Excel Services Architecture In SharePoint Server 2010

Excel Services is part of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Excel Services is built on ASP.NET and SharePoint Foundation technologies. Following are the core components in Excel Services:

· Excel Web Access
· Excel Web Services
· User-defined functions (UDFs)
· ECMAScript (JavaScript, JScript)
· Representational State Transfer (REST) service
· Excel Calculation Services

The Excel Web Access, Excel Web Services, UDFs, ECMAScript, the REST service, and Excel Calculation Services components can be divided into two major groups: the components on a front-end server (also known as the "Web front end") and the component on a back-end application server.

An important aspect of Excel Services is that solution developers can use its power programmatically from their applications. These applications can be line-of-business (LOB) products or custom enterprise solutions that an organization develops internally.

Following are examples of these applications:

· Multitiered applications, with the presentation layer implemented as a Web application (for example, an ASP.NET application) that calls Excel Web Services.
· Applications within Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, or integrated with LOB products.

There are five types of development that you can do by using Excel Services:

· Develop solutions by using Excel Web Services
· Extend the Microsoft Excel function library in Excel Services by using user-defined functions (UDFs)
· Customize the Excel Web Access Web Part
· Develop solutions by using ECMAScript (JavaScript, JScript)
· Use the REST API to perform operations against Excel workbooks

For more info, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms517343.aspx