Announcing Next Generation Business Intelligence Software with Silverlight
I have been excited about Silverlight since Silverlight 1.1 Alpha was announced in early 2007. I have seen tremendous potential in the RIA technology from its inception. Being through the .NET 1.0 release in 2002 and seeing how Microsoft can make a powerful framework that can integrate with across their products made me feel secure that Silverlight was going to get full integration support by Microsoft. Fast forward to 2009 and we are in the third release of Silverlight. Silverlight has evolved tremendously and has caught up feature-wise with Adobe's RIA products (Flash, Flex, AIR) and is ahead in some features. If you have been following this blog or my identity online, you are aware I am very passionate about the technology well beyond a Flash alternative. I think Silverlight often gets compared to other RIAs and does not properly distinguish its attributes that make it a great business RIA. Features like enterpise service integration (WCF, .NET RIA Services), HD Smooth Streaming, SharePoint (web parts), Bing SDK/Map integration, cloud computing (Azure), mobile, parallel computing, etc., are not amplified enough.
One of my complaints is that the message of what this technology can accomplish in a business environment is currently being under-represented by the online community and Microsoft. It is easy to find an article on how to do a flip animation or bind to a datagrid. However, I think Silverlight needs to be represented better as a busines tool and how the RIA architecture can be applied to solve real business problems. Take a look at the list of books available for Silverlight (http://www.silverlightshow.net/Books.aspx). Looking at the list, you will notice that a majority of the books are essentially intros to Silverlight features. Some of the books have different names, but essentially you are not getting an application of the technology to solve business scenarios. Don't get me wrong; some of the books I have read truly stand out (i.e., John Papa's Data Driven Services, SharePoint Dev using Silverlight, Jeff Paries's Foundation Silverlight Animation) and go well beyond listing object properties and show you how to apply advanced engineering concepts using Silverlight. However, I saw an opportunity to provide a resource that shows how Silverlight can be applied to solve business problems.
Over the last two years, I have had the opportunity to use Silverlight in the enterprise and saw its potential for delivering Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. Silverlight's ability to execute on the client and deliver visual intelligence makes it a fanastic option to surface interactive Business Intelligence analytical modules. I decided to combine my experience of designing Business Intelligence solutions and apply these principles to Silverlight in a new book. After about six months of work, I am pleased to announce my book Next Generation Business Intelligence Software with Silverlight 3. The book will be available in the October/November timeframe and is currently listed as a pre-order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.
What will you learn from investing in this resource?
Covering the entire scope of BI and applying these concepts to Silverlight applications is simply not realistic in one single resource. Even if I had the option of writing 750 pages or more, important facets of BI would be missed. Therefore, I decided to focus on the presentation tier of Business Intelligence applications. For example, I didn't think it was fair to focus on the data and services tier with these technologies going through a rapid implementation and tooling evolution (RIA Services, WCF REST, Oslo, ADO.NET Data Services 1.5, etc.). However, Silverlight's rendering and client processing engine is mature enough to warrant a guide on how to implement client-side BI concepts. Therefore, topics like visual intelligence, data visualizations, predictive analytics, collective intelligence, interactive tools, parallel computing, working with large data sets, etc., are covered in my book on the presentation tier.
Who is this book for?
This book has three intended audience segments and their goals:
- Silverlight Developers - Learn how to extend your Silverlight knowledge in real-world applications. Learn the basics of Business Intelligence 2.0.
- Business Intelligence Professionals - Get a better understanding of how Silverlight can help you overcome some of the challenges to implement simple BI tools.
- Strategic Decision Makers (architects, CIO, technical director, etc.) - Understand if Silverlight is the right platform to deliver BI software.
What is the chapter list?
- The first chapter (Business Intelligence 2.0 Defined) is an introductory chapter to Business Intelligence. This chapter will introduce BI and the new wave of BI 2.0. The content will show how Business Intelligence is evolving and embracing new software development advancements. This chapter will contrast classic BI and BI 2.0 by showing numerous examples of current software offerings. Lastly, this section will define the core items of BI 2.0 which will be implemented throughout this book using Silverlight.
- The second introductory chapter (Advantages of Applying BI 2.0 Using Microsoft Silverlight) introduces the Microsoft RIA technology: Silverlight. This chapter is dedicated to analyzing the current Microsoft Business Intelligence product vertical and providing opinions why Silverlight is a good fit for implementing Business Intelligence tenets. After reading this chapter, you will understand the key enterprise and business integration features of Silverlight that will be discussed in this resource.
