Mapping Out the Microsoft Application Platform at a Glance

“People only see what they are prepared to see.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

At the beginning of the year, I like to take a quick survey of the Microsoft application platform.  It helps me figure out where to put my bets and where to explore.  It’s a “see the forest, from the trees” exercise.

And oh, what a forest it is.  The beauty is it covers a wide spectrum and supports so many scenarios.  The challenge is finding your way around.  To find my way around, I map out the platform and I think in terms of application types:

• Web applications
• Mobile applications
• Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
• Rich Clients
• Web Services

By thinking about deployment targets such as cloud or desktop or browser or phone, etc. it makes it very easy to get in the ballpark in terms of context and technologies very quickly.  From there, I can worry about things like presentation or data access stacks or language platforms (native, .NET, or scripting.)   It’s also a quick way to explore relevant quality attributes (security, performance, reliability) or evaluate architectural styles.  In other words, it’s a way to hack through information overload and cut to the chase.

Microsoft Application Platform at a Glance
This is my draft map of the platform.   It’s a strawman that I use to walk the platform, find clusters of technologies, figure out what’s changed, and evaluate the latest story.  It’s easier for me to have conversations about the platform with customers or product teams when I start with a shared frame.  The hard part is putting the initial map together.  The easy part is improving it through feedback.  If something is missing, it’s easy to add.  If something is wrong, it’s easy to fix.

As simple as the map looks, it compacts a lot of information.  I stuck the code names in where I could find them.   Enjoy …

Category	Items
Application Infrastructure	.NET Framework Base Class Libraries (BCL) Common Language Runtime (CLR) Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
ALM (Application Life-Cycle Management)	Visual Studio Team System Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
App Frameworks / Extensions	Enterprise Library Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)
Cloud	Windows Azure App Fabric (Service Bus + Access Control) SQL Azure
Collaboration / Integration / Workflow	Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Microsoft BizTalk Server
Data Access	ADO.NET Entity Framework ADO.NET Core ADO.NET Data Services Framework ADO.NET Dynamic Data (Jasper) ADO.NET Sync Services LINQ to SQL
Database Server	Microsoft SQL Server
Development Tools	Microsoft Visual Studio Microsoft Expression Studio
Games	XNA
Identity	Windows Identity Foundation (Geneva) Active Directory Federation Services (Geneva Server) Card Space
Languages	Common Language Runtime (CLR) Dynamic Language Runtime   C++ C# F# IronPython IronRuby VB.NET
Mobile	Silverlight for Mobile .NET Compact Framework Windows embedded Windows Mobile
Modeling	SQL Server Modeling (M / Quadrant) (Oslo)
OBA (Office Business Applications)	Microsoft Office SharePoint
Parallel	F# Parallel Extensions for .NET PLINQ Task Library
Rich Client	Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Windows Forms Windows Forms with WPF User Controls XAML Browser Application (XBAP) using WPF
Rich Internet Applications (RIA)	Microsoft Silverlight Silverlight with AJAX
Services	Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) WCF RIA Services WCF Data Services (ADO.NET Data Services, Astoria) ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX)
Web	ASP.NET ASP.NET Web Forms ASP.NET Web Forms with AJAX ASP.NET Web Forms with Silverlight Controls ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET Dynamic Data
Web Server	Internet Information Services (IIS)
Windows Server	Windows Server App Fabric (Dublin + Velocity)

Where To Find Out More
I’m a fan of teaching people to fish, as well as giving some starter fish.  Aside from people, events, and social media, the three best ways I know to figure out what’s happening on the platform are Wikipedia, Channel9, and the MSDN Dev Centers.  I started you out with some pages below …

Wikipedia

• Index of Microsoft Code Names - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames
• ADO.NET - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET
• ADO.NET Entity Framework - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework
• ASP.NET - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASP.NET
• Azure Services Platform - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Services_Platform
• Parallel Extensions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Extensions
• SQL Server - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SQL_Server
• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Communication_Foundation

