Microsoft Delivers Roadmap and Software for .NET Enterprise Servers

ORLANDO, Fla., July 11, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today detailed and delivered technology previews and beta releases of its comprehensive family of .NET enterprise servers — the latest evolution of the Windows® DNA servers — to attendees of the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The new .NET enterprise servers will deliver deep XML integration, pioneering software-scale support across all tiers, distributed business process orchestration, and interoperability with existing software and hardware investments, and also will provide the foundation for building a new generation of Web services with the .NET Platform.

Microsoft outlined how developers can now begin to build, deploy, manage and orchestrate Web services and enterprise Web solutions on the .NET Platform by taking advantage the .NET enterprise servers — Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, BizTalk™ Server 2000, Commerce Server 2000, Application Center 2000, Host Integration Server 2000, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 and Exchange 2000 Server — and the current set of Microsoft tools. Microsoft also detailed how, with the introduction of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio® .NET, developers will have new tools and infrastructure for quickly building Web services on the .NET enterprise servers with industry-leading scalability, availability and flexibility.

“Microsoft has spent the last 18 months making XML an integral communications fabric of our enterprise server infrastructure to provide developers with the vital foundation for next generation Web solutions,”
said Paul Flessner, vice president of Microsoft .NET enterprise servers.
“By delivering the first set of fully Web-enabled servers in the industry, Microsoft is ensuring that developers will be able to rapidly build solutions for the next wave of the digital economy.”

.NET Enterprise Servers and Web Services

The current generation of .NET enterprise servers delivers on the .NET vision by providing the premier infrastructure for Web services. The features critical to this environment include: deep XML integration throughout each component of the platform, providing seamless Web communication and interoperability; support for software-scale on every tier, allowing workload partitioning across clusters of commodity servers to achieve the highest levels of scalability and availability in the industry; interoperability and integration with legacy systems, preserving investments in existing software; and business process orchestration, which allows Web services and existing applications to be coordinated together into flexible and powerful systems of applications.

Specifically, at the PDC Microsoft demonstrated XLANG TM , an XML-based language for building distributed business processes, which is the enabling technology in BizTalk Orchestration. BizTalk Server 2000 with XLANG allows business analysts, IT professionals and developers to rapidly build reliable, scalable business processes that span applications, platforms and organizations. XLANG is automatically generated by the BizTalk Application Designer, a rich graphical tool for visually designing business processes, and then executed at runtime by the BizTalk Orchestration Engine.

.NET Enterprise Servers and the .NET Framework

In addition to demonstrating support for Web services built with the current generation of tools, Microsoft also demonstrated how the .NET enterprise servers will support Web services built with the .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET. Application Center 2000 was shown scaling out a Web Service built with the .NET Framework across a cluster of standard high-volume hardware. With the same Web service, BizTalk Orchestration and XLANG were used to define and execute a complex business process that included multiple legacy applications. This support for the .NET Framework in the .NET enterprise servers will ensure that customers have a solid foundation for Web services as Microsoft continues to deliver key components of the .NET Platform.

Future versions of the .NET enterprise servers will feature even deeper integration of the .NET Framework, offering even higher productivity, availability and scalability for Web service and enterprise Web solution development.

About Microsoft .NET

The Microsoft .NET Platform, announced June 22 at Forum 2000, is Microsoft’s initiative for creating the next generation of software, which melds computing and communications in a revolutionary way. This vision offers developers, businesses and consumers the ability to harness technology on their terms and with the tools they need to create truly distributed Web services making information available any time, any place and on any device.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft, Windows, BizTalk, Visual Studio and XLANG are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information about Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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