Abdulrahman Nabil

How to Maximize VMWare disk (.Vmdk) Virtual Machine

2011-07-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

@ This post I created as I had meet a diffculity after my VM get to full after installing my Winodws server 2008 R2 which apears to consume more disk space than what's planned during instllation.

To Maximize your Vm ware Vmdk file's follow this steps :

1- Using the VDiskManager :

1.Turn off the virtual machine;
2.Open a Command Prompt and go to:
C:\Program Files\VMWare\VMWare Server or C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation

or for 64-bit
C:\Program Files (x86)\VMWare\VMWare Server or C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation

3.Run this command to expand the virtual disk:
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 12GB "c:\My harddisk.vmdk" (in this case, 12 GB will be the new size). The file name can contain spaces because of the double quotes.

Note: Because this only expands the disk and not the partition, you'll need to resize the partition table as well. This can be done by 3rd party tools like 'Partition Magic', but also with 'diskpart.exe', a built-in tool of Windows. VMWare provides a list of tools on their web site: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004071

I prefer to use Microsoft diskpart.exe and that’s where this post is about

If your VM runs Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
These versions of Windows ship with a more enhanced version of diskpart.exe that supports partition extension for bootable disks.

1.Power on your virtual machine;
2.Open a Command Prompt and type:
diskpart

3.Type:
list volume

Remember the volume number (#) of your volume!

4.Type:
select volume (the number from step 8)

5.Type:
extend

6.Your now finished! You do not have to reboot.

If your VM runs Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 or Server 2003 R2
If your resized virtual disk is bootable, you cannot use diskpart from the virtual machine itself. Use a 3rd party tool or use another virtual machine. Here I describe how to use diskpart.exe with a 2nd virtual machine.

1.Add the increased virtual hard disk to a second virtual machine;
2.Power on this 2nd virtual machine;

3.Open a Command Prompt and type:
diskpart

4.Type:
list volume

Remember the volume number (#) of your volume!

5.Type:
select volume (the number from step 8)

6.Type:
extend

7.Turn off this 2nd virtual machine and remove the virtual hard disk from the virtual machine configuration. This won't delete the hard disk file from disk;

8.Your now finished! You can boot your VM with the resized disk. Windows automatically recognizes the new and correct disk and volume size.

please leave me a commnet if its working fine with you or not.

Steve Ballmer: Open Door Keynote

2010-11-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive OfficerRiyadh, Saudi ArabiaNov. 2, 2010

STEVE BALLMER:

Well, thanks. It's a great honor and privilege for me to have a chance to be here with you today to share a little bit some thoughts about where things are and where things are going, and share some of my enthusiasm for the opportunities for all of us in the IT industry to really drive forward, to deliver amazing solutions, and to have an amazing impact.

We all, everybody in this room, we all picked an industry that I think is particularly wild, dynamic and exciting.

You know, the computer was invented 60 years ago roughly, 60, 65 years ago, and yet we sit here in the year 2010, and if you look at the next five years, the next 10 years, I think there's going to be more change, more innovation, more positive forward motion because of IT than at any time in history, which after 60 years it just implies that we've all picked a really wonderful, wonderful place to work.

I want to talk to you about some of the big changes that we see coming technologically, and what we're doing at Microsoft in our products to help you realize and take advantage of some of the big opportunities that are in front of us.

We talk a lot about the cloud -- the cloud, the cloud, the cloud. In a sense, you can almost ask, what is the cloud? Everybody talks about it, and I bet if I asked five people to stand up and give a sentence about the cloud, we'd get five different sentences is my guess.
And that might be OK. Our industry has a way of like picking buzzwords to get excited about, and being imprecise about what they are, and yet the phenomenon in aggregate is really as important as our industry says.

Well, to me the cloud refers to four or five different innovations that are all going on at the same time, and each and every one of them has the opportunity to have really a remarkable impact on society and our industry.

Whatever those opportunities are, the first thing we've got to remember is the cloud will create new opportunities, because somehow the ability to build software solutions, to get those globally deployed, to have those solutions do things that people couldn't anticipate in the past, that's fundamental to the cloud. I mean, literally if you could write an application sitting here in Riyadh, and immediately have it be globally discoverable, usable, scalable to people anywhere in the world, that's a beautiful thing.

The cloud also brings with it though a new set of responsibilities. There's no question about that either. I'm going to talk about public clouds and private clouds, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but suffice it to say that when we speak of the cloud, we're talking about putting more than ever important information in electronic format, and making it more accessible. And that implies a responsibility on us as a vendor and on all of you as IT professionals to put even more attention into issues of security and privacy and data integrity than perhaps at any time in the past.
So, the cloud will bring new opportunities and new responsibilities, but the cloud will be built on two foundations.

No. 1, the cloud really is, as we say, about new server advances that are powering the cloud, and new things from the cloud are powering the server.

The cloud brings together Internet computing, data center computing, mobile computing, PC computing, into one mixed whole.
If we think about some of the advantages of each of those models, they're obvious: the ubiquity of the mobile, the richness of the PC, the control that we all have over our servers and data centers, and the ability really to have a global footprint that comes from the Internet.
So, how do we bring the best of those together? That's the cloud. And on the back end that's a big deal.
Today, as we all build applications, we think about building those things for servers. If I go to anybody in the audience, they say, OK, I've got to build a new solution for my company, it's going to be a new e-government application -- I was just some public sector customers -- we're going to build a new e-government application, one of first questions will be, how many servers do we need? Do we need a new router, how does the switch work?

A lot of the thought process that goes into building and deploying an app is really about how you do configuration and deployment and update and management and operations. The degree of complexity that comes, because in today's server world the data center and the network are very tied to the application, and that means a cost of complexity and agility, a lack of agility.

About five or six years ago, we started building our Bing service, and the first thing we found out -- because Bing now has about, I don't know, 300,000 servers in it -- is we couldn't have developers thinking about their own servers. We couldn't have people -- and we change Bing five times a day; we're propping new releases. You simply can't manage that kind of environment unless you can separate these things. That implies a new way of thinking about data center design, hardware, network, compute; it implies a new way of writing applications.
So, the cloud really is about not just a new business model for applications; it really relates to a whole new architecture in which we get dynamic data centers where the applications and the data centers themselves are abstracted.

The cloud is also about new devices on the front end. Whether it's where we and others are going with smartphones, whether it's about the shifting definition of a PC to embrace new data types, whether it's about the move to embrace Natural User Interface in devices, devices that you can touch, talk to, they recognize you, "Hey, Steve, I see you, welcome, welcome back home today," you're going to get a new class of smart device that's more natural, that learns about you, that moves with you and embraces you.

The cloud is also about new applications, applications that can think about not just specific people and specific data that lives inside your application, but the cloud is also about turning all of the world's people and all of the world's data into information sets against which we can write programs.

Let's say you want to get a community together of parents who are interested in some childhood disease. That's not easy to do today.
Let's say you want to get together a group of people who are working on a lease, maybe a tenant and a landlord and their bankers and their accountants, and you want to operate securely on a document. That's not easy today.

