There is some rumors that the Orleans software platform will actually be a product coming out from Microsoft that will empower the Windows Azure platform and make it more easy to architecture and manage. This is just a research project but I for one am liking the hopeful outlook on life. ;~)
Somewhere among the few references out there on the web I am grasping for an explanation on what this will be. How about this:
Orleans is to Azure as the CLR is to Windows
It appears Orleans is designed to create a unified programming model for the client and the server. It offers greater abstraction so that applications can be easily ported across different platforms.
In Rob Knies article “Peering into Future of Cloud Computing” from way back when on February 24, 2009 we can read the following:
Orleans software platform: The software that runs in the data center is a complicated, distributed system. It must handle a vast number of requests from across the globe, and the computers on which the software runs fail regularly—but the service itself should not fail, even though the software is continually changing as the service evolves and new features are added. Orleans is a new software platform that runs on Microsoft’s Windows® Azure™ system and provides the abstractions, programming languages, and tools that make it easier to build cloud services.
James Larus has posted some Power Point slides from the Mysore-Park Workshop on Cloud Computing, Mysore India on January 13, 2010. There we can see some nice slides about this concept:
I must say this looks really interesting! “Grains” of apps that can migrate between data centers. This is very nice indeed for software architects. Me likey a LOT!
In an interview with eWEEK at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in July, Amitabh Srivastava, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Server and Cloud Division, said Microsoft built its Windows Azure cloud platform with developers in mind from the start.
When we were developing Azure from day one it was done for developers,” Srivastava said. “You have to allow developers to bring their skills, their current set of skills, to the cloud. So we said developers should get to choose the language they want to use. You can use any environment you want. You can use Visual Studio or you can do the entire development in Eclipse. You can’t pigeonhole developers into one or two languages or one or two frameworks. Just because our lineage is Windows Server doesn’t mean we will restrict you to using C# or a Microsoft language.
Unfortunately not all good ideas are more than vaporware but I am very curious to see about this project. Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed for Orleans and stay tuned for more on this as it comes out because I certainly intend to dip my fingers in that honey jar once it is available.
Cheers,
M.
posted @ Monday, September 06, 2010 1:00 PM