Microsoft has unveiled a multi-year strategy designed to
help businesses create software based on aservice oriented
architecture.
Dubbed "Oslo," the strategy involves building on the
model-driven and service-enabled principles of
Microsoft Dynamic IT and extending the benefits of
service-oriented architecture (SOA) outside company networks.
As part of a technical road map, Microsoft has made available
new tools and guidance to help organisations take advantage of
"real-world SOA", including new SOA resources from
Microsoft and a host of industry partners.
Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft Business Division said, "The
combination of our current software-plus-services approach and the
new wave of 'Oslo' technologies will enable IT to deliver
high-impact business solutions."
Oslo is designed for applications that cannot easily span the
boundaries between technologies, between business and IT, and
between an organisation, its suppliers and its customers. As part
of "Oslo," Microsoft said it would work to deliver a unified
platform integrating services and modelling, moving from a world
where models describe the application to a world where models are
the application.
The strategy will be supported through the development of
existing Microsoft products:
· Server. Microsoft BizTalk Server "6" will provide a core
foundation for distributed and highly scalable SOA and BPM
solutions, and deliver the capability to develop, manage and deploy
composite applications.
· Services. BizTalk Services "1" will offer a commercially
supported release of web-based services enabling hosted composite
applications that cross organisational boundaries. This release
will include advanced messaging, identity and workflow
capabilities.
· Framework. The Microsoft .net Framework "4" release will
enable model-driven development with Windows Communication
Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).
· Tools. New technology planned for Visual Studio "10" will
support end-to-end application life-cycle management through new
tools for model-driven design of distributed applications.
· Repository. There will also be investments in aligning the
metadata repositories across the Server and Tools product sets.
Microsoft System Center "5," Visual Studio "10" and BizTalk Server
"6" will utilise a repository technology for managing, versioning
and deploying models.