Comfortably Dumb

The Microsoft SOA Solutions Team, the team responsible for MSE, is hiring! This is the official job description:

Senior Application Developer Consultant, Microsoft Consulting Services - Solution Services Team is looking for Senior Application Developer Consultants who have a mix of advanced technology and strategic business acumen that would like to focus on advanced SOA customer solutions utilizing the latest Microsoft products including Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), BizTalk Server 2006 R2, and SQL Server 2005. The role requires both broad and deep technology knowledge and the ability to architect a solution by mapping a customer’s business problem to an end-to-end technology solution. Demonstrated ability to engage in senior level technology decision maker discussions related to agility, business value, and .NET is a must. Senior Consultants must have a passion for the customer which is demonstrated through professionalism and striving for excellence in all aspects of the customer/partner experience.

The Application Developer Consultant applies advanced analysis skills (design patterns, UML, etc.) and experience in principals of software design to define appropriate customer solutions. To be credible, he or she must have current and deep experience with the design, development or implementation of .NET and/or competitive technology software systems. Advanced domain knowledge of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and how it can be leveraged across one or more specific industries is also a requirement.

The Application Developer Consultant helps customer/partner account teams identify, pursue and close strategic business development opportunities while continually driving add-on business within existing projects. To accomplish this, Developer Consultants must be effective in fostering executive level relationships. When asked, consultants help translate business or application development requirements into technology requirements for inclusion in contracts and/or statements of work (SOW).

The Application Developer Consultant must have proven experience managing projects through the entire project lifecycle. This includes managing multi-phase/multi-dimensional/multi-resource projects to conclusion while maintaining high customer satisfaction. The role requires an individual who is resourceful, confident under pressure, and has demonstrated skill in both crisis management and expectation management.
The successful candidate will have a BS/BA degree or equivalent work experience combined with a minimum of 6 years relevant work in several of the following areas:

1. Database Technologies - Transact SQL, Analysis Services, SQL Integration Services, SQL XML, Database - Replication, Performance and Scalability.
2. Programming - C# or VB.NET
3. Developer Technologies - .NET Framework 3.5, .NET Compact Framework, Web Services, XML, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Windows Forms
4. Developer Products - Visual Studio.NET, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, Host Integration Server, Project Server, Internet Information Services (IIS) Server, Sharepoint, Windows Server
5. Office System Components - Outlook, SharePoint, InfoPath, Visio, Project, RTC
6. Candidates should have extensive distributed applications development experience and have one or more of the following certifications; MCSE, MCSA, MSDBA, MCSD, MCAD, MSF, MOF or CISSP.
7. Frequent travel (up to 50%) is an integral part of this job, as are high levels of recognition and visibility.

Drop me an email if you are interested.

Just in time for TechEd 2008, the Microsoft SOA Solutions Team is excited to announce the availability of the MSE June 2008 CTP on CodePlex, which has built upon the concepts from the October 2007 CTP (v6.2) release. Besides leveraging .NET 3.5 and VS2008, you will find the following enhancements in this update:

Installation

• SQL Express is supported in Custom installations
• Distributed installations are supported through Custom installations. Deploying MSE components can be installed on different servers in support of a variety of topologies
• Performance Counters are now properly installed

Catalog Server

• UDDI Integration. Published endpoints can be pushed to a UDDI registry
• Hostname association changed from endpoints to runtime servers to more effectively support distributed and load-balanced environments
• Improved tracking of repository changes and updating of runtimes
• Enhanced service catalog notification processing to isolate the impact of changes to the runtime environment
• Tracing of Catalog activity
• Improved server startup after machine reboot
• Bug fixes

Runtime Server

• Channel and Endpoint policy support
• Support for WCF Oneway operations
• Support for WCF FaultContracts
• Enhanced channel model to support more complex declarative service clients
• BAM Behavior. Monitor activity with BizTalk Activity Monitoring
• Improved support for large schemas
• Support for hosting endpoints in the MSE using Net.Tcp and Net.Pipe bindings
• Improved server startup after machine reboot
• Bug fixes

Management Console

• Simplified Service Import Wizard
• WSDL import from file
• Bug fixes

Labs

• Addition of two new labs.

For the Microsoft folks in the audience, we will be refreshing the internal World Wide Offering release in the next few weeks.

I was having issues installing the Zune 2.5 update. I eventually come across a forum post on the web saying to turn on Windows Firewall. That seemed to do the trick, even though I continue to get errors trying to change several settings. So, even if you have OneCare and its firewall running make sure you turn Windows Firewall.