Dmitry Sotnikov

If you are at Microsoft TechEd next week there will be a few sessions I will be giving there: Birds-of-a-Feather,”Going to the Cloud: Are We Crazy?” Dmitry Sotnikov, 4:30 p.m. Tuesday May 12, room 501A – this one is IT-oriented discussion of risks and benefits of putting your IT systems into the cloud. PowerShell Ask the Experts Session, Dmitry Sotnikov and Kirk Munro, 12:30 p.m. Wednesday May 13, Quest booth 808 – this will actually be PowerShell – not cloud – oriented. Birds-of-a-Feather, “Developing on Azure: Stories from the Trenches,” Dmitry Sotnikov, 6:45 p.m. May 14, room 502A. A developer-oriented discussion so everyone who is kicking the Azure tires can share there war stories and get advice. “Case Study: Migrating Existing Client Applications to Windows Azure,” Dmitry Sotnikov, 2:45 p.m. May 15, room 515B – my main session of the show. I will talk about ... (more)

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo: Show Report

Dmitry Sotnikov's Blog Overall, very exciting times, and a great event put together by the folks at SYS-CON! There was a lot of excitement and optimism throughout the event. As someone put it: cloud computing is about 700 days old. That means that there are a lot of arguments about definitions, and where things are going, and so on. And that also gives a lot of vibe and a lot of fresh community spirit. Below are my notes from all the sessions I attended at the last week’s Cloud Computing Expo 2008 on: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 A few general comments on the conference. First and foremost,... (more)

Microsoft’s First Step Toward Cloud Computing

Azure Session at Cloud Expo Pundits talking about how Windows 7 is all about Microsoft competing against Apple, recovering with Vista consumer adoption disaster, or getting people off of XP, are missing one other – extremely important – part of the Windows 7 story. Windows 7 and its server counterpart – Windows Server 2008 R2 – are actually the first real step in Microsoft’s Windows Cloud Story. Before Windows 7 Microsoft could offer some services (such as Exchange Online) from the cloud – but could not provide full enterprise directory, security and so on – now they can. Micros... (more)

Adobe Flash on the Road to Nowhere

This Wednesday was probably the first day on the (potentially long) path to Adobe Flash decline: the most popular video site out there – YouTube – started offering videos in Flash-less mode for browsers which support HTML 5 and h.264 video codec. This means that today the option is available for Chrome and Safari. Then at some point they will likely add the Ogg codec and support Firefox, or help Firefox get native h.264 codec support. And then IE9 ships and all latest browsers will play videos natively. Flash will no longer be required for video, and why would anyone want it then?... (more)

Cloud Definitions: NIST, Gartner, Forrester

Analysts should love hype – it lets them jump into a hot area and be the thought leaders who everyone has to consult to make any sense out of what is going on in the area. “Cloud” is probably the most hyped word in the industry these days and everyone has a definition of what it is. And despite this being a running joke in the industry, everyone obviously needs definition conversion to happen so we can start speaking the same language here. U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stepped in and did – from my perspective – something truly amazing: they provided ... (more)