Last week at PDC 2008 in Los Angeles, Microsoft's Connected Systems Division (CSD) unveiled extended details about the Microsoft's modeling platform, code named, "Oslo".
There has been plenty of news on "Oslo" prior to PDC. If you read various articles, you might get different ideas on what "Oslo" really is. Even though the end-goal and value proposition of "Oslo" doesn't change, the early releases of products in "Oslo" umbrella will focus on delivering a core modeling platform. The vertical solutions/experiences built on top of the modeling platform aim to provide value for the end-users. The initial releases of the modeling platform will appeal to software developers and ISVs who want to build these vertical solutions and experiences for the end-users.
Yes, the end goal of "Oslo" is quiet broad and which is why "Oslo" can mean different things to different people. The immediate release of "Oslo" will focus on building a general purpose modeling platform. Ultimately, the goal of “Oslo” is to make modeling a mainstream part of application development. Models will no longer just describe various artifacts involved in Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), but models themselves will be the running software.
For example, let’s take a vertical experience over the domain of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Application Development. In this domain, business analysts might model requirements, processes and policy; architects might model service contracts and high-level component designs; developers might create executable models for workflows and rules; IT Professionals might model environment and deployment design. Today, each role in the lifecycle has its own preferred way to define, create, store and share models. Using “Oslo” general purpose modeling platform, a solution provider can build domain-specific experiences targeted to different roles, while providing a single view of the application end-to-end. The key differentiator from past modeling promises is that the .NET application runtime will execute the models directly. This eliminates the out-of-sync problem that is the result of many CASE-oriented (code generation) or model-assisted (UML <-> code) products.
The "Oslo" modeling platform, in a nutshell, consists of following three core components:
To get started and learn more about the “Oslo” modeling platform, visit the following sites:
· The “Oslo” Modeling Platform Help Topic
· MSDN Development Center for “Oslo”
· MODELS Remixed
"Oslo" platform also closely relates to other key CSD initiatives (that were initially under the "Oslo" umbrella): .NET Framework 4.0, Visual Studio Team System 2010, "Dublin" and future versions of BizTalk Server.