- Chapter Three (Silverlight as a BI Client) looks at what makes an effective BI client. It goes on to specifically detail Silverlight tools and features that can be used to create a fantastic functioning analytical experience. The chapter goes into specific functionality such as LINQ data queries, business algorithm implementations and local storage.
- In Chapter Four (Adding Interactivity to BI Data), the information from the previous chapters is used to show how to use Silverlight to bring interactivity to BI applications. This chapter will teach by example on how to add simple interactions that can make a BI client easier to use and feel more fluid. It concludes with how these concepts can be leveraged for future designs with multi-touch screens to create the ultimate interactive experience.
- Chapter Five (Introduction to Data Visualizations) is the first chapter in a series of chapters about Visual Intelligence. The content in this chapter will show the empirical advantages of creating a visual representation of data versus classic tabular layouts. This chapter shows how visualizing data has matured and grown over the last several years. The concept of natural visualizations is introduced by defining the different characteristics and Silverlight implementations.
- Chapter Six (Creating Data Visualizations for Analysis) continues to build on the visual intelligence topic by showing how to enhance data visualizations with features to make turn them into analytical tools. This chapter will show you how to create advanced visualizations by extending the default Silverlight data visualization presentation.
- Chapter Seven (Enhancing Visual Intelligence in Silverlight) is the last chapter that focuses on creating complex composite data visualizations. You will also see how Silverlight as a professional visual intelligence environment can implement BI 2.0 functionality.
- Chapter Eight (Applying Collective Intelligence) introduces collective intelligence as a form of social Business Intelligence. This chapter defines the importance of Collective Intelligence on the web today. Furthermore, you will see how Silverlight can be used to gather and surface Collective Intelligence to users.
- Chapter Nine (Predictive Analytics) will describe how to integrate forward-looking data structures in our client logic to perform "what-if" scenarios. This chapter will also show how statistics used on aggregates can deliver instant insight on future events.
- Chapter Ten (Improving Performance with Concurrent Programming) is an advanced chapter that covers additional enhancements that can be gained by using multiple cores to aid in BI calculations. You will see how you can enhance the performance of BI modules by leveraging Silverlight’s advanced CPU and GPU programming features.
- Chapter Eleven (Integrating with Business Intelligence Systems) is a chapter that shows you how to apply the concepts that you have learned and integrate them into new solutions or existing BI systems. Silverlight in an SaaS delivery model as well as Silverlight web parts are covered in this chapter.
- Appendix A (Prototyping Applications with Dynamic Data) includes a short primer on prototyping data applications in Microsoft Expression Blend 3. This short section provides a quick overview on how to use Blend’s dynamic data feature to quickly create and add data to UI functionality without having to spend time architecting databases and services. This is a powerful tool to prototype BI 2.0 analytical modules without needing access to large-scale data repositories.
Companion Web Site
In addition to providing the source code and samples with this book, I have decided to create a companion web site for this resource. I don't think it would be fair for me to claim that this book can be fully understood by non-Silverlight developers if all that was provided was a zip file with source code. The companion web site will include all of coding scenarios as live demos which will allow readers without the full Silverlight development environment to fully understand the content. Furthermore, it will include the source code and samples that were not covered in detail in the book. I plan to use the companion web site as a vehicle to deliver further information on Business Intelligence and Silverlight in the form of web resource links, training videos, whitepapers and more advanced examples. I am currently working on the companion web site and it will be launched when the book is closer to being published.
If you are a Silverlight developer or interested in Business Intelligence, I encourage you to give my book a try to see how visual and interactive analytical tools can be delivered to average users with Silverlight.
Sample Content of What You Will See In This Book
Creating a Silverlight Predictive Analytics Tool to estimate future sales revenue
Optimizing Data Processing with Concurrent Programming (looks scary; it really isn't)
Learn about distributive client-side architecture for BI
Silverlight as an enterprise Visual Intelligence Environment (Trellis Data Visualization with KPI goals)
Don't worry if this is all alien to you...I will walk you through BI 2.0 fundementals as well...
