ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- Sketching the rough details of its vision for a connected business environment around Web services, Microsoft revealed a new e-business server project, code-name Jupiter, and gave more details around its vision for real-time computing in the enterprise.

   ADVERTISEMENT
  

Free IT resource

Hear how top CIOs turn change into a competitive advantage.

Sponsored by HP

Free IT resource

Attend the SOA Executive Forum: Breaking SOA Bottlenecks SOAExecForum.com/may2007

Sponsored by InfoWorld

RELATED LINKS

IDG ENTERPRISE NETWORK
• More App Development News...  (ComputerWorld)
• JBoss buys former HP middleware  (ComputerWorld)

TOP NEWS 


IT SOLUTION SEARCH
Speaking here at the Microsoft Exchange Conference, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of the .Net Enterprise Server Group, extolled the value of a connected business, directly linking lower TCO and higher revenue and productivity with the ability to connect applications, systems, customers, and partners.

Microsoft has been driving toward connectivity through Web services and its .Net technologies, he said.

"The next step [is] a programmatic environment across the enterprise that is Web-enabled by Web services," he said. " Web services is focused on making this environment easier [by] pulling the complexity down and [getting] everything connected."

Part of that reduced complexity and bolstered connectivity will come from Jupiter, a set of technologies designed to componentize and unify Microsoft's e-business server line of products including BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, and Content Management Server, according to David Kiker, general manager of e-business servers, who also participated in the keynote address.

"E-business is about connectivity and getting access to data," he said. "Jupiter is a single integrated set of e-business technologies, building on existing products."

Essentially, Jupiter will offer business process management capabilities and Web services technology such as the BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) to allow the servers to work together as a unified platform.

Jupiter also will provide tighter integration with Visual Studio .Net and Office in order to improve the experience for developers and information workers. For example, through direct connectivity to Microsoft Office, Jupiter could allow a business user to monitor and manage a real-time business process from inside an Office application such as Word or Excel, Kiker said.

Jupiter will be delivered in two phases over the next year to 18 months. The first set of technologies is scheduled to be introduced in the second half of 2003, with the focus initially on services for business process management, XML Web services, and internal and external integration. Specific offerings were not detailed, but will include process automation, workflow, integration technology, support for BPEL4WS, and an integrated developer environment, according to Kiker.

The second set of technologies, to be delivered in the first half of 2004, will add services for commerce and content functionality such as content management, commerce services, catalog management, site analytics, personalization, and campaign management.

Meanwhile, Flessner also gave a few more details about Microsoft's real-time communications road map, code-name Greenwich.

"Greenwich is a set of technologies that we will push into a platform around real-time communication and collaboration," he said.

Greenwich will include business-critical features such as authentication, encryption, and logging and auditing capabilities. It will also include advances in real-time video and videoconferencing, Flessner said.

Moving away from IM tools as part of Exchange, Greenwich will deliver real-time communication and presence technology as infrastructure in the Windows .Net Server OS. Greenwich will allow customers to deploy applications that are built on a real-time framework.

During his keynote presentation, Flessner also mentioned new features in Windows .Net server 2003, including Group Policy Management, designed to let administrators lock desktop systems to desired configurations; Windows Resource Manager, which allows administrators to partition off a specific application or give it more resources; and Error Reporting, designed to capture in real time interruptions and bugs in code, according to Flessner.