Let's say you want to write a program that goes through -- I don't know, since I'm in Saudi Arabia, I'll pick an example from the oil industry, but it goes through and analyzes what's happened to oil prices at various times based upon, I don't know, what the level of debt was to GDP to various countries in the world, since that's been a crisis of late.
I actually tried to do this not with oil prices, I tried to do it with economic growth, and you can search, you use our Bing search engine, you can find all of it. Maybe you can use the other guy's search engine, too, and find it all. But you can't write a program that just goes out and gets the data for you, and puts it in a simple spreadsheet the way you would want it to work.
So, the cloud is about new applications that use the data and information about people that lives on the Internet, it's about a new architecture for the back end to write applications, it's about new client devices, and of course it's also about a new business model. It's about a business model where you can rent, if you want to, capacity as opposed to buy capacity.

We have a number of government customers in the audience. Government customers say, hey, look, we don't want to put all of our data in the cloud. I agree with that, and that's why I think it's very important, and we've announced the notion of something we call private clouds, so that you'll have a Windows Azure system in the public cloud, and then you'll also have a Windows Azure appliance that our customers can buy to have their own private cloud systems.
So, when it comes to the cloud we like to say we're all in, whether it's Windows or Office, whether it's Exchange and SharePoint, whether it's Bing and Xbox and Windows Phones, the PC. When it comes to the cloud, I would say everything we're doing, every product, Windows goes to the cloud, and you see that in what we're doing with Internet Explorer 9, you see that the way Internet Explorer 9 shows off the best of the PC, but at the same time embraces Internet standards. You see in in what we're doing in Windows Phone, which we're going to demonstrate in a minute. You see it in the new Xbox 360, and the way it uses the cloud to know about me, recognize me, and connect me with my friends. You see it in Bing, you see it in Office, you see it in our Windows Server and SQL Server products, and the way we're moving them to the cloud with Windows Azure and SQL Azure.

One of the most important products from us, and one of the emblematic products on the client side in terms of embracing the cloud, is Windows Phone 7. There's no question that I wish we had not run into a couple of difficulties and that Windows Phone 7 had been perhaps a year or so earlier, but Windows Phone 7 is a fantastic product.

< Windows Phones really are, as we like to say in our marketing, they really are a different kind of phone. They really are phones that let you, at a glance, connect with the people and information that is most important to you in life. It builds on this concept of looking at the people and information of the world as something that you draw in and make relevant and personal, and the user interface on every device.

Windows Phone applications are starting to come to market, even though we've only been a week or two in delivery. We see a range, now thousands of applications being developed using familiar Visual Studio tools.

Windows Phones have a diversity of hardware. You want a keyboard, you can get a keyboard. You want a big screen, big screen; little screen, little screen. You want a nice set of stereo speakers, you can get that. It's not one size fits all like it is with some of our competitors; and at the same time, you write an application for one Windows Phone, whether it's from LG or Samsung or HTC or Dell, or anybody else, that same application looks, acts, and behaves just the same across all of the Windows Phones that you might buy.

ABDUR RAHAM: As-Salāmu `Alaykum. No, I need actually more. As-Salāmu `Alaykum.
AUDIENCE: Wa Alayka-as-Salam.

ABDUR RAHAM: So, it's nice to be here actually. I really thank everyone to have the time to attend the Open Door. And I'm actually being honored to show you Windows 7 and our innovation with Windows 7.

With Windows 7 we get an opportunity to take a fresh look at how people use their phones, and really we asked ourselves two simple questions, really simple questions: How we can make a phone that focuses on the individual -- that's you, that's everyone here -- and also that makes tasks easier. That's one. The other question is actually how we can deliver great experiences that make your life easier.

Very simple questions, do you agree? Yes or no? Agree? Very good.
So, with those kinds of questions, we actually came up with a phenomenal result. That is what we call Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 has a smart design that makes your life easier, and does exactly what you want with your phone whether for business or personal self.
And at the same time, we built something called Windows Phone hubs that get you integrated experiences that focus on the most easier and the most important tasks in your life.
So, to start off, you know, you can see like at a glance I can see what's happening on my screen. I've got a number of missed calls, I've got a number of e-mails, I have like three e-mails to check every day, and I have SMSs and everything. So, I can actually take a look at this you-know-what screen, and know what's happening with my phone.

Once I unlock, here you go, a smart design, a stark screen that actually focuses on you, not your manager or not your whatever. It's actually about you. It's actually things that really is important for you. You can see how smooth it goes with you. It just, you know, romances as it goes.

You can see, for example, the things that here you can see in this; that's me, that's my card, and that's what's happening on my social networks, all of my friends around and so on; very easy, very smooth.

What's very important is that we're not just stopping there. We are actually doing more than that. We're building what is called Windows Phone hubs that's all about the most important things in your life.

So, let's take one, People hub. I think this is the most important thing if you are using a phone. So, with People hub we get all your contacts. And not only that, it actually goes beyond the contacts and connects to all social networks that's available within your network.
So, if I go to People hub, for example, you can see that what's new, whether it's my, it's my friends, it's my family, or my business colleagues and everyone. I can do a search, and this is where the contextual search comes in. And more importantly, if I am communicating with Wa-El (ph), because he's delivering this keynote with me, demo, so I can actually click on Wa-El's contact, and I can see every detail about Wa-El, whether it's coming from Facebook, Windows Live, any other network as well.

Once I go there to linked profile, that's one contact, multiple linked profiles, I can see that Windows Phone discovered that Wa-El is part of my Windows Live network, would you like me to actually suggest to link it to this profile. So, it's just a tab and here you go, it's there.
I need an applause. (Applause.) Yes, exactly.

That's not the whole story. Going back to, for example, another Windows Phone hub, Pictures hub, I believe everyone here uses their phones to photo, to share photos and so on.
So, what the Pictures hub does for you is not only taking photos, but actually includes the entire collection. Everything you use in your life that is called a photo would be there. So, if I go there, it's actually every single photo in my phone, every single photo that's out there in Facebook albums, as you can see, and every single photo that's out there in Windows Live.
And if I'm interested, for example, to go through this nature album, for example, I can quickly go through the pictures, and I can see every single comment on those pictures coming from Windows Live, coming from Facebook, or any other social network you would be interested in. So, it's smooth and easy.

One last Windows Phone hub, and that's actually not everything, but the Office hub. You would like to create documents, edit documents, share documents, and also synchronize documents with everyone that's in your surroundings.

So, with Office hub you get every single note that you're interested in, and synchronized with Windows Live SkyDrive. That's what we'll be talking about in a minute.
If I go, for example, into this company address, I can see rich text and notes, with pictures, and even voice, and directions to the company address. More importantly, if I go, for example, if I'm interested to show work on a Word document, it's just a matter of typing in that document, and seeing what's happening with this document. And what's very interesting is that it's really a richer experience. I can go through the outline, and click through the different titles and headlines in my phone, in my document, and I can see every single comment that's been posted, whether from my side, or while Kathleen was actually editing this document just two days ago.
Not that only. As I told you, you can synchronize documents to SkyDrive, but also you can take your SharePoint, corporate SharePoint, completely offline if you're interested. So, you can see, for example, these documents are coming from SharePoint, fully synchronized. I can make them available offline for editing, and everything. So, you can see those documents, and I can actually connect to multiple SharePoint sites as well.