Channel9 Training Centers

• Azure Platform Training Course - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Azure/
• Identity Developer Training Course- https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/IdentityTrainingCourse/
• Office 2010 Workshop - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Office2010/
• SharePoint 2010 Developer Training Course - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/SharePoint2010Developer/
• Silverlight 4 Training Course - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 Training Course - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/VS2010/
• Windows 7 Training - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Windows7/
• Windows Server 2008 Training - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/WindowsServer2008R2/
• Windows Server HPC Learning Course - https://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/HPCLearningCourse/

MSDN Dev Centers

• Architecture Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/default.aspx
• patterns & practices Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/practices/default.aspx
• .NET Framework - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/default.aspx
• App Fabric Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/netservices.aspx
• ASP.NET - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa336522.aspx
• Azure Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/default.aspx
• BizTalk Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/biztalk/default.aspx
• Data Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/default.aspx
• F# Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp/default.aspx
• Internet Explorer Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/default.aspx
• Mobile Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile/default.aspx
• Office Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/default.aspx
• Parallel Computing Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/concurrency/default.aspx
• Security Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/default.aspx
• SharePoint Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx
• Silverlight Dev Center - https://silverlight.net/
• SQL Server - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/default.aspx
• Visual Studio Team System Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/default.aspx
• Windows Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx
• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Dev Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) - https://windowsclient.net/
• XNA Developer Center - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa937791.aspx

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2010
  Fabulous! Great post as usual- just what i was looking for the past week! Do you also have a second column for each of these that show primary competitors for each segment? If that is internal only, pls send me a link at anutthar at microsoft.com

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2010
  Excellent !!! I am going to print this table and stick it on my desk to keep an eye on.

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2010
  Nice post. Some more features that could be included are MSBuild, PowerShell etc. It would also be nice to provide information on some widely used community/open source frameworks as alternative to some MS technologies available in various areas like Build/Deployment/Configuration frameworks (like NAnt), ORM (like NHibernate), Unit testing frameworks(like NUnit), Mocking frameworks etc.

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2010
  It would be cool if you just put the links in the table where you're listing the products/technologies.

• Anonymous
  February 08, 2010
  Nice post. It would be nice if you had a link to samples; like samples from codeplex.

• Anonymous
  February 08, 2010
  Whoa ... can you spell "complexity"???

• Anonymous
  February 08, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 08, 2010
  @ anutthara Thank you. Done. @ Jomit Thank you. @ Rajesh Thank you.  I'll consider for an upcoming post. @ Matt Done. @ Zoldello Thank you.  Rounding up samples would be a challenge.  However, there is quite an interesting catalog at the All-In-One Code Framework http://cfx.codeplex.com/ ... it's more than 290 code examples covering 24 MS technologies. @ Mike How and what would you simplify?

• Anonymous
  February 08, 2010
  This is great.  A couple things I'd quibble about. You mean to say  Linq2Sql.  Data Access is just one particular provider plugin into LINQ - LINQ should go in the infrastructure category (if at all, since it's now a part of the .NET framework). Also, its a little weird seeing F# included on the list but not IronPython or IronRuby since those along with C# and VB.NET are the "big 5" microsoft-supported languages. Other than that.  Great list!

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2010
  @ George Thank you.   Great points.  Done.  I added a language bucket.

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2010
  I think you focused mainly on the recent technologies, especially those used in the .NET world - even if I use too only .NET at work, I can't forget that there is still a LOT of people currently using other technologies from the MS stack: MFC ATL ADO COM ActiveX ASP .NET Remoting FoxPro MS Access and many others.. Even is Microsoft wants to see some of these 'dead', it's very hard to get rid of the huge code base and the skills people build with effort during many years on all those technologies..

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2010
  @ Tudor Yes, that's right -- I focused on mapping out the newer technology stack and yes, many people still use earlier technologies and there are many large code bases on the earlier stacks.