Microsoft Photosynth

Microsoft has made one more acquisition, but this is done particularly entertainment to me, is Photosynth.Its a system that analyzes photographies to construct a three-dimensional model of the object in question, recognizing the patterns they are
compared to become a model, with this is possible progressively to show gigabytes of very high quality graphics with a very good speed downloading times, but the things does not finish there, you can make a very good zoom lens to any taken image, obvious the quality will vary according to the quality with which it has been taken.The user interface and general of the system makes me feel as in GoogleEarth but already in third dimension.

But why you will believe on me!? test it by yourself clicking here, you will need to download the required components to work with Photosynth, personally i prefer to use it with Firefox because i feel it faster.

Ive taken few screen shots to see it by yourself, and in the bottom is the video of the presentation.

Microsoft Regional Architect Forum México 2007

The past 14 and 15 of June where the third RAF in México City, this time (my first time there) where focused on S+S (Software plus Services).

The RAF was a high level event which gathered more than 100 key architects of the leading technological industries in the republic.

The introduction text for this where:

“The services are everywhere and they have become into an indispensable artifact of every kind of business’ technical strategies. The global collaboration is directing the organizations to become service providers.

The business applications – software which integrates this into handy processes – are using components of a deeply heterogeneous network and continuously growing of providers. To get the higher provecho of the S + S model we need to answer several fundamental questions about the way of this services should be provided and consumed to reach the objective of our business.”

• How are the applications which consumes external services and what is what the providers requires?
• How is managed and governed a portfolio of services which extends beyond the organizations borders?
• How S+S foments the productivity directed to the peoples and which metamorphosis are suffering the organizations now when the power of this new technologies are available for everyone?

Wednesday 14 of June 2007

The first conference where of Gianpaolo Carraro, he where talking about the “Next generation software, an Architect’s perspective”.

Alberto Borbolla where talking about the Microsoft ESB Implementation instead of Marty Wasznicky (he had problems in some flight connection and couldn’t be present).

Eduardo Kassner where talking about the “Value of an dynamic infrastructure”, showing us an success case of HSBC México made following the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library, the most widely accepted approach to IT management) Microsoft’s version “Infrastructure Optimization Model” with their 4 stages of maturity  and the importance of follow guidelines to improve business reliability.

After this we went to eat at the Thai House, when we finished I went to the demonstration session about “New paradigms of the data access and data manipulation for architects” by Gabriel Esparza Romero. There he showed us how easy is to use the new LINQ to make queries in XML and SQL with the visual studio codename Orcas. This have great potential about using this to get a more OO concept of data and manipulation / querying it to get what we need; Right now I have two applications which could be made more easily using DLINQ.

Eduardo Kassner’s next talk where about the Infrastructure Optimization model, the importance of suit every requirement on each stage of the maturity, reason?, simply; You will not be able to suit higher requirements, processes and control if you don’t suit the fist and basics;

“The Infrastructure Optimization Model helps customers realize dramatic cost savings for their IT infrastructure by moving from an unmanaged environment towards a dynamic environment. Security improves from highly vulnerable in a Basic infrastructure to dynamically proactive in a more mature infrastructure.”

IT infrastructure management changes from highly manual and reactive to highly automated and proactive.

Friday 15 of June 2007

This day the session were shorter but not for that less important, we started with Mark Baciak (is an architect on Microsoft’s Architecture Strategy Team specializing in service orientation and enterprise dynamics) talking about the infrastructure behind a service oriented architecture.

After him Ric Merrifield taked to us about “Getting SOA through Business Value”, unfortunately I couldn’t listen almost anything because I where attending a work call outside the hall.

After this talk, Karthik Ravindran exposed “architecting and implementing user & process centric business applications using the office 2007 system”.

The last session where about “Business architecture to sustenance the competitively of México” by PhD. Ricardo zermeño talking about the current situation of the country against the others in the world and the plan to 15 years to become one of the 20th most important economies of the world by improving the technology and the business governability.

After this, Juan Carlos Lozada closed the event, telling us the statistics and a brief history about the event.

We went to eat at the Thai House again, but I had the luck of being sited with the VIP!, here are the descriptions:

From the left to the right:

Karthik Ravindran, architect in the strategic architecture focused in business applications (Microsoft).

Gabriel Esparza-Romero, Test lead in the C# team, is in charge right now of the LINQ implementation (Microsoft).

Unknown guy

From left to right:

Consultant (nice guy)

Armando Chavez, S. Developer.

And I don’t remember the names of the other 2 guys, but they lead the DOT NET COMMUNITY on the city (INETA).

I’m tired of writing all this, also for searching links to the post, so for a small resume:

This was a great opportunity to have another point of view about Information technology (IT), the perspective about building more efficient, secure, reliable and expandable applications and infrastructure. I got with this a great experience trough sharing and learning from other people and business problems and solutions.

I’m waiting for the next year and be able to give them better feedback and questions regarding architecture and processes.

For those who want to become a business architect AKA software / infrastructure architect, visit the Microsoft’s SKYSCRAPR website, where you will get the introduction and training to become one.

Also to get a subscription to “The Architecture Journal” a publication made by MS to the enterprise architects, or to get more information, go here and suit your needs of knowledge.