The Future of Application Development

“Oslo” and the Future of Application Development

At TechEd United States 2008 (June 2008), Chairman Bill Gates discussed in his keynote the ways in which modeling would transform the future of application development, and the role that “Oslo” plays in these efforts. He also disclosed that a community technology preview (CTP) will be released at the Professional Developers Conference in October 2008.

“I think one of the biggest trends in application development that I talked about… is modeling, and we're making a big investment in that. We have what's been code named Oslo, and talked a little bit about it on our Web sites and our blogs, which is this model-driven development platform. It's actually taking the kind of models that you're seeing arising in specific domains, like software management in System Center, or your data design over in SQL, or your process activities over in BizTalk and saying, we need to take all these domains and be able to put them into one model space. In fact, we need to let people create their own domains that aren't just isolated, but that exist in this one modeling space. And that's what Oslo is about.”

Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft

OSLO - Making a new class of model-driven applications mainstream

About “Oslo”

”Oslo” is the codename for Microsoft’s forthcoming modeling platform. Modeling is used across a wide range of domains and allows more people to participate in application design and allows developers to write applications at a much higher level of abstraction. “Oslo” consists of:

- A tool that helps people define and interact with models in a rich and visual manner

- A language that helps people create and use textual domain-specific languages and data models
- A relational repository that makes models available to both tools and platform components

“Oslo” was first announced by Robert Wahbe (Corporate Vice President of the Connected Systems Division) in October 2007.

“Oslo” and a Mainstream Approach to Modeling

Modeling has often been heralded as a means to break down technology and role silos in application development to assist IT departments in delivering more effective business strategies. However, while the promise of modeling has existed for decades, it has failed to have a mainstream impact on the way organizations develop and manage their core applications. Microsoft believes that models must evolve to be more than static diagrams that define a software system; they are a core part of daily business discussions, from organizational charts to cash flow diagrams. Implementing models as part of the design, deployment and management process would give organizations a deeper way to define and communicate across all participants and aspects involved in the application lifecycle.
In order to make model-driven development a reality, Microsoft is focused on providing a model-driven platform and visual modeling tools that make it easy for all “mainstream” users, including information workers, developers, database architects, software architects business analysts and IT Professionals, to collaborate throughout the application development lifecycle. By putting model-driven innovation directly into the .NET platform, organizations will gain visibility and control over applications from end-to-end, ensuring they are building systems based on the right requirements, simplifying iterative development and re-use, and enabling them to resolve potential issues at a high level before they start committing resources.
Modeling is a core focus of Microsoft’s Dynamic IT strategy, the company’s long-term approach to provide customers with technology, services and best practices to enable IT and development organizations to be more strategic to the business. “Oslo” is a core piece of delivering on this strategy.

“The benefits of modeling have always been clear, but traditionally only large enterprises have been able to take advantage of it and on a limited scale. We are making great strides in extending these benefits to a broader audience by focusing on three areas. First, we are deeply integrating modeling into our core .NET platform; second, on top of the platform, we then build a very rich set of perspectives that help specific personas in the lifecycle get involved; and finally, we are collaborating with partners and organizations like OMG to ensure we are offering customers the level of choice and flexibility they need.”

Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Server & Tools Business

Vale mesmo a pena, seguir os artigos, os white papers, os artigos de opinião, de David Chappell...

Through his speaking, writing, and consulting. David Chappell helps people around the world understand, use, and make better deccisions about new technology.

http://www.davidchappell.com/

David Chappell is Principal of Chappell & Associates in San Francisco, California. Through his speaking, writing, and consulting, he helps people around the world understand, use, and make better decisions about new technology.

David has been the keynote speaker for conferences and events on five continents, and his seminars have been attended by tens of thousands of developers, architects, and decision makers in forty countries. He has also spoken at many universities, including the National University of Singapore, Moscow State University, and Sweden’s Uppsala University, and taught in the executive program of Duke Corporate Education.

David’s books have been published in ten languages and used in courses at MIT, ETH Zurich, and other educational institutions. He is Series Editor for Addison-Wesley’s award-winning Independent Technology Guides, and he’s been a regular columnist for several publications. In his consulting practice, David has helped clients such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Stanford University, and Target Corporation adopt new technologies, market new products, train their sales staffs, and create business plans.

David’s comments have appeared in The New York Times, CNN.com, and many other publications. Earlier in his career, he wrote networking software, chaired a U.S. national standardization working group, and played keyboards with the Peabody-award-winning Children’s Radio Theater. David holds a B.S. in Economics and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Cloud Computing - estaremos perante uma mudança de paradigma?

Tentando mais uma vez, suscitar a discussão entre a equipa de QA, o que dizem do Windows Azure? Cloud Computing - estaremos perante uma mudança de paradigma? Qual o impacto disso nas várias áreas de IT, e em particular na de Quality Assurance?

Windows Azure - O novo Windows!

Afinal não se chamará Strata como se chegou a veicular, o novo Windows com sistema cloud computing acaba de ser anunciado, será o Windows Azure.

O Windows Azure será uma sistema baseado como disse anteriormente na filosofia cloud computing que permitirá armazenar serviços de gestão de serviços para a Azure Services Platform. O Windows Azure irá oferecer aos programadores e criadores um espaço com toda a tecnologia e segurança mediada pela Microsoft.
Essa tecnologia estará presente na utilização e na demonstração de conhecimento utilizando o Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008. A tecnologia existente estará também disponível no suporte aos mais populares padrões e protocolos incluindo SOAP, REST e XML. O Windows Azure é uma plataforma aberta que suportará linguagens e ambientes tanto da Microsoft como de terceiros.

Resumo das aplicações disponíveis no Windows Azure:
Windows Live
Microsoft .NET
Microsoft SQL
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Mais serviços existentes no Windows Azure:

Serviços de programação:- Possibilidade de executar aplicações web ASP.NET ou código .NET na “nuvem”- Ambiente de armazenamento de serviços que inclui o Internet Information Services 7.0 e Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1- Segurança suportada através de directivas Code Access Security flexíveis- Portal web que o ajudará a implementar e actualizar os seus serviços de forma fácil e rápida

Serviços simples de armazenamento de dados- Bolhas (bubble-sort), tabelas e filas são armazenados na “nuvem”, em ligação constante à programação local- Acesso autenticado e replicação tripla para manter os seus dados seguros- Acesso fácil aos dados com interfaces REST simples, disponíveis remotamente e a partir do datacenter
Ferramentas de desenvolvimento- Ambiente completo para implementação offline, incluindo serviços de programação e armazenamento- SDK completo com ferramentas e amostras- Add-in para o Visual Studio que permite a depuração local

Download: Microsoft Windows Azure SDK 1.0.0.0 October 2008 CTP [3.36MB]

Download: Descrição pormenorizada do Azure Service Platform [2.71MB]

Mais Informações: Microsoft Portugal

Homepage: Windows Azure