That's pretty much it. It's just all about this smart design that focuses on you as an individual, and your tasks, and it's about the Windows Phone experiences that gets you the most important things in your life.

Thank you. (Applause.)
I would like to invite Wa-el to come and show you some stuff about what we're doing with the cloud, and consumer Windows Live products. Wa-el.
WA-EL: Well, sorry. Thank you.
What I would love to show you today is, what does cloud concept mean for a normal end user. And I thought the best way to show that is to take you on a tour in our new Windows Live experience. So, let me start by looking into Live.com. And please, people in this audience, if you like what you see, please don't be shy and just give us random applause on whatever you like to see.

So, let me take the first thing on this page. So, you can see on this page, because I'm already logged in, you can see this page is customized for me, reflecting my style. I've changed the background, the colors, the themes, and the picture. So, what we have here is a navigation that will take me to all Live Services, and I can see what's going on in my Hotmail, SkyDrive, Messenger, and Office. By the way, stay tuned; I am going to show you a few services from these later on in my demo.
So, let's see what do we have in the mid-section here? So, you can see my Hotmail highlights, and I can see all my incoming e-mails, what's new, upcoming birthdays, and at the same time you can see at the right side my Messenger friends. These are contacts, and you can see these are people from my MSN and my Facebook. So, I can start chatting with them at any time.
So, I think that's really cool. What is even cooler is the second section, which is the social part. If you look at which is my favorite part, actually this is the part actually where I can connect live to multiple social networks. In this case, I'm connected to Facebook and LinkedIn. So, what you actually get is all these status updates, videos, pictures, coming from both networks, and they're combined in this one place. And I can be up to date on what's going on on these networks actually. And I think this is really, really a cool feature. What do you think, guys? (Applause.)

OK. So, let me take you to Hotmail, and show you a few e-mail tricks there. It seems that I have an e-mail from my friend Abd-Rahman Sufani (ph), and let me just open the e-mail there. So, Abd-Rahman actually took a trip last week to Singapore, and he wrote an article about that. So, he wanted to get my opinion about it. What's really cool about Hotmail is, because Abd-Rahman sent this document through Hotmail, it will automatically, as soon as I open this document, it will automatically use the Office Web Apps, and open it on the browser.
So, this is actually what you're going to see. If you remember from Abd-Rahman's demo, this is actually the same document that you saw on the phone, but this time you're seeing it on the browser. It has the same format. It's giving the rich formatting, with everything, with the pictures and everything. But that's the easy part.

You know that lots of companies actually, today, on the cloud, they are doing this. But you know what's really unique and cool is, if I click on edit on the browser, I get this. I get a full, rich editing ribbon on the browser without having a client on my side. (Applause.) I can start actually typing here and change the format, do everything I want as if I am on my PC actually. Let me click here to save.

So, basically, if I am traveling, I can use my phone, or if I'm in an Internet cafe, I can use Office Web Apps, and edit this document on the browser. So, let me but is sending an e-mail, actually sending a document through an e-mail, the only way to share documents? That's not the only way. Let me show you another service in Windows Live, which is SkyDrive. So, let me take you to SkyDrive here.

So, SkyDrive is basically a service that will give you 25 gigs of storage where you can put all your files, pictures, videos, whatever you like on this storage. Also, you can share these documents there. Let me show you something that I've already did. This is an article that I've already uploaded. And I've invited some friends to edit this document with me. So, I don't need to send an e-mail, actually, I just give them permissions to do that. So, let me click on edit on the browser.

So, this is an article about the intellectual property, which is, by the way, something very important for us. Keep in mind that you always get the genuine software. So, still, you can see this nice fidelity Arabic document, where I can just start editing on the fly from wherever I am. But still, if I would like to have the full, rich editing experience, I would still love to do all of my editing and tracking on Microsoft Word, right. So, did you guys love what we did on editing documents?

So, if you liked that, you're going to love what we did on pictures. So, let me go back to Abd-Rahman's e-mail. One more last feature I would love to show in Hotmail is the ability actually to look at attachments without the need to download them, actually. So, if I click on the picture here, I can actually navigate through all of these pictures without actually downloading them. And this is nice and cool feature, actually. (Applause.)

One more last thing. Abd-Rahman actually is asking me, he knows that I have attended the wedding last week, and he wants me to send some pictures. One problem, though, I and most of you keep all personal photos at home, at home PCs. So, I don't bring them in my working life up here. Luckily, I have installed on my machine here our Windows Live Essentials, and basically what a Windows Live Essential is a package of a couple of software that comes with Movie Maker, MSN Messenger, Family Safety which provides you safe family browsing, and the Live Mesh, and the Photo Gallery. So, what I'm going to talk about is the Live Mesh. And the Live Mesh is a software that will allow me to synchronize devices between so I can add my home machine, I can add my working machine, and I can add my phone, and I'll synchronize all of that using SkyDrive.

So, what I'm going to do here is, I'll access my home machine, actually. I've already synchronized my home machine on SkyDrive, so I can access the wedding pictures from my home machine directly as if I am accessing it here locally. (Applause.) So, these are the pictures from the wedding.

One more cool software I want to show you is the Photo Gallery. And the photo gallery is one software that will allow you to share, organize, and edit your pictures. So, if you can see if I select a couple of pictures here, I'm just one click away from sharing these pictures on my favorite social network, such as SkyDrive, Facebook, Flickr, whatever I like. And that's also a nice cool feature. What I would like to show you is the face recognition, actually. So, the Photo Gallery actually can recognize faces, and will tell you you need to tag those people, actually. So, you can see who are these people and you can start tagging them.

So, what's next? So, the more you tag people, the more Photo Gallery actually will get educated and even will suggest names for you. So, it's not only recognizing faces. In this case if you look here Photo Gallery already understands that this is my grandfather, because I have already tagged him so much it's asking me, is this your grandfather, and it's, yes, please confirm. Yes. (Applause.)

One more cool feature, one of the limitations that I have on my camera, I couldn't take a wide-angle picture. So, I have this big group of people, so I take these two pictures, actually. I took this first picture and the second picture, and I couldn't actually fit them all in one picture. But, what is actually really a nice cool feature here, if I selected the two pictures here, click on create, create a panorama. So, what Photo Gallery will do is, we'll take the two overlapping pictures and create a stitch out of them, and this is what we'll actually get. (Applause.)

This is the first picture, second picture, and this is the last picture, and still the face recognition, all that stuff, works. So, with this we already reached our end of our tour. You have seen Windows Live. You have seen the social part. You have seen what did we do with documents, with e-mail, with the new Hotmail, all that stuff. What I want to really, or what I want you to do today is to log into Live.com, and start using these services today, because this is cloud for you, and this is cloud for everyone. Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoyed the tour. (Applause.)

