ES12
Oct 29th, 2008
Exposing Connected Home Services to the Internet via Windows Home Server

Speakers

CJ Saretto, Senior Program Manager,Microsoft Corporation
Brendan Grant
Doug Berrett
This session took you through how you could:
- Expose services running on top of your Windows Home Server to the Internet
- Expose services running on top of another device in your home network and expose that to the Internet via the Home Server
- A preview of Live Mesh integration with Windows Home Server to enable connected home services / Mentioned Technologies
  • Windows Home Server
  • Windows Live Mesh
  • Live Framework
  • Silverlight
  • Florence

CJ started off by getting into the details of the Remote Access Platform of Windows Home Server which includes:
1) IIS 6/ASP.NET 2.0
2) Single Sign On
3) Dynamic DNS w/ SSL Certificate
4) Web site advertisement on built-in pages
He dived straight into a demo that showed how to expose services running on a Home Server to the Internet (Thermostat Home Service Demo - 6 minutes). In this demo, CJ showed us how easy it is to take a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget (that shows the temperature in the room via the help of a Thermostat) and expose that gadget as a Web page over a Windows Home Server.
Then CJ exposed services running on another device on the home network over the Internet via the Windows Home Server (Florence Demo - 11 minutes).
CJ demoed Florence, a side project—which is a Silverlight Web application that lets you share any media on a PC over a browser. CJ walked us through a step-by-step instruction on how to expose Florence running on a PC in the home network securely over the Internet using Home Server as a secure proxy helping you perform a Single Sign On as well.
CJ explained that in the future Live Mesh will integrate Windows Home Server in its device mesh which will provide:
- Home Server’s always available storage will be added to Live Mesh
- Users will be able to access their Home Server remote experience via Live Mesh
- Home Server services will extend their reach via the Live Framework
CJ then handed off the presentation to his colleague Brendan Grant (SDE) who then showed us a demo of the Windows Home Server Console + Live Mesh integration. Doug Berrett showed us a demo of a Silverlight version of the Thermostat application that could be accessed from anywhere, including your Live Web desktop. Doug also gave us a quick overview of Mesh applications in this amazing demo.

List of demos

Thermostat Home Service / This demo showed us how easy it is to take a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget and expose that gadget as a Web page over a Windows Home Server. / 6 min
Florence / This demo focused on Florence which is a Silverlight Web application that lets you share any media on a PC over a browser. / 11 min
Windows Home Server Console + Live Mesh integration / This was a demo of a Silverlight version of the Thermostat application that can be accessed from anywhere, including your Live Web desktop. / 8 min

Conclusion

In conclusion, this session contained some amazing demos of current and future elements developed for the Windows Home Server. If you do develop or plan to develop for Windows Home Server, or even if you are just an enthusiast, you will find the time spent on this session worthwhile. To summarize: This session took you through three things:
  • Exposing services running on top of your Windows Home Server to the Internet
  • Exposing services running on top of another device in your home network and exposing that to the Internet via the Home Server
  • A preview of Live Mesh integration with Windows Home server to enable connected home services

Mohammed Jeelani