Microsoft Launches .Net Architecture Center

New center, along with Visual Studio .Net Integration SDK, will help enterprise developers build .Net applications.

Microsoft Corp. Wednesday announced the launch of the Microsoft .Net Architecture Center and the availability of the Visual Studio .Net Integration software development kit, providing enterprise customers with a resource center for architectural guidance and integration tools for enterprise developers building applications on the .Net platform.

Microsofts moves are key to increased adoption of the .Net platform in the enterprise, as both will help enterprise development teams build .Net applications quickly and efficiently.

Sam Henry, product manager for Visual Studio .Net, said the .Net Architecture Center is an online resource that provides architects with reference architectures, application building blocks and operational best practices for building architecturally sound enterprise applications. Meanwhile, the Visual Studio .Net Integration SDK--until now exclusively available through the Visual Studio .Net Integration Program--provides tools to enable Visual Studio .Net developers to integrate company-specific tools, documentation and online communities with the Visual Studio .Net IDE (integrated development environment).

"The whole point of the IDE was to provide teams with a common user interface for development," Henry said. But, "enterprise teams said they needed more," he said. The Architecture Center unifies the architectural community in a single place and delivers best practices, he said.

Enterprises require specific architectural guidance to effectively build end-to-end solutions with Microsoft technology, the company said. Through thousands of customer engagements and close interaction with industry partners, Microsoft has established best-practice models, reusable software assets and operational guidance that improve the abilities and the trustworthiness of enterprise software. Many of these will be available from the center.

"We provide both guidance and a starting point for companies to build applications and to integrate their development teams," Henry said.

"Through superior architectural guidance and best practices, the .Net Architecture Center will help Sapient reduce development risks and time frames substantially, while still allowing us to deliver the best-quality architecture for our .Net solutions," Ben Gaucherin, chief technology officer of Sapient Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement. "Our architects now have one place to go for all the information they need for their .Net applications."

Microsoft said a lot of this guidance is available in the companys new "patterns & practices" series, which will continue to grow and will include coverage for a wide range of .Net architecture, design, implementation and operational topics. The Microsoft .Net Architecture Center is available free of charge at http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/ (connect-time charges may apply).

"The .Net Architecture Center provides customers with time-proven recommendations for building .Net-connected architectures, and the Visual Studio .Net Integration SDK lets these customers streamline their development life cycle by unifying their development teams, tools and information in a single environment," Tom Button, vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft, said in a statement.

The Visual Studio .Net Integration software development kit is available free of charge through Summit Software for enterprise customers with a Select Licensing or Enterprise Licensing Agreement. Microsoft said interested parties can find more information at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/partners/.

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