Silverlight 3 Relase Download Links and Installation Instructions
Silverlight 3 has been released here are some of the released links:
Silverlight 3 Runtime
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx
Blend 3 with Sketchflow
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=92e1db7a-5d36-449b-8c6b-d25f078f3609
SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2050e580-f1d5-4040-bb09-e6185591b6b5
VS 2008 Tools
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9442b0f2-7465-417a-88f3-5e7b5409e9dd
.NET RIA Services (July 2009)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=76bb3a07-3846-4564-b0c3-27972bcaabce
Silverlight Control Toolkit (July 2009)
http://silverlight.codeplex.com/
Change list of the Silverlight Control Toolkit: http://silverlight.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Silverlight%20Toolkit%20July%202009%20change%20list
DeepZoom Composer
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=457b17b7-52bf-4bda-87a3-fa8a4673f8bf
Seven Additional Navigation Themes
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/07/09/free-silverlight-application-themes-silverlight-3.aspx
Still waiting on these:
- Bing Enterprise Map Control for Silverlight (currently in CTP)
- ADO.NET Data Services (currently 1.5 CTP)
- Prism Update (saw some blog post MVVM templates they were adding to the framework)
- Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1/2 tools for Silverlight 3 RTW
- Other (Silverlight Mobile maybe (?), XBOX Developer Add-Ons etc.)
Installation notes for developers:
- You need to uninstall EVERYTHING Silverlight developer related to get it to work: Silverligh 3 SDK, Visual Studio 2008 Tools, Blend 3 Beta. Otherwise you will get a message saying your developer tools are out of date.
- Silverlight Control Toolkit March 2009 will not work with Silverlight 3 RTM
- Expression Blend 3 is NOT RTM it is apparently RC (Update: the version out now is RC, which will work with Silverlight 3 RTM. Expression Studio 3 RTM is shipping within the next 30 days.)
- When you upgrade your projects from Silverlight 2/3 Beta to Silverlight 3 RTM make sure you have the correct assemblies referenced! Note some controls have moved from the SDK to the Control Toolkit and vice versa.
Installation Order (if you have Visual Studio 2008 SP1)
- VS 2008 Silverlight Tools (installs the runtime, SDK as well)
- Expression Blend 3 Trial
- .NET RIA Services
- Silverlight Control Toolkit
Installation notes for casual users:
- Your users will automatically be upgraded to Silverlight 3 (if they have the auto update selected, which is the default).They can always upgrade manually.
- If you are developing a product on Silverlight 2, you should turn off automatic updates of the runtime...just in case.
Silverlight 3 - Where is Silverlight Mobile?
Update 2/18/2010: Silverlight Mobile is coming in beta form during the MIX 2010 conference in March 2010. This will include a Silverlight SDK for the new Windows Phone 7 platform. Look for Silverlight mobile to be announced for Symbian, BlackBerry and Droid in the near future as well.
This article was written March 2009...what is funny is how I was right that Silverlight mobile would be around the Visual Studio 2010 CTP/RTM. Go me :)
During MIX 2009, Microsoft announced many new features that will be coming as part of the Silverlight 3 framework. One feature that was suprisingly missing was Silverlight support for mobile devices. Not only was this surprising, but it was really disappointing as I was really sure that this feature would be released as part of Silverlight 3.
Why the surprise?
Did you know that mobile support for Silverlight was announced a while ago? Do you know when? End of 2008? Beginning of 2008? Try the beginning of 2007! Silverlight support for mobile devices was shown publicly during the MIX 2007 conference when Silverlight Alpha 1.1 was announced. Over two years ago we had a demo of Silverlight on a mobile device, yet we still don't have a public beta or release of the product (Note: There are private demos of this out there).
"Microsoft probably just shifted strategies and you are making a big deal about something two years ago, right?"
Actually NO. At MIX 2008, Amit Chopra (the program manager for Silverlight mobile) during his Mobile Devices and Microsoft Silverlight presentation showed off Silvelight on the mobile. So one year later Microsoft reported progress on the Silverlight mobile platform. Furthermore, they stated that they would also be releasing Silverlight 1.0 for Mobile shortly after the conference for Windows Mobile 6.x. (Check out the video linked above for the false promises).
Some real basic demos of Silverlight mobile at MIX 2008 (Yeah, it was shown that dark.)
Well, has there been any more announced from Microsoft relating to Silverlight mobile? Believe it or not, again at the PDC 2008 conference (October 2008), Amit Chopra during his talk Silverlight 2 for Mobile showed Silverlight 2 running on a mobile emulator and mobile device. Furthermore, we were also told that Silverlight Mobile would NOT be like Flash Lite. You would get about 99% of the SDK on the web and mobile in one shot (Note: Things like video brushes would not be supported on SL mobile). Sounded really promising, right?
Silverlight 2 Mobile Environment. Silverlight 2 debugging on a Mobile emulator. Too bad it never was made came public.
