Windows Strata = Microsoft's layered cloud OS

Nice find by blogger Kit Ong (which I saw via Long Zheng): Microsoft's cloud operating system platform is named -- or at least codenamed -- "Windows Strata."

Microsoft is indirectly confirming the name on its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) Web site, where all of its cloud-related sessions are now lumped under the "Windows Strata" heading. (Update: Microsoft pulled all the PDC site references to Strata as of October 9.)

Another naming tweak that the company has made on the PDC site: The Live Mesh Platform is now called the "Live Framework." One session, entitled "Live Services: Building Mesh Applications Using the New Live Framework" is described as follows:

"Come learn how to build a new type of application designed from the get-go to live and breathe within Live Mesh. 'Mesh Applications' can be accessed from anywhere through a web browser as well as run locally (and offline) on user's desktop and can take full advantage of many Mesh value-add services such as a dedicated sandbox, online and offline synchronized storage, auto deployment and update, identity, application catalogue, social computing and more. Learn about the Mesh Application architecture and lifecycle as well as how to build Silverlight 2 and JavaScript Mesh Applications from ground up."

(I wouldn't be surprised if one of these "mesh applications" we see being accessed from a Web browser during the PDC demos is PowerPoint or another of the Office family of apps... How would Office in a browser differ from how Office Live Workspace currently works? Another PDC mystery left to solve.)

But back to Strata. Is Strata the product currently codenamed "Red Dog"? I'm not sure. But I think  Strata might be the Red Dog plus a layer of cloud infrastructure services (like management, virtualization, networking, storage, etc.). There's another whole layer of cloud services -- which Microsoft has been calling Live Platform Services -- that is going to ride atop this lower-level "strata." The Live Platform services are where Live ID authentication, device synchronization, workflow, P2P networking, etc., fit in.

("Strata," as Wikipedia notes, has to do with layers: "In geology and related fields, a stratum (plural: strata) is a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguishes it from contiguous layers. Each layer is generally one of a number of parallel layers that lie one upon another....")