The mainframe world, all too often associated with legacy systems that exist in some dark corner of buildings continues to this day to provide the essential back bone for many corporations essential and business-critical applications. While some companies seek to migrate data out of mainframe investments into data bases such as Oracle, or often SQL Server there are plenty who'd rather leave these resources well alone and bring on stream more up to date interfaces to these data asources.

That said, development platforms such as Java and the .NET platform however enjoy the majority of developer focus today and resources such as DB2 z/OS and non relational mainframer esources such as VSAM, IMS and Adabas get left behind.

Our solution? Shadow for ADO.NET. Available for use with the Shadow z/Direct product line, DataDirect's mainframe integration software stack. We are very proud of the work we've done here, so let me call out some of the major features:

• Integration of mainframe DB2 and VSAM data
• 100% managed code provider
• Support for the .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms
• Support for ADO.NET 2.0 Common Programming Model
• Runtime compatibility with Visual Studio
• Support for a Metadata Collections based on the ANSI SQL Information Schema specification as well as collections specific to CICS and VSAM
• Support for common methodologies used to manage auto-generated values

Some of the key take aways included:

• Entity Framework holds great promise, and but is not a catch all for everything.
• SQL is not dead (far from it). For critical apps where you have to maintain absolute control as to how your application performs and behaves, there is no substitute for keeping your hands on the controls.
• The Data Cloud hold great promise, but everyone is nervous as to the prospect of exposing any data source into an uncontrolled, unmanaged cloud. Lots of concerns as to the security and governance of this.

We'll do this all again next week for Tech Ed IT Pros.... and of course as I didn't bring enough t-shirts for everyone, so stop by our booth tomorrow where I will be handing out our very popular t's.

The insert to the left, courtesy of the Redmond Developer news does a nice job of breaking out the major features of the .NET Framework 3.5 Sp1, of the the ADO.NET Entity Framework is probably the leading feature. Described, I think accurately as the 'data-driven' release, I can already report than I have a number of good conversations with attendees who are looking to find out more about this technology.

Hungry for more ? If you are attending Tech Ed Devleopers, there are a few excellent venues that I'd recommend you make some time for. Thx to Elisa Flasko at Microsoft doing most of the hardwork for me:

• June 4th 2:45pm-4:00pm TCD2B Using LINQ, the ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services with third party databases by David Sceppa

• June 5th 10:15am-11:30am T7D80 Advanced Entity Framework: Take Charge of Object Services by Julie Lerman

• June 5th Noon-12:45pm TAC34 ADO.NET Data Services Deep Dive by Mike Flasko

You can see more of Elisa's excellent recommendations here.

Of course, I've talked about my BoF before on Wednesday night which is already generated some great interest, but we are also exhibiting through out the week, where we have some very unique give-aways (you won't be disappointed!) and of course I'll be happy to talk about how DataDirect Technologies plans to support the ADO.NET Entity Framework. Come see us at booth 1232 in the exhibition hall.

Otherwise, what looks like a very interesting week ahead. I'll post when time/battery power allows.

• Wednesday, June 4th @ 19h45 to 20h45
• Wednesday, June 11th @18h30 to 19h30

Send email here or comment below if you're planning on attending, or have topics you'd like to cover...

http://linqinaction.net/blogs/main/archive/2006/07/28/why-linq-will-succeed.aspx

1. LINQ syntax beats SQL syntax. SQL is flawed in that queries become exponentially difficult to write as their complexity grows. LINQ scales much better in this regard. Once you get used to it, it's hard to go back.
2. Database queries are easily composable. You can conditionally add an ORDER BY or WHERE predicate without discovering at run-time that a certain string combination generates a syntax error.
3. More bugs are picked up at compile-time.
4. Parameterization is automatic and type-safe.
5. LINQ queries can directly populate an object hierarchy.
6. LINQ to SQL provides a model for provider independence that might really work.
7. LINQ significantly cuts plumbing code and clutter. Without sweeping stuff under the carpet, like Workflow or Datasets. This is a credit to the design team.
8. C# hasn't suffered in the process (in fact, it's gained).

Out of 8 projections, I would give this forecast a 5/8. Not bad considering how inaccurate these predictions tend to be. Before I publish what value-adds I think won out, lets hear your thoughts. Comment below!

Vote here for Tech Ed Developers and here for Tech Ed IT Professionals ...

Check out our BoF submission below...

Making Sense of All: Heterogeneous Data Access on the .NET Framework 3.5

In this BoF, we’ll peal back the layers on data access from the .NET platform. We’ll look at the common problems facing today’s applications with a particular emphasis on applications who in a multi-faceted, heterogeneous application environment. With all the options now available, available including the Data Access Application Blocks, LINQ, Entity Framework and vanilla ADO.NET which is the one for you? Come armed with your questions, ideas and burning issues and we can promise a lively discussion!

• http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080318005082&newsLang=fr

• http://www.datadirect.com/xcalia/index.ssp

• http://www.xcalia.com/news/PR_2008-03-18_Xcalia-DataDirect-Acquisition.jsp

http://blogs.msdn.com/scottdensmore/archive/2008/03/13/how-to-get-enterprise-library-3-1-working-in-vs-2008.aspx

Check back here for more references and a collection of key comments in this posting...

For this year, I am instead going to first highlight his top 3 favorite predictions from around the web.

1. David Linthicum, Real World SOA: SOA Predictions for 2008 , in particular I like "Resources on the new Web will drive many enterprises towards SOA."

2. Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist: 2008 Predictions, Some insightful thoughts on how people are going to leverage the internet, participation to effect positive change. I admit this is not exclusively a technical prediction, but without technology back these movements, it would be next to impossible to marshal these growing communities

3. Redmond Developer News, peddler of .NET news: Peering into the Future. Highlights include, Multi-Core Revolution, Parallel Programming Gets a Rough Start, and Virtual Machines everywhere.

As for my predictions, they shake out as follows:

1. Data Services changes becomes universal programming model.

2. IBM files a draws together a set of established JDBC experts to establish LINQ for Java, Java Specification Request (JSR)

3. Dynamic LINQ bridges gap between compile-time type checking available in more static LINQ constructs.

4. LINQ to SQL will be forced to open up their lighter weight model to third-party provider-writers.