Fast forward to MIX 2009. Surprisingly we were showed nothing about Silverlight 2 or 3 on a mobile device. There was some chatter on Twitter with someone who talked to Amit Chopra and he stated that Silverlight mobile is about a year away! That was apparently true since there is nothing in the Silverlight 3 SDK related to mobile devices.
It is not like Microsoft couldn't accomplish Silverlight on a mobile in two years. Look what has happened to the evolution of Silverlight in two years. From March 2007 to March 2009, we have gone from Silverlight 1.1 Alpha -> Silverlight 2 Beta 1 -> Silverlight 2 Beta 2 -> Silverlight 2 RC -> Silverlight 2 RTW -> Silverlight 3 Beta 1. Two years is an eternity for an immature platform like Silverlight.
"The fact that Silverlight for mobile has been announced two years ago and we don't have a public beta is surprising. But what is more surprising is that Silverlight mobile is over a year away!"
What happened?
It's obvious that Microsoft has hit some snags with Silverlight mobile. I don't know the exact details but it looks like performance had a big part of it. Furthermore, Silverlight did not support the features that next generation mobile devices currently support. For example, the iPhone has 3D transitions, multi-touch support, clearer text. Silverlight obviously needed to catch up in order to be competitive when it was released. Microsoft decided to add the features into the core framework first and then leverage them in the Silverlight mobile framework. A lot of people on forums are asking why Silverlight went with some features like 3D support, multi-touch, clear fonts, etc., instead of printing. As you can see, these features make a little more sense now.
The second part of the story is that Silverlight mobile needs to fit into Microsoft's higher mobile strategy. Microsoft has announced in pieces its Windows Mobile 7 strategy. I think it is essentially going to be a Microsoft version of the iPhone with a major twist: the Silverlight App Store and Silverlight will be powering a lot of the extensions. More on that in another post.
Has Microsoft given up on Silverlight mobile?
Obviousy, the answer to that is no. Microsoft wants to get Silverlight for mobile devices right. I think it will power the Windows Mobile 7 strategy and it needs to be "as good" as Apple's iPhone/iPod. Microsoft can't afford another Zune vs. iPod debacle. If Silverlight is done right, it could be really powerful and blow Apple's framework away. I will take .NET over Apple's Objective-C any day. Furthermore, Silverlight allows you to target mobile, web and the desktop all at the same time. The iPhone framework (as of now) only supports the mobile platform. As you can see, Silverlight mobile is key to the strategy at Microsoft.
When will we see Silverlight 3 mobile?
The best estimate we heard was a tweet from MIX (I heard from someone who talked to Amit Chopra) that Silverlight mobile is about a year away. This makes Silverlight mobile being released in line with the Windows 7 mobile platform. I am hoping we see a beta/CTP around the Visual Studio 2010 release.
Silverlight 3 Beta - Downloads You May Have Missed
Everyone that is interested in Silverlight 3 Beta development has probably checked out all of the core items in the release: Silverlight 3 SDK, Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008, Blend 3 Preview, Silverlight Control Toolkit (March 2009 version). There have been several other releases that are related to Silverlight 3 you may have missed and are a little less obvious if you are new to Silverlight development. This blog post deals with the items that are a little less obvious but important to know about. Not all of these downloads are targeted for Silverlight 3; however, they should work with Silverlight 3 Beta.
"There have been a ton of tools released
with Silverlight 3. Did you miss any of them?"
Data Access
Silverlight includes several different ways to consume data (most of them being via services). There have been three new updates to the data service frameworks available for Silverlight released recently:
- .NET RIA Services - This is a new n-tier design framework released during the MIX 2009 Conference. This framework allows you to factor more of the work into the service tier for business logic, validation, errors, querying, etc. This framework is new to the Silverlight 3 Beta.
- ADO.NET Data Services 1.5 CTP1 - This is a preview version of the upcoming update to ADO.NET Data Services which provides client and server enhancements for Silverlight developers who create service applications. It is very similar to .NET RIA Services (In fact, many people think these are the same; however, these are DIFFERENT frameworks)
- WCF REST Starter Kit Preview 2 - Yet another data access framework from Microsoft. This framework targets WCF and applies REST architectual patterns for service access. In my opinion, WCF with REST gives you the most flexibility and control when creating data aware applications with Silverlight. Using interceptors, you can control every aspect of message headers, creation, caching across the channel stack. The WCF REST Starter Kit will be included with .NET 4.0/Visual Studio 2010.