Back to you, Steve.
STEVE BALLMER: I have to say, I'm going to also recognize cloud's grandfather at this stage forward. We were trying to do a couple of things there. I talked about the cloud, the cloud, the cloud, the cloud, the cloud, and we're all IT people and can get enthusiastic about what the cloud permits. What we just had a chance to show you is what the cloud permits, a new class of device, a device that thinks as a smart device from the get-go. We had a chance to show you some of the new kinds of applications that you can build once you assume you have the cloud back end. The cloud helps us do recognition. The cloud gets smarter. The cloud is a place of storage.

We have customers moving with us today to the cloud. The cloud is not something just for the consumer, or something for the future. We have 10,000 customers who have moved with us to the Windows Azure cloud. We have 40 million users who have signed up to work with us with Office in the cloud. The names of companies we're working with include big names. McDonalds, Nokia, Starbucks, Siemens, Philips; these are not small companies. They're committing their collaboration and the communication environments with us to the cloud. They're writing mission-critical applications for marketing and field service, working with us in the cloud. So, the cloud phenomenon has really taken off today.

Here in Saudi Arabia we have a number of good partners that we've worked with on public and private cloud solutions; with Mobily, a tier-one mobile operator, we've worked on data and hosting solutions in the Kingdom. We've established a data center in partnership with them here in Saudi Arabia, where they're hosting Exchange and our Lync unified communications technology, and CRM.

With Exa, a breadth hoster here in Saudi Arabia, we're doing work that is similar, but also even more in the CRM arena. With the Saudi Post we are working on solutions to provide cloud-based e-mail services for consumer and businesses alike. So, the cloud is taking off. We have solutions that customers are embracing on a global scale. We have partners who have cloud data centers that we are working with whose data centers are hosted here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And it will be our great honor and our great privilege to have a chance to work with all of your organizations and companies to help you get to the cloud.

The cloud presents us all with the bright future. It's not cloudy, so to speak, in the world of the cloud. And we hope you'll come with us. If we can help please let us know. I'm SteveB@Microsoft.com. If you want to follow up via e-mail I'd love to hear from you. It would be wonderful. I think we're going to have a chance just because of time to have just a few of the questions that you submitted, but I look forward to hearing from you after the fact on e-mail. And so Samir is going to come up and we're going to take a few questions. Thank you very much.
SAMIR NOMAN: Developers, developers, developers.
STEVE BALLMER: Developers, developers, developers.

SAMIR NOMAN: What are Microsoft's strategies for Windows Phone developers? This is a question that was given to us by Adris Zavar (ph) from Neshum (ph) Insurance.
STEVE BALLMER: We have tools available for free today; just go to Microsoft.com, or do a Bing search. You can download a Windows Phone toolkit that lets you build Windows Phone applications. It gives you an emulator so you can test them and run them right on your PC, and of course, Windows Phones available in Saudi Arabia in December of 2010. (Applause.)
SAMIR NOMAN: Another question from Fareed Shanowi (ph), from VNS. Is cloud computing anything new, or is it just a new name for hosted services?
STEVE BALLMER: Excellent question. Cloud to me is something new. It does include some of the same concepts in hosting, but hosting was about taking the existing environment and sticking it on the Internet. The cloud is about re-architecting the way you build applications to be fundamentally more agile and lower cost. And if you look at our Windows Azure system, that's what it does.
The cloud isn't just about moving things into the Internet, it's about enabling a new class of applications that know more about the data and people of the world. That's different than hosting. And the cloud is about a new class of device, not just the existing devices, but we're taking Xbox, we're taking Windows Phone, we're taking Windows in new directions to use the intelligence on the back end in new ways. That's the distinction between just taking a server and hosting it in the cloud.

SAMIR NOMAN: How can cloud computing help businesses in Saudi?
STEVE BALLMER: I think cloud computing can help businesses everywhere be more agile in application development, be more cost-effective and help better connect with the customers, or citizens in the case of e-government, that you do business with.
SAMIR NOMAN: OK. And as a final question, what differentiates Microsoft from other companies who are already offering cloud services?

STEVE BALLMER: There are two kinds of cloud services. There's cloud services for the consumer and for the business. And I'll focus a little bit on both. When it comes to consumer cloud services, I think the work that we're doing we've got good competition, we've got competition primarily in the form of Google. But, if you look at what we're doing with Bing, if you look at the way we're partnering and working with companies like Twitter and Facebook, that Google is not, if you look at the work that we're doing to push forward the kinds of things people want to do for personal e-mail, photos, collaboration, I think we're really stretching and pushing some advantage, clear advantages versus Google.
If you go to the business side of the cloud, there really are two components. There's what we've got with our Office 365 cloud service, where frankly the competition is probably Google, but they're not close. They don't have the experience we do. They don't have the number of customers we do. They don't have the capabilities we do. They don't have the security that we do. You can look at it, but I feel pretty confident that we're way ahead.

The other aspect of the cloud for business is the cloud as a platform for building applications, Windows Azure and SQL Azure. There the competition probably looks like Amazon, maybe a little bit Google, and Salesforce.com, a little bit VMware, a little bit IBM. All of our competitors will either tell you to just do the private cloud, or just do the public cloud. And the truth of the matter is, the best strategies, the strategies that are really going to help you build applications with greater agility, and yet still be able to have when you need it the privacy of the private cloud, you need to have a model that fits in both.

VMware and IBM will tell you they can help you build from scratch a private cloud. We'll sell you a private cloud in a box. Google, Salesforce, Amazon, they'll tell you everything has got to go in the public cloud, which I just think is a non-starter, not just for government customers, but for a number of our private customers, commercial customers, with their important mission-critical data.

So, I think we're quite differentiated in having a strategy that spans both. And thinks at the platform level, not just at the infrastructure level. But, I encourage you all to check it out.
SAMIR NOMAN: Thank you, Steve.
Thank you all.
STEVE BALLMER: Thanks very much. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
END

How to Install Visual Studio 2010 MSDN Help

2010-09-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

Install From DVD Disk :
The Name of the file that HLM uses to install content is helpcontentsetup.msha. that file is HTML file that identifies help content that can be installed locally.
Use the following instrcution to find and install help content from media or you DVD package :
1-Lunch Help Lib Manager from "help" menu in VS 2010 IDE . click on help -> "Manage Help Settings".
2-After HLM lunch click install content from disk.
3-Navigate to your DVD then ProductDocumentaion Folder and choose "HelpContentSetup.msha".
4- click ok, and then select the content which you need to install after the content apears from your Media.

ASP.NET MVC Overview

2010-02-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern separates an application into three main components: the model, the view, and the controller. The ASP.NET MVC framework provides an alternative to the ASP.NET Web Forms pattern for creating Web applications. The ASP.NET MVC framework is a lightweight, highly testable presentation framework that (as with Web Forms-based applications) is integrated with existing ASP.NET features, such as master pages and membership-based authentication. The MVC framework is defined in the System.Web.Mvc assembly.

