.NET represents the Microsoft strategy for connecting systems, information and devices through ‘web services’
This article was first published in November/December 2005 in Student Accountant.
In an ideal world, all computer systems would connect with each other and all applications would create compatible data. People would be able to exchange information quickly and easily, collaborating and communicating more effectively. We are closer to this nirvana than at any time in the past, but we still have some way to go. Microsoft .NET can help us on our way.
.NET represents the Microsoft strategy for connecting systems, information and devices through ‘web services’. These are small, reusable component applications written in XML (the lingua franca of the Internet) and based on industry protocols including SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language). Web services can be published, located, and invoked across the Internet to perform a variety of functions, ranging from simple requests to complicated business processes. Once deployed, other applications (and other web services) can discover and invoke them. So, web services can be used to minimise the amount of time it takes to develop systems, and reduce costs.
This in turn makes it easier for businesses to exploit their existing investment in legacy systems, and the data they contain, and still take advantage of new technologies, because they will no longer be constrained by differences between operating systems and programming languages. Thanks to web services, it’s possible to re-enable systems so that different platforms and programming languages can work together. Through .NET, Microsoft offers a complete range of software designed to help organisations and individuals benefit from web services. These include the developer tools ‘Visual Studio .NET’ and the ‘.NET Framework’ – the Windows Server System used to host web services. Other applications such as the Office family will ‘consume’ (or use) web services.
A large financial services company has already used .NET to develop its own integrated risk management system, improving reporting and analysis by making the information stored in spreadsheets and disparate legacy systems more accessible and visible. It also managed to comply with Sections 302 and 404 of SOX at a cost that was 50% less than the original estimates, while also putting in place an architecture to support compliance efforts in areas such as Basel II and IFRS.
However, Microsoft does not have a monopoly on web services. You can develop and integrate them in many platforms, including J2SE (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) and J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition). However, .NET is tied to the Microsoft Windows platform, while J2EE is an industry standard jointly developed by everybody else, and based on Sun’s Java language. As web services are platform neutral, they are all theoretically interoperable, but integration is rarely a trivial task.