Microsoft plans to release the second Community Technology Preview (CTP) of its Astoria Web data services technology around Christmas and envisions Astoria's use in a variety of Web application platforms.
The Astoria project is focused on merging Web technologies and concepts with the Microsoft Data Platform to provide infrastructure for Internet applications. Currently available in a first CTP, Astoria could bolster data access in AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), Microsoft Silverlight, and Adobe Flash applications, said David Wright, Microsoft architect evangelist. Astoria also could be used for stateful mashups, he added.
Wright spoke about Astoria at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday. Astoria is intended to build what Microsoft calls "cloud data services."
"We're very loosely defining a cloud data service for the purposes of this as someone's data that lives on the Internet at some publicly accessible location that is going to be accessible by any number of people who may or may not be using the same client technologies," Wright said.
"The key point to take away from something like this is it's all done from the URI itself," and little has to be done on the server side to expose data, Wright said.
Astoria features an entity data model. Developers can provide generic access to a database they already have.
Eventually, Astoria is to become part of the planned Visual Studio 2008 development platform, which has been code-named "Orcas."
Earlier in the day, Oracle's Ted Farrell, chief architect and vice president for tools and middleware, talked about how collaboration concepts popular in consumer-oriented Web 2.0 applications also can be useful in the enterprise.
Web 2.0 had various definitions, including empowerment, Farrell said.
"I think a lot of people view Web 2.0 as sticking it to the man," with users owning the data and posting material when told they cannot, Farrell said.
"In the enterprise space, collaboration and information-sharing is key," and Web 2.0 will bring that to the enterprise, he said. But in the enterprise, authority does in fact matter. "The users don't own the data," he said.
One way Oracle is helping customers adopt Web 2.0 is through use of frameworks. These UI frameworks help build out Web 2.0 applications. Oracle has standardized on JavaServer Faces because it separates the component from the way it is rendered, he said.
Through frameworks, developers can focus on applications and not on the technology, he said.
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