MVC design pattern

MVC is a standard design pattern that many developers are familiar with. Some types of Web applications will benefit from the MVC framework. Others will continue to use the traditional ASP.NET application pattern that is based on Web Forms and postbacks. Other types of Web applications will combine the two approaches; neither approach excludes the other.
The MVC framework includes the following components:
Models. Model objects are the parts of the application that implement the logic for the application's data domain. Often, model objects retrieve and store model state in a database. For example, a Product object might retrieve information from a database, operate on it, and then write updated information back to a Products table in a SQL Server database.
In small applications, the model is often a conceptual separation instead of a physical one. For example, if the application only reads a dataset and sends it to the view, the application does not have a physical model layer and associated classes. In that case, the dataset takes on the role of a model object.
Views. Views are the components that display the application's user interface (UI).

Typically, this UI is created from the model data. An example would be an edit view of a Products table that displays text boxes, drop-down lists, and check boxes based on the current state of a Product object.
Controllers. Controllers are the components that handle user interaction, work with the model, and ultimately select a view to render that displays UI. In an MVC application, the view only displays information; the controller handles and responds to user input and interaction.

For example, the controller handles query-string values, and passes these values to the model, which in turn might use these values to query the database.
The MVC pattern helps you create applications that separate the different aspects of the application (input logic, business logic, and UI logic), while providing a loose coupling between these elements. The pattern specifies where each kind of logic should be located in the application.

The UI logic belongs in the view. Input logic belongs in the controller. Business logic belongs in the model. This separation helps you manage complexity when you build an application, because it enables you to focus on one aspect of the implementation at a time. For example, you can focus on the view without depending on the business logic.
The loose coupling between the three main components of an MVC application also promotes parallel development. For example, one developer can work on the view, a second developer can work on the controller logic, and a third developer can focus on the business logic in the model.

What's New in the .NET Framework Version 4

2010-02-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

What's New in the .NET Framework Version 4
The new features and improvements for .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are described in the following sections:
· Application Compatibility and Deployment.
· Parallel Computing.
· Improved Security Model.
· Core New Features and Improvements
· Networking.
· Web.
· Client.
· Data.
· Communications and Workflow.

Application Compatibility and Deployment

The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 is designed so that applications and components from earlier versions work smoothly, except in a limited number of known cases. If your application or component does not work after .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 is installed, please submit a bug on the Microsoft Connect Web site. You can test compatibility as described in the .NET Framework 4 Application Compatibility topic and learn about new features by using the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 Walkthroughs. For additional information and known migration issues, visit the .NET Framework Compatibility Blog.
The ComponentGuaranteesAttribute enables developers of class libraries to mark their libraries, types, and type methods with an attribute that indicates how clients can expect their existing code to run against future versions of the library.
The following sections describe deployment improvements.

Client Profile

The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 Client Profile supports more platforms than in previous versions and provides a fast deployment experience for your Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) or Windows Forms applications. For more information, see .NET Framework Client Profile.
In-Process Side-by-Side Runtime Host Activation
This feature enables an application to load and start multiple versions of the .NET Framework in the same process. For example, you can run applications that load add-ins that are based on the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 and add-ins that are based on the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 in the same process. Older components continue to use the older .NET Framework version, and new components use the new .NET Framework version.

Parallel Computing

The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 introduces a new programming model for writing multithreaded and asynchronous code that greatly simplifies the work of application and library developers. The new model enables developers to write efficient, fine-grained, and scalable parallel code in a natural idiom without having to work directly with threads or the thread pool. The new Namespace and other related types support this new model. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), which is a parallel implementation of LINQ to Objects, enables similar functionality through declarative syntax. For more information, see Parallel Programming in the .NET Framework.
The following sections describe synchronization and threading support for parallel computing.
Unified Model for Cancellation
The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 provides a new unified model for cancellation of asynchronous operations. The new System.Threading ::
CancellationTokenSource class is used to create CancellationToken that may be passed to any number of operations on multiple threads. By cancelling the token source object, the IsCancellationRequested property on the token is set to true and the token’s wait handle is signaled, at which time any registered actions with the token are invoked. Any object that has a reference to that token can monitor the value of that property and respond as appropriate.

Thread-Safe Collection Classes

The new System.Collections.Concurrent namespace introduces several new thread-safe collection classes that provide lock-free access to items whenever useful, and fine-grained locking when locks are appropriate. The use of these classes in multi-threaded scenarios should improve performance over collection types such as ArrayList and List Of .
Synchronization Primitives
New synchronization primitives in the System.Threading namespace enable fine-grained concurrency and faster performance by avoiding expensive locking mechanisms.

Improved Security Model

The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 provides a new simplified security mode. For more information, see Security Changes in the .NET Framework 4.

Core New Features and Improvements

The following sections describe new features and improvements provided by the common language runtime (CLR) and the base class libraries.
Diagnostics and Performance
Earlier versions of the .NET Framework provided no way to determine whether a particular application domain was affecting other application domains, because the operating system APIs and tools, such as the Windows Task Manager, were precise only to the process level. Starting with the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2, you can get processor usage and memory usage estimates per application domain.
The AppDomain class provides new resource monitoring properties. Application domain resource monitoring is available through the managed and native hosting APIs and event tracing for Windows (ETW). When this feature has been enabled, it collects statistics on all application domains in the process for the life of the process.
You can now access the ETW events for diagnostic purposes to improve performance. For more information, see CLR ETW Events and Using Event Tracing for Windows to Log CLR Events. Also see Performance Counters and In-Process Side-By-Side Applications.
In the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2, you can attach profilers to a running process at any point, perform the requested profiling tasks, and then detach the profiler. For more information, see the IClrProfiling::AttachProfiler method.
The HandleProcessCorruptedStateExceptionsAttribute attribute enables managed code to handle exceptions that indicate corrupted process state.
Garbage Collection
The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 provides background garbage collection, which results in fewer pauses in your application's performance. For more information, see the entry So, what’s new in the CLR 4.0 GC? in the CLR Garbage Collector blog.

Code Contracts

Code contracts let you specify contractual information that is not represented by a method's or type's signature alone. The new System.Diagnostics.Contracts namespace contains classes that provide a language-neutral way to express coding assumptions in the form of preconditions, postconditions, and object invariants. The contracts improve testing with run-time checking, enable static contract verification, and support documentation generation. For more information, see Code Contracts.
Embedded Interop Types
You no longer have to ship primary interop assemblies (PIAs) to deploy applications that interoperate with unmanaged objects. In the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2, compilers can embed the parts of the interop assemblies that add-ins actually use, and type safety is ensured by the common language runtime.

Dynamic Language Runtime

The dynamic language runtime (DLR) is a new runtime environment that adds a set of services for dynamic languages to the CLR. The DLR makes it easier to develop dynamic languages to run on the .NET Framework and to add dynamic features to statically typed languages. To support the DLR, the new System.Dynamic namespace is added to the .NET Framework. In addition, several new classes that support the .NET Framework infrastructure are added to the System.Runtime.CompilerServices namespace. For more information, see Dynamic Language Runtime Overview.
Covariance and Contravariance
Several generic interfaces and delegates now support covariance and contravariance. For more information, see Covariance and Contravariance in Generics.

