Last night Microsoft announced that the technology preview of Live Mesh is available to a limited number of beta testers. Live Mesh is a way for me to sign up all of my devices (mobile and Mac coming soon) and designate libraries (files) on each one to be synchronized to the others. I also get a secure remote desktop into the machine. This all runs in the cloud and uses your Live ID and SSL to secure the data. I can see this enhancing/replacing the array of tools I use now for synchronizing and remote access to my machines and data. I am excited to start working with the technology preview and see how this will work when I am on the road next for remote access to my home PC. Right now if I need to get to it I can have someone log into it and I use the remote help option as an easy way to do remote access without having to configure firewalls and worry about having a connection from the Internet to that system. The downside of that is that someone has to request the help and then allow me to have control so it takes someone being available. From what little I have seen about Live Mesh I don't have to have someone at the device to connect to it securely so it will make it more convenient.
Of course at the top of my wish list is to have Live Mesh work with CardSpace but since I can set up my Live ID to use CardSpace I don't know that it is that big of an issue.
When the SDK comes out later it will be interesting to see how Microsoft delivers on their promise of having the same API on the client and in the cloud. If the API looks just like the current .NET Framework that would go a long way to making this the "killer application" of clould computing even though it is really a platform to create killer apps. If all of the .NET programmers can just write their applications and then at some time decide to move them from an on premise app to a being hosted in the cloud that would make this platform extremely useful and really enable it to take off. If I have to write my applications in a new way with different constructs and they only run in the "mesh" then I don't know if I would start targeting this platform for general user applications. There are a class of applications that use collaboration heavily and could use the mesh immediately but I don't know that writing your typical data entry and reporting line of business application would gain enough benefit from the mesh to justify a new programming model and the drop in productivity that it would entail.
For now I will just try to explore what I can do with the technology preview and post my experiences.
You can find more information about Live Mesh at the web site http://www.mesh.com. There are also the following resources available:
- Watch the interview with Ray Ozzie introducing Live Mesh on Channel 9 (link: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399578)
- Watch an interview with Abolade Gbadegesin on Live Mesh Architecture (link: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=399577) on Channel 9
- Watch the demo of the Live Mesh application on Channel 10
Some good background on Mesh can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/livemesh/