Demystifying SilverLight (Updated)

Microsoft have released and renamed versions of SilverLight thereby causing some confusion. The below release timeline may help,

• SilverLight 1.0.20816 RTW (Release-to-Web): 05-Sep-2007
• SilverLight 1.1.20926.0 Alpha Refresh (re-christened SilverLight 2.0): 05-Sep-2007
• SilverLight 1.0.21115.0 Service Release: 20-Nov-2007 
• SilverLight 2.0 RTM is scheduled to be released at the end of 2008

I also hope the following perspectives help with understanding where the technology currently stands, what is envisaged and what licensing restrictions (if any) exist.

SilverLight 1.0 – Brief Architectural Perspective:

• A SilverLight 1.0 app invokes an embedded SilverLight control in a HTML web page that in turn locates and invokes a XAML file that contains the all-important Canvas object.
•  All other entities in a SilverLight app are hosted within the Canvas object.
• Each of these entities may have custom events associated to them.
• The event handlers are implemented by developers who can invoke the Canvas object DOM via JavaScript only.
• Data models are based on JSON and XML.   

SilverLight 1.0 – Licensing Restrictions: Free install as a plug-in for the browser. Browsers include IE 6 SP2, IE 7, FireFox and Safari. There is currently no support for Opera or Konqueror. 

SilverLight 2.0 – Brief Architectural Perspective:

•  Following Microsoft’s strategy for implementing WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere), SilverLight 2.0 is powered by atleast one running instance of a CoreCLR in a browser process, noting that there can be many more.
• The CoreCLR is basically a mini .NET Framework that is so portable, that it can be run in the browser. This makes the architecture more consistent and a developer’s life easier as s/he can now write code in VB.NET or C#. The inclusion of the LINQ API implies seamless ORM and a robust data access API. It must be noted that currently there is no LINQ to XML support within SilverLight 1.1 Alpha Refresh.
• Improving upon the scripting model in version 1.1, Microsoft have written managed wrappers for the Canvas object’s DOM access.  
• Data models can now be based upon RSS, POX, JSON and XML. 
• The SilverLight 2.0 Architectural Stack is as shown below:

 

SilverLight 2.0 – Licensing Restrictions:

• SilverLight 1.1 was re-christened to SilverLight 2.0 in late November 2007.
• SilverLight 2.0 is to be distributed as a free browser plug-in.
• Microsoft is to announce the SilverLight 2.0 Beta release during MIX ’08 in early March 2008.
• SilverLight 2.0 Beta 1 released on 05-Mar-2008.
• SilverLight 2.0 Beta 2 is scheduled to be released during the 2nd quarter of 2008.
• SilverLight 2.0 RTM is scheduled to be released at the end of 2008.
• Visual Studio 2008 requires a license for development.
• Visual Studio Tools for SilverLight is an empowering Visual Studio 2008 add-in that is currently (as of this writing) in Beta 1. Click here to download.

SQL Server 2008 – Will new features be leveraged in TRIM Context and SharePoint?

With the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008 (aka; Katmai) during the 3rd quarter of 2008, Microsoft seem to be working hard on delivering some cool functionality with the new database management system.  With reference to some of the information management products that I work with; namely TRIM Context and SharePoint, I see vast potential for improvement in these products while leveraging new SQL Server 2008 features.

A couple of new features that really excite me with respect to TRIM and SharePoint are:

1. The addition of the FILESTREAM data type in Katmai that will contain both structured and semi-structured data. This means that structured meta-data about the file is stored in the database itself, while the semi-structured BLOB data  resides on the NTFS file system. With SharePoint 2007, I never really understood why Microsoft elected to place files in a relational database rather than on an NTFS volume (built in the very first place to optimise streaming). Anyway, the point is that when the database is backed up, referenced files on the NTFS volume are backed up as well. T-SQL and Win32 API’s can now be used to access files seamlessly. I would think that Microsoft would be keen to leverage this feature in SharePoint 2009.
2. TRIM Record Locations are a reference to a physical or abstract existence of a body of information. Therefore a record location in TRIM could point to a person who owns the body of information or a shelf location where the body of information resides (eg; a book in a library). With the introduction of new spatial data types GEOMETRY AND GEOGRAPHY in Katmai, planar (flat-earth) and ellipsoidal (round-earth) data can be represented in SQL Server 2008 seamlessly. It would be a pity not to see Tower Software and HP ignoring to extend the Record Location TRIM concept to use the new spatial data types as this would be extremely applicable to the records world and several key industry verticals including State and Federal Department, Asset Tracking and Asset Management and auto-allocation.
3. The Change Data Capture feature being introduced in Katmai could be leveraged extensively within both TRIM and SharePoint.The Change Data Capture feature provides the ability to capture what has changed in a database structure as a steady stream. While this push-model could not only provide OLTP -> OLAP integration for both products, current capabilities of the products with respect to retention and auditing could be vastly improved.