BigInteger and Complex Structures

The new System.Numerics
BigInteger structure is an arbitrary-precision integer data type that supports all the standard integer operations, including bit manipulation. It can be used from any .NET Framework language. In addition, some of the new .NET Framework languages (such as F# and IronPython) have built-in support for this structure.
The new System.Numerics Complex structure represents a complex number that supports arithmetic and trigonometric operations with complex numbers.
Tuples
The.NET Framework 4 Beta 2 adds new generic tuple classes, and also provides a Tuple class that contains static factory methods for creating tuples.
The .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 class library contains the new System.Runtime.ExceptionServices namespace, and adds the ability to handle corrupted state exceptions.
File System Enumerations
New file enumeration methods in the System.IO.Directory and System.IO.DirectoryInfo classes return IEnumerable

collections instead of arrays. For examples, see the Directory.EnumerateDirectories and DirectoryInfo .EnumerateDirectories methods.
The static System.IO .File class provides the new ReadLines methods that read lines from files into IEnumerable collections. These methods are useful in LINQ scenarios where you may want to quickly and efficiently query the contents of a text file and write the results to a log file without allocating any arrays.

Memory-Mapped Files

The .NET Framework now supports memory-mapped files. You can use memory-mapped files to edit very large files and to create shared memory for interprocess communication. The new System.IO .UnmanagedMemoryAccessor class enables random access to unmanaged memory, similar to the way the System.IO .UnmanagedMemoryStream class enables sequential access to unmanaged memory.
64-Bit Operating Systems and Processes
You can identify 64-bit operating systems and processes with the Environment Is64BitOperatingSystem and Environment .Is64BitProcess properties.
You can specify a 32-bit or 64-bit view of the registry with
the Microsoft.Win32 .RegistryView enumeration when you open base keys.
The new Microsoft.Win32 .RegistryOptions enumeration lets you specify a volatile registry key that does not persist after the computer restarts.

Other New Features

The following list describes additional new capabilities, improvements, and conveniences. Several of these are based on customer suggestions.
To support culture-sensitive formatting, the System.TimeSpan structure includes new overloads of the ToString, Parse, and TryParse methods, as well as new ParseExact and TryParseExact methods.
The new String .IsNullOrWhiteSpace method indicates whether a string is null, empty, or consists only of white-space characters. New overloads have been added to the String.Concat and String.Join methods that concatenate members of an IEnumerable.collections.
The new StringBuilder.Clear method removes all text.
The new Enum.HasFlag method determines whether one or more bit fields or flags are set in an enumeration value. The Enum.TryParse
method returns a Boolean value that indicates whether a string or integer value could be successfully parsed.
The System Version class includes new Version.Parse and Version.TryParse methods to convert the string representation of a version number to a Version object.
The System Environment SpecialFolder enumeration contains several new folders.
You can now easily copy one stream into another with the CopyTo method in classes that inherit from the Stream class.
The System.Resources.ResourceWriter class provides improved stream support.
New Path Combine method overloads enable you to combine file paths.
The new System IObservable
and System interfaces provide a generalized mechanism for push-based notifications.
The IntPtr and UIntPtr classes now include support for the addition and subtraction operators.
GZipStream classes have improved so that data that is already compressed is no longer inflated. Also, the 4-gigabyte size restriction for compressing streams has been removed.
The new Monitor.Enter(Object, Boolean ) method overload takes a Boolean reference and atomically sets it to true only if the monitor is successfully entered.
You can use the Thread .Yield method to have the calling thread yield execution to another thread that is ready to run on the current processor.
You can now parse System .Guid structures.

Web

The following sections describe new features in ASP.NET core services, Web Forms, Dynamic Data, and Visual Web Developer. For more information, see What's New in ASP.NET 4 and Visual Web Developer 2010.

ASP.NET Core Services and Web Forms

ASP.NET 4 introduces several features that improve core ASP.NET services such as output caching and session-state storage.
Web Forms has been a core feature in ASP.NET since the release of ASP.NET 1.0. Many enhancements have been made in this area for ASP.NET 4, including the following:
The ability to set meta tags by using the Page .MetaKeywords and Page MetaDescription page properties.
More control over view state by using the Control .ViewStateMode property for a page and for individual controls.
Easier ways to work with browser capabilities.
Support for using ASP.NET routing with Web Forms.
More control over generated IDs by using the Control.ClientIDMode property.
The ability to persist selected rows in data controls by using theGridView .EnablePersistedSelection and ListView.EnablePersistedSelection properties.
More control over the HTML that is rendered by the FormView and ListView controls.
Filtering support for data source controls by using the new QueryExtender control.
Charting support by using the new ASP.NET Chart control.

Dynamic Data

For ASP.NET 4, Dynamic Data has been enhanced to give you even more power for quickly building data-driven Web sites. This includes the following:
Automatic validation that is based on constraints that are defined in the data model.
The ability to easily change the markup that is generated for fields in the GridView and DetailsView controls by using field templates that are part of a Dynamic Data project.

Client

The following sections describe new features in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF).
Windows Presentation Foundation
In the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) contains changes and improvements in many areas. This includes controls, graphics, and XAML. For more information, see What's New in WPF Version 4.
Managed Extensibility Framework
The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in the .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 that helps you build extensible and composable applications. MEF enables you to specify points where an application can be extended, to expose services to offer to other extensible applications and to create parts for consumption by extensible applications. It also enables easy discoverability of available parts based on metadata, without the need to load the assemblies for the parts.
For more information, see Managed Extensibility Framework. For a list of the MEF types, see the System.ComponentModel.Composition namespace.

Data

ADO.NET provides new features for the Entity Framework, including Persistence-Ignorant Objects, functions in LINQ queries, and Customized Object Layer Code Generation. For more information, see What's New in ADO.NET.

Communications and Workflow

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) provides messaging enhancements and seamless integration with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). WF provides improvements in performance, scalability, workflow modeling, and an updated visual designer. For more information, see What's New in Windows Communicationand What's New in Windows Workflow Foundation.

Debug T-SQL or Stored Procedures Remotely in SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005

2009-12-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Transaction-SQL Debuger feature have been moved to VS.NET 2005 in SQL Server 2005 ,and return back SQL Server 2008 ,so inorder to enable debuging the only way to go through VS.NET 2005 SKU .
where is the setps to do :
Suppose we want to perform remote debugging to a different user's computer with the different user logged on to the computer, We have to consider two primary issues:
1- Permissions
By default, only administrators and the user running the remote debugger have access to connect to the remote debugger.
2-Connection
Visual Studio 2005 needs to know to which instance of the remote debugger you want to connect. If the same user is running the remote debugger and Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2005 will be able to find the remote debugger without you telling it which user is running the remote debugger.
However, if a different user is running the remote debugger, Visual Studio 2005 must be told to connect to domain_name\user_name@remote_computer instead of just being told to connect to remote_computer.

How to set up the environment for remote debugging ??
Add the appropriate user to the Debugger Users group on the remote computer To do this, follow these steps:
1-On the remote computer, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2-Under Computer Management, expand System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups, and then expand Groups.
3-Double-click Debugger Users-To add the appropriate user to the Debugger Users group, click Add in the Debugger Users Properties dialog box.
4-In the Select Users, Computers, or Groups dialog box, enter the appropriate user in the Enter the object names to select box, and then click OK two times. (For example, enter Domain1\User1)
5-Exit the Computer Management tool.
Note In Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Visual Studio .NET 2002, the user who is trying to perform remote debugging has to be a member of the Administrators group. However, in Visual Studio 2005, we don't need to add this user to the Administrators group.

