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Welcome to the Microsoft Financial Services Newsletter for Developers. At Microsoft, we’re committed to serving the needs of developers and architects in the financial services industry. This newsletter will give you links to the latest resources, tools and technologies to help build fast, deployable Web solutions.
Letter from the Editor
Welcome to the Fall Edition of the Microsoft Financial Services Newsletter for Developers. I recently returned from the 2005 PDC event. This year’s event was one of the best PDCs that I’ve attended. In addition to all the great news about Windows Vista and the monumental excitement surrounding the November release of the Applications Platform (.NET Framework, Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006), we held the first-ever Industry Day for Financial Services Developers.
The Industry Day quickly sold out and featured the following topics: Business & Technical Trends in Financial Industry, Enabling Software Infrastructure, Building the Integrated Environment, and User Experiences for Financial Services. We sincerely appreciate everyone who participated in this event, and, although this was our first foray into an industry-specific session at PDC, we agree with you that it makes sense to continue to build on this offering. The event would not have been a success without the tireless efforts of Marley Gray (Lead Evangelism Manager for Financial Services) and Asli Bilgin (Senior Developer Evangelist for Financial Services). Josh Lee also helped make this session a success and met the challenge of doing a presentation during the Los Angeles power failure. In addition, a special thank you to the InfusionDev team for helping make these sessions happen. For updates on the PDC and other specifics around happenings in Financial Services, I encourage you to visit Marley’s blog.
This will continue to be a milestone year for Microsoft as we deliver a number of significant enhancements to the platform, including version 2.0 of the .NET Framework and new releases of Visual Studio and SQL Server. BizTalk Server is also being enhanced. This edition of the newsletter will share some great articles highlighting the new features of the platform as we transition from beta to launch and we’ll be providing specific coding examples for Financial Services developers. Finally, we’ve included an interesting case study from GMAC on how the company is using the Microsoft Platform to help address several of the compliance and regulatory challenges presented by issues like Sarbanes-Oxley.
Enjoy the fall!
Michael K. Wons, Technology Strategy Director, World-wide Financial Services Group
Mikewons@microsoft.com
What's New
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Windows Workflow Foundation is the programming model, engine, and tools for quickly building workflow-enabled applications on Windows. It consists of a WinFX namespace, an in-process workflow engine, and designers for Visual Studio 2005. Windows Workflow Foundation (currently in beta) is available for both client and server versions of Windows. Windows Workflow Foundation includes support for both system workflow and human workflow across a wide range of scenarios.
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Inside Information for Developers
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Developers want to build safe applications, but most developers don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time learning about securing their applications. This paper reviews some of the features of Visual Studio 2005 that can help you build secure and robust applications. Most of the tools and enhancements in Visual Studio 2005 require very little extra work and can have a tremendous impact on the overall security of your applications.
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As businesses evolve, so do the systems that run them. These systems will continue to increase in complexity as businesses grow, innovate, and integrate with partners, customers, and vendors. This article provides a detailed look at the foundation of automated unit testing, and the code-generation engine included in the Unit Testing Framework provided by Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System.
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Extensibility is crucial to international users today. Users want the option to customize data as appropriate for their needs. What if the built-in support for a particular language or culture is not adequate or appropriate, or the cultural data is missing entirely? The upcoming Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 adds a number of globalization features that address the important issues of extensibility, standards support, and migration.
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Case Study
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Facing the need to track more than a thousand business controls and manage several times as many documents for compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, GMAC Commercial Mortgage (GMACCM) knew that it would need more than spreadsheets and file shares. Risk Management Compass (RMC), developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the Microsoft .NET Framework, gives the company a comprehensive and robust solution for mapping, assessing, managing, and reporting on all risk categories.
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Events
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Join Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and key Microsoft executives for the launch of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006. This all-day event will offer an opportunity to learn how the Microsoft application platform offerings enable organizations to gain better business insight and deliver faster results by easily connecting people, processes, and information. The launch event will also provide technical education for developers and database administrators in an environment designed for personal interaction with industry experts. In addition, this event will showcase the technical evidence, customer success stories, and partner offerings that demonstrate the business value of these tools.
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November 15-18, 2005
Orlando, FL
Plan to attend the 28th Annual BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo in Orlando, Florida, and gain critical insights and new ideas from the leaders in retail banking. This year’s agenda will focus on how top-notch organizations are building products, services, and corporate cultures to deepen their customer relationships, differentiate their brand, and increase loyalty and ROI.
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Prepare yourself for the upcoming SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 launch. The Launch Tour 2005 Knowledge Center offers the latest MSDN webcasts, MSDN Virtual Labs, Microsoft e-Learning, and much more.
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Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 were designed to help you build data-driven applications more easily and quickly than before. Order Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 to experience the integration of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005.
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Microsoft unveiled the next generation of software application opportunities at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference 2005. Featured were technical previews of the next version of Microsoft Office, code-named Office “12," and Microsoft Windows Vista, formerly code-named "Longhorn."
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Webcasts
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How would your code stand up to an attack? If you are not sure, join us for the Digital Blackbelt webcast series to discuss security risks, vulnerabilities, and solutions from the software developer's perspective. We will provide real-life examples and security tips and tricks that can help you gain the knowledge and techniques to become an experienced "blackbelt" in writing secure code.
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Plans are underway for .NET Unwrapped II for Financial Services, a webcast series focused on real-world developer solutions for the financial services industry. Visit the Microsoft Financial Services Web site for updates or send an e-mail message to fsmkt@microsoft.com to receive your personal invitation. In the meantime, tune in to the on-demand version of the first .NET Unwrapped for Financial Services webcast series.
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