save the hospital money, but improve the standard and quality of patient care.

In Part 1 of our interview - done on-site & in partnership with industry moderator Bill Laberis - we explore the technical perspectives of the solution with Hospital CIO Ed Marx. Tomorrow, we look at the healthcare perspective & will end on Friday with a discussion with First Consulting Group, the healthcare services firm who built the solution.

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Duration: 12:34

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More on University Hospitals:
University Hospitals (UH) is a community-based health care system which serves patients at more than 150 locations throughout Northern Ohio, including seven wholly owned and four affiliated hospitals.

Committed to advanced care and advanced caring, UH encompasses the region's largest network of primary care physicians, outpatient centers and hospitals. The network also offers specialty care physicians to treat almost every disease and condition, skilled nursing, elder health, rehabilitation and home care services, and occupational health and wellness.

University Hospitals is the second largest private sector employer in Northeast Ohio and is within the top five largest private sector employers in the state of Ohio.

Windows Unified Data Storage Server

MichaelF — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:36:00 GMT

Today Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS). Built for mixed environments this solution is highly interoperable, without loss of performance in both NFS and CIFS environments. Remote administration is also provided both through Active X RDP and Java RDP Client Support.

This sounded interesting so we sent Hank to talk with Tres Hill, Sr Product Manager, to find out why this announcement is significant for IT professionals running heterogeneous environments.

Video: Tres Hill on Windows Unified Data Storage Server

Powershell Released: An interview with Architect Jeffrey Snover

MichaelF — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:13:00 GMT

Today at IT Forum in Barcelona Microsoft announced the release of Powershell a command line shell and scripting language intended to simplify administration and automation for system administration.

A couple of weeks ago Jeffrey Snover, Powershell Architect, sat down and talked with Sam about Powershell, its evolution and what users can expect from this powerful solution.

Video: Powershell Released: An interview with Architect Jeffrey Snover

Powershell can be downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/powershell/download

Updated: See a demo on Channel 9

Windows and Linux Integration: A Conversation with the Author

MichaelF — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:25:00 GMT

Sam Interviews Jeremy Moskowitz who runs http://www.winlinanswers.com and http://www.gpanswers.com to discuss his experiences helping clients solve their Windows and Linux integration problems.

Jeremy has also penned a book titled Windows and Linux Integration which they mention in the interview. Check back on Monday when we will be publishing a complete chapter from the book for download.

Video: Windows and Linux Integration: A Conversation with the Author

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ServerCore: Where's the GUI?

MichaelF — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:01:00 GMT

Sam and Hank spend some time with Iain McDonald and Andrew Mason. In this interview they discuss Windows Server Core a command line controlled installation of Windows Server intended to simplify management and minimize the server installation for the four key server roles: AD, DHCP, DNS and File Server as well as others.. They discuss the architecture, why it was developed, comparisons with Linux and even show us the interface. They also spend some time drawing on windows while hanging out in a stairwell...

Video: ServerCore: Where's the GUI?

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