- WCF REST Starter Kit Preview 2
- IdeaBlade DevForce - This is a 3rd party framework that works along the same lines as ADO.NET Data Services and .NET RIA Services. They have some additional tools that take away some of the hassle of developing data access layers with Silverlight. However, they are not FREE and they are a 3rd party framework. They do have positive reviews. The biggest difference between them and WCF REST, ADO.NET Data Services 1.5 and RIA .NET Services is that their product is out now and ready to be used. If you want a Line of Business framework that is ready for production, give them a look.
- IdeaBlade web site
Architectural Pattern Frameworks
Silverlight is a plug-in that allows you to do a mix of web/winforms development. However, its similarities lend itself to the same UI patterns that are well documented in WPF. Furthermore, Silverlight as a plug-in needs to be hosted in a web environment. Architecting the data flow from the host to the plug-in is also important. This is where the MVVM and MVC architecture patterns apply.
- ASP.NET MVC 1.0 - If you are working on the web, you have to host your Silverlight application somewhere. ASP.NET MVC 1.0 allows you to build Model-View-Controller architected applications inside ASP.NET. If you are implementing REST access or URL routing navigation inside your Silverlight application, ASP.NET MVC will wrap like a glove around your Silverlight XAP files.
- Composite Application Guidance (also known as Prism v2) - This is a composite framework for Silverlight and WPF applications. Microsoft provides guidance for enterprise development using the MVVM pattern and implement Commanding for Silverlight. This framework also includes a complete StockTrader example.
- Microsoft Azure (March 2009 CTP) - Visual Studio 2008 Tools have been updated if you want to write applications in the "Microsoft Cloud". Mesh Enabled Web Applications allow you to use Silverlight as the front-end for Microsoft data services.
- Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio
Media Streaming with IIS 7.0
Silverlight 3 enhances the multimedia experience by providing true 720p HD streaming in full screen, hardware accelerated video processing and smooth streaming. Many of these features were pioneered during the 2008 Olympics broadcast in NBC. Microsoft has made this technology available to anyone who wants to host a Silverlight experience using IIS 7.0
- IIS Media Services - Allows IIS 7.0 to be turned into a web server that can stream HD quality Silverlight media streams with smooth streaming technology that powered the NBC Olympics 2008 Site.
- UX Media Simulator - This is a media player that allows you to graphically tune and visualize what happens when your Internet bandwith drops and Silverlight smooth streaming kicks in. Pretty good tool to use to debug your content if smooth streaming is important to you.
- UX Media Simulator
- Watch a video with UX Media Simulator and tune the bandwith
Additional Tools
Silverlight's unique ability to run on the client while hosted on the web has provided it with many interesting capabilities that were previously hard to achieve. Here are some tools that make our lives easier for developing in Silverlight:
- Virtual Earth Silverlight CTP - This set of assemblies allow you to expose and control Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps via Silverlight. It is a very cool add-on for Silverlight if your applications require maps.
- Silverlight Spy 3 - This is an absolute MUST HAVE for any Silverlight developer. Think of it as Fiddler/.NET Reflector for Silverlight applications. It has been recently updated for Silverlight 3 Beta.
- Silverlight Spy (update includes support for Silverlight 3 Beta)
Add-Ons and Code Examples
Microsoft has made a lot of the features really extensible in Silverlight 3. Microsoft showed off many features in Silverlight 3 that can extend the features provided.
- Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer - This tool allows you to test/debug your applications in IE 6, 7 and 8. It is very cool and a must for any online compatibility testing with IE. Most Silverlight applications remain web hosted so this applies to Silverlight as well.
- Expression Blend 3 Sample Behaviors - Expression Blend 3 includes something called behaviors. This gives designers the ability to drag and drop and add "triggers/events" to the design objects and have them "behave" in certain ways. During MIX 2009, Microsoft showed off some real cool behaviors like adding physics to object by simply dragging and dropping it on top of a control.
- Expression Blend 3 Behaviors
- Silverlight 3 Pixel Shaders - Silverlight 3 now supports Pixel Shader 2.0. This allows you to write very interesting and powerful screen manipulation using HLSL. For example, some of the nice Windows Aero Effects in Vista are done using pixel shaders. There will no doubt be a CodePlex project created for Silverlight Pixel Shaders. For now, many of the existing WPF pixel shaders can be made to work in Silverlight 3.
- Slidentity Silverlight 3 Application - Slidentity is a cool Silverlight 3 Beta application that shows off many of the new features. It is an end to end example with source code.
As you can see, there has been a lot of stuff released around Silverlight 3 that is well beyond the "core release". It can be very easy to get lost with the amount of tools/frameworks/apps out there. If I have missed any obvious ones, please e-mail me and I will add it to the list.