Join us in Bracknell for an evening of Virtualising Websites and Robotics! Brian Squibb will be giving a session on Virtualising Websites. Brian discusses whether this latest technology is ideal for virtualizing web sites or whether there are cheaper alternative yet more effective and efficient approaches. Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the IT world because of the potential for serious economic benefits. Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine as virtual machines (VMs). With server virtualization, you can consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines can lead to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure. Following on from a successful session earlier on in the year, Peter Eagling returns and will give a session on Microsoft Robotics Development Studio. Here's the outline from Peter: More from the Robotics world but with a view to applicability in the commercial world this time. In this presentation we shall take a brief look at the key components of the MRDS:- The Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) The Decentralised Software Services (DSS) The Visual Programming Language (VPL) The Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) CCR, DSS and VPL are based on existing MS technologies and are of interest to anybody looking to simplify development in a multi processor environment. The CCR is a programming model for handling multi-threading and inter task synchronisation. The DSS is used for building applications based on a loosely coupled service model. Services can run anywhere, so the DSS provides a communications infrastructure. Together they form the ‘coding’ part of the MRDS. VPL is data flow based graphical design tool. Programming elements are dragged on to a design surface and then connections made between inputs and outputs. The elements can be as simple as a data values or as complex as a service. The VSE comes from games development and uses 3D graphics to render a virtual world and a physics engine to approximate interactions between objects within that world. It is a simulation environment to test robot designs.