Make sure that the Visual Studio 2005 remote debugging components are installed on the remote server.
To install remote debugging components ??
1-The Remote Debugger is available on the last disc of your Visual Studio installation set. Insert this disc in the remote computer.
For example, if you have four discs in your installation set, insert disc 4 in the remote computer. If you have a DVD instead of a CD, insert the DVD.
2-In Windows Explorer, open the CD/DVD. Locate the Remote Debugger folder (on the CD) or vs/Remote Debugger (on the DVD).
3-In the Remote Debugger folder, open the subfolder that matches your operating system (x86, x64, or IA64).
4-Start the copy of rdbgsetup.exe located in that subfolder, and follow the instructions to complete setup.
Start Remote Debugging:
When debugging T-SQL, the Remote Debugging Monitor will launch automatically during debugging.
1-Launch Visual Studio on the debugger host.
2-Use Visual Studio to attach to a program you want to debug on the remote machine or launch a program you want to debug on the remote machine as following :
A-From the Debug menu, choose Attach to Process. (If no project is open, choose Attach to Process from the Tools menu.)
B-In the Attach to Process dialog box, find the program you want to attach to from the Available Processes list:
1-If the program you want to debug is running on another machine, you must first select the remote machine in our case .
2-If the process is running under a different user account, check the Show processes from all users box.

C-In the Attach to box, make sure that either the type of code you will debug is listed or that Automatic: Managed code appears. If it doesn't:
Click Select.
In the Select Code Type dialog box, click Debug these code types and select the types to debug.
D-Click OK, then Click the Attach button.

ASP.net 2.0 Active Directory Membership provider

2009-12-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

with Active Directory Membership provider you can Access anyweb site using AD membership provider through login control here is the code to do that :
<system.web>

<authentication mode="Forms">

<forms name="ADAuthCookie" timeout="10" loginUrl="Login.aspx" defaultUrl="Default.aspx"></forms>
</authentication>

<authorization>
<deny users="?"/>

<allow users="*"/>
</authorization>

<membership defaultProvider="DomainLoginMembershipProvider">
<providers>

<add name="DomainLoginMembershipProvider"
type="System.Web.Security.ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider,System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

connectionStringName="ADConnectionString"
attributeMapUsername="sAMAccountName"

enableSearchMethods="true"
connectionUsername="User@Domain.com"

connectionPassword="Password" />
</providers>

</membership>

Dont for get to add asp.net 2 login control.

Attachable Subscribers in SQL Server Replication 2008/2005(Part 2)

2009-12-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

This feature can be used when deploying a large number of pull subscriptions, which is common in merge replication. Microsoft has announced that Attachable Subscribers in SQL server 2005/2008 are deprecated features ,and this features will be removed in the next releases of SQL server 200x. for more information about this deprecated features information check http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143550.aspx . Although that Microsoft tries to add alternative solution to MSF files that are created as result of copying the subscription databases (Databaese.msf file) after applying it ,it seems to be inaccurate and associated with incomplete solution with a lot of errors http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152488.aspx .
- For informational and historical reasons I’ve add a referencing to the method of attachable subscribers in SQL Server 2000 to show the features that have been deprecated in SQL server 2005/08 you can skip this part and move to section B :

A- In SQL Server 2000 the scenario was as below:

On the publisher:
1. Create the database snapshot.
2. Back up the published database.
3. Create a temporary database and restore the published database on the temporary database.
4. Create a new 'no-sync' pull subscription from the temporary database to the published database.
5. Run the merge agent to synchronize the databases.
6. Copy the subscription databases (database.msf file)
7. Register the subscriber computer
8. Register the subscribing database using sp_addmergesubscription
On the subscriber:
1. Attach the subscription database copy (Database.msf)
2. Create a pull subscription using sp_addmergepullsubscription
3. Connect to the publisher using a dial up connection
4. Run the merge agent to synchronize the data.

B-In SQL Server 2008/05 :

-Subscribers could be initialized by using other subscribers replicated databases without direct publisher snapshot sachems:
1 backup subscriber database.
2 Attaches to a separated server backed up database with keeping replication information option check box checked to preserve replication information.

3 -Rowguid column in new attached Db show shared related publisher information.

4- Run generated scripts from old subscriber on a new subscriber to get publisher information such as name, server location, and login account to:
use [CommonDB_Sub]
exec sp_addmergepullsubscription
@publisher = N'ABDELRAHMAN', @publication = N'Pub_ItemSalesPrice',
@publisher_db = N'CommonDB', @subscriber_type = N'Local', @subscription_priority = 0,@description = N'', @sync_type = N'none'
exec sp_addmergepullsubscription_agent @publisher = N'ABDELRAHMAN',
@publisher_db = N'CommonDB',
@publication = N'Pub_ItemSalesPrice', @distributor = N'ABDELRAHMAN',
@distributor_security_mode = 0, @distributor_login = N'sa',
@distributor_password = N'nsg_ss_0103', @enabled_for_syncmgr = N'False',
@frequency_type = 1, @frequency_interval = 0, @frequency_relative_interval = 0,
@frequency_recurrence_factor = 0, @frequency_subday = 0,
@frequency_subday_interval = 0, @active_start_time_of_day = 0,

active_end_time_of_day = 235959, @active_start_date = 0, @active_end_date = 0, @alt_snapshot_folder = N'', @working_directory = N'', @use_ftp = N'False', @job_login = null, @job_password = null, @publisher_security_mode = 0, @publisher_login = N'sa', @publisher_password = N'nsg_ss_0103', @use_interactive_resolver = N'False', @dynamic_snapshot_location = N'',@use_web_sync = 0

GO
Note : its important to set the prameter of both stored procdsure sp_addmergepullsubscription , sp_addmergepullsubscription_ agent,its important to set @sync_type = N'none' to create subscriber without publisher installation also set @alt_snapshot_folder a path of the replication data after copying unc folder from the publisher .

6 - New subscriber is generated that involve the publisher informations.

7 .In order to register the subscriber information to the publisher you need to run the following script :

use [CommonDB]
exec sp_addmergesubscription @publication = N'Pub_ItemSalesPrice',
@subscriber = N'ABDELRAHMAN\MSSQL2', @subscriber_db = N'CommonDB_Sub', @subscription_type = N'pull', @subscriber_type = N'local', @subscription_priority = 0, @sync_type = N'none'

This will create subscriber to the publisher database

8. start pull data between publisher and subscriber, in our case we need to pull data from publisher through start button in View synchronizations status:

You can see all agent history by press view Job History.

C-Testing Replication Synchronization in SQLserver 2008/05

1. Add new row to the attached subscriber and press view sync status and start sync agent.

SQL error msg 20 state 16 Encryption not supported on SQL Server

2009-12-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

SQL server 2000 client handshak not able to connect to server resulted in the following error :
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Shared Memory]Encryption not supported on SQL Server
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Shared Memory]ConnectionOpen (PreLoginHandshake()).
to overcome this problem for unknown reasons unForce protocol encryption under Client configration utilitiy ,by unchecking Force protocol encryption ,after that you should be able to connect to all your sql servers .

Setting up Merge Replication in SQL Server 2008/05 (part1)

2009-11-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

4.1 First of all you must add NT Network Service group to be Administrator group at both Publisher and subscriber if you have setup MS SQL server 2008 to use Network services Account as SQL server Service startup accounts.

4.2
Define a Server to be Distributed Server and Define Data Publisher as the following picture :

4.3 Select Publication Database .
4.4 Define which replication Model you want as described in Section 1.4 in our case we chose Merge publication.
4.5 Define the type of SQL server Subscribers this is for compatibility with earlier version of SQL server.
4.6 Select the Articles that are needed to be published to subscribers.

4.6 Add filter to the published table through limiting the amount of published data .

4.7 Choose between either to create snapshot schema directly or schedule a time where the schema are created .

4.8 specify the account under which SQL server snapshoot agent will create schema .

4.9 Finish the publication process by naming the publication name.

4.10 Press Finish.and see the publication created for you :

4.11 Now you can start by creating your own subscribers ,in our case we start creating local subscriber for simplifying the process :

4.12 Select the publisher at which you want your subscriber to get data from .

4.13 Select where the replication agent is to be run ,specify to run at distributor wish is called push subscription -or to let the agent work at the subscriber side ,this called pull data subscription (And by default ananymous Subscribtion).

4.14 Choose each the subscriber and create new subscription Database for, Add more subscriber or If the subscriber not exist it could be add.

4.15 specify replication agent Security under which subscriber agent synchronization start.

4.15.1 Choose to run under SQL server Agent services account that you had assigned during setting up SQL server 2008.
4.15.2 Choose to run under Windows security Account which must be member of machine administrator Group.
4.16 Specify synchronization schedule at which synchronization agent process the data .
You can choose either to let agent work continually according to the replication type once new record in publisher database add or to run on demand or to schedule time .

4.17 determine the first initialization of each subscriber to be immediate or to be initialized once the replication agent starts the synchronization process.

4.18 Merge replication offers two subscription types: server and client (referred to in previous versions of Microsoft SQL Server as global and local, respectively). Subscribers with a server subscription can:
· Republish data to other Subscribers.
· Serve as alternate synchronization partners.
· Resolve conflicts according to a priority you set.
Most Subscribers do not require this functionality and can use a client subscription. Client subscriptions still allow conflict detection and resolution, but Subscribers are not assigned a priority: the first Subscriber to submit a change to the Publisher wins any conflicts that might arise from that change.For each Subscriber, select Client or Server from the drop-down list box in the Subscription Type column. For Subscribers with server subscriptions, enter a number between 0 and 99.99 in the Priority for Conflict Resolution column (the higher the number, the higher the priority for the Subscriber).

4.19 Click finish button,
Now note tool tip that appears when your mouse get over the new created subscriber node .

What is SQL Server Replication ?

2009-11-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

1- Reviewing SQL Server Replication (Historical)
Replication distributes data from the central database to one or more target databases, and merges changes from a target database into the central one. Both the source database and the destination database can be implemented as a SQL Server database or as any other data source, as long as an OLE DB provider is available to handle the nitty-gritty details of the particular data source you choose (such as ORACLE, Access, and so on).
The practical reasons to perform replication are to distribute workload and to
synchronize data among remote databases that you want to keep in sync. By maintaining identical data sets across multiple databases you can provide better performance.
Local users can connect to and use their own local databases, instead of
connecting to a remote central server. Your sales will be able to send sales leads back to a central database. Or you can use replication to keep a standby server in sync so you can switch to it should your primary server fail.
The replication architecture is quite complex, as it was designed to meet a variety of needs. Here are the basic concepts you ought to understand :

1.1 Basic replication terminology
Replication consists of two major components:

A - Replication components—SQL Server components used in replication:
Publisher
Distributor
Subscriber. (n) .

B- Replication Agents—Utility programs that assist in the replication process:
Snapshot Agent
Distribution Agent
Log Reader Agent
Queue
Reader Agent,
Merge Agent.

1.2 The replicated data are organized into the following categories:

1- Publication : wrapper for distributed data; a collection of one or more
Articles scheduled for publication (replication).

2- Article: basic unit of replication. It can be a table, certain columns in
The table, certain rows in the table, a view, or even a stored procedure.
More than one article together comprises a publication.

3- Subscription: Request to receive a publication. The two basic types of
Subscription are the Pull subscription (initiated by the Subscriber) and the
Push subscription (initiated by the Publisher).

1.3 Each server participating in the replication is assigned one or more of the following
Roles:

Publisher A source server for the distributed data. It maintains all the
Information about data specified for publishing.

Distributor An intermediary between the Publisher and the Subscriber;
it can also be both Publisher and Subscriber. Its role varies according to
the type of replication.

Subscriber The final destination of the distributed data. It is a recipient
of the publications it has subscribed to; depending on the type of replication,
it may also be able to propagate changes to its own set of data onto
the Publisher.

1.4 Replication Types:
Snapshot replication—This type of replication takes a snapshot of the
data in the Publisher database and replaces it with the entire data set of
one or more subscribers; subsequent replication again replaces the complete
data set in the subscriber database(s). Though notable for being virtually
foolproof in providing synchronous data sets, this type of replication
increases network traffic and, as intervals increase, data sets become less
synchronized.

Transactional replication—This type of replication is all about changes.
It propagates changes only to subscribers. It starts with an initial snapshot
Replication and then distributes selected transactions in the Publisher
database transaction log (marked for replication) to the target servers.
Snapshot replication is also regularly scheduled to ensure consistency of
the data. Its major advantages are more timely updates and much lighter
network traffic than you get with pure snapshot replication.

Merge replication—This type of replication allows subscribers who make
changes to their local copies of the data to merge these changes into the
source database. Merge replication is not transactional and relies on conflict
resolution to determine the precedence of the changes.

2- Selecting a Replication Model
2.1Central publisher—The most common replication model. It maintains
Publisher and Distributor databases on the same server, with subscribers
configured somewhere else.

2.2 Central publisher with remote distributor
The Publisher database is
on one server and the Distributor database on another; subscribers are by
default placed on remote servers (you do not need to maintain a Subscriber
on the same server as a Publisher).

2.3 Central subscriber—One Subscriber collects data from several publishers;
the data can then be republished, as nothing prevents the server from
Wearing several hats—it can be a Subscriber, a Publisher, and a Distributor
at the same time.

2.4 Publishing subscriber—Republishes received data to other Subscribers;
see the preceding description of the central-subscriber model.

3-Preparing for Replication
3.1 Snapshot replication:
1- Consider space requirements as because the data will be moved as a whole.
2- Timing, because replication is a strain on network resources as well as on database resources
3- Importance to replicated data.

3.2 Transactional replication:

Increase the size of transaction Log on publication Server to make sure that all replicated data are published to Subscribers before they are purge.

3.3 Merge replication:

1- Every table must have its Primary Key.
2 - Foreign key must includes referenced tables.