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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, scalable, secure enterprise level solutions in Financial Services.
Letter from the Editor
Hello,
Welcome to the Fall Edition of the Microsoft Financial Services Newsletter for Developers. The past three months have certainly been a tumultuous time for the financial services industry, as the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States has driven volatility in the capital markets, leading to interest rate adjustments that reverberate widely throughout the global economy. These difficult market conditions continue to reinforce the need for innovative software solutions that build customer connections, improve operational processes, and enable better decision making.
Business intelligence is one of the keys to enabling better decision making, and offerings from Microsoft this space continues to grow with the launch of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. In order to succeed, financial firms, like many other businesses, need to be able to monitor, analyze, and plan the execution of key business processes. Put another way, financial institutions need to answer three crucial questions: what is happening, why is it happening, and what would we like to see happen? PerformancePoint Server provides capabilities at all stages of this cycle, and offers users at all levels of an organization, from the branch to the back office, with significant insights into the state of the business. PerformancePoint Server builds on top of our existing BI capabilities in SQL Server 2005 (and the upcoming SQL Server 2008), as well as other Microsoft platform technologies. For a more detailed discussion of how PerformancePoint Server fits into the Microsoft vision for BI in financial services, please see the feature article in the current issue of Windows in Financial Services.
In order to make it even easier for our customers to deploy Microsoft BI solutions, we have partnered with Dell to create a series of reference architectures that bring together Windows Server, SQL Server, and Dell hardware to support a wide variety of BI scenarios. The reference architectures include three validated reference configurations for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. Each offers a single source for sizing, installation, and support of all hardware and software. Plus, they are built on industry-standard components. This lets you save time and reduce costs by taking advantage of your existing investments in Microsoft tools. For additional information, see http://www.dell.com/sqlbi.
Another important new product launching this fall is BizTalk Server 2006 R2. Financial institutions in particular will find many of the enhancements in BizTalk Server 2006 R2 extremely valuable, especially the inclusion of the BizTalk Accelerator for SWIFT as a core piece of the BizTalk product, rather than as a separate add-on as it is in previous editions. BizTalk Server 2006 R2 also extends support for building Service Oriented Architectures by enhancing support for Web services, expanding business activity monitoring, providing adapters for host systems, and delivering a prebuilt reference architecture for an enterprise service bus (ESB). Taken together, these capabilities bring significant new capabilities for financial developers and architects across capital markets, insurance, and banking.
In closing, I understand that it’s difficult to stay on top of all of the latest technology coming out of Redmond, and even more difficult to understand how to apply this technology to the business of financial services. One new tool that helps manage this deluge of information is Windows in Financial Services magazine’s recently launched wiki, which covers key terms and technologies that Microsoft uses in our discussions with the financial industry. In addition, the .Net StockTrader sample application helps clarify the best practices for building scalable, interoperable financial applications. Finally, events are another great way to learn the latest about Microsoft technology. In addition to local events, the Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference is coming up at the end of October. This conference will provide developers and architects with an excellent opportunity to understand the Microsoft SOA and business process technology, as well as how to apply this technology to financial services. I will be delivering a talk on SOA in Financial Services, which will highlight some of the great work our partners and customers are doing in this space. In addition, Microsoft will be participating in SWIFT’s upcoming SIBOS conference in Boston, October 1 - 5. If you plan to attend either SIBOS or the SOA/BP conference, I hope to have a chance to speak with you regarding Microsoft in financial services.
Regards,
Brian Jackson
Technology Strategist for Banking
Worldwide Financial Services
Microsoft Corporation
What’s New
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This is an end-to-end sample application for .NET Enterprise Application Server technologies. It is a service-oriented application based on Windows Communication Foundation (.NET 3.0) and ASP.NET, and illustrates many of the .NET enterprise development technologies for building highly scalable, rich, enterprise-connected applications. It is designed as a benchmark kit to illustrate alternative technologies within .NET and their relative performance. The application offers full interoperability with J2EE and the IBM WebSphere Trade 6.1 sample application. As such, the application offers an excellent opportunity for developers to learn about .NET and building interoperable, service-oriented applications.
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Regardless of the size of your organization, you need best-in-class infrastructure. BizTalk Server 2006 R2 delivers just that for enterprise-class organizations. Through BizTalk Server 2006 R2, Microsoft provides the tools to connect both proprietary and standards-based systems. The Server Infrastructure preintegrates .NET technologies, making BizTalk a central part of any SOA strategy. BizTalk Server 2006 R2 is a strong asset to enable visibility into all of your business process data not only from the core of your enterprise but also to data at the edge.
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By David Isbitski, Developer Evangelist
IT Departments in today’s enterprise are consistently being asked to do more with less. But how do you accomplish such a feat? One of the often overlooked areas is that of user experience. Bad user experience can cause employee frustration and it costs money in ways not initially thought of. Lost employee productivity hours, increased helpdesk calls, cost of typo mistakes in financials. Microsoft’s platform today offers both designers and developers a chance to speak the same language. The result is increased end user satisfaction, loyalty, and cost savings to IT.
Author Bio:
David is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, working on the Industry Platform Team covering both Financial Services and Health/Life Sciences Industries. He has over 12 years’ total IT experience and has been creating enterprise solutions with Microsoft products since Visual Basic 5. He enjoys talking about technology and has taught full-day courses on various Microsoft topics as well as being a presenter at both MSDN Events and Microsoft DevDays.
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Announcements
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We launched the Capital Markets Architecture Center with loads of great articles. Many thanks to Stevan Vidich, Capital Markets Industry Architect, in helping get this site launched.
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Events
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October 16, 3:30 PM - 6:00 PM, New York, NY
The Financial Services Industry Council, launched last fall, is the premier program for decision makers, architects, and developers with an industry focus brought to you by Microsoft. The Industry Council provides a constant flow of industry-related information with a focus on the Financial Services industry. It’s also a great networking opportunity. Speakers: Daniel Chait is a Managing Director at Lab 49, and David Isbitski is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft.
Agenda: User Experience in the Enterprise
User Experience has become more and more important in Financial Services, especially in customer-facing applications. However, LOB applications are often overlooked. This session will delve into why UX is important in the enterprise, and how customers can take advantage of Microsoft technologies to deliver compelling and rich experiences for employees and customers alike.
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October 29 - November 2, Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond, WA
During four days of breakout sessions, chalk-talk discussions, hands-on- abs, peer networking, and social events you will learn about both the current Microsoft portfolio and long-term strategy for SOA & Business Process initiatives. Whether you are a developer, architect, or business decision maker we will have something for you with tracks spanning technology, architecture, and business value topics.
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Take an inside look at some of today’s hottest coding solutions with MSDN Events. These free, live sessions always deliver hands-on technologies with lots of time to ask questions and network with your peers -- no traveling sales people involved. Our presenters are veteran coders with real-world experiences to share.
Sessions include:
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What’s New for Web Development in Visual Studio 2008
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A New Paradigm for Data Development with Web-Based Data Services
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Using Windows Live Services in Your Own Web Application
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Resources
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With 22,000 employees and a turnover of €12 billion (U.S.$6.9 billion) in 2005, Achmea is the largest insurance company in the Netherlands. It wanted to increase the responsiveness of its IT department by improving the transparency of development projects. Partnering with Avanade and Microsoft, Achmea successfully implemented Microsoft 2005 Team System, which provides administrators with access to detailed, accurate information across multiple systems. Projects can now be tracked from beginning to end, making it easier to maximize efficiencies in the development process. And with Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the company’s 200 developers have increased productivity.
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Raymond James Financial is a global financial services firm with more that 4,600 Advisors. Because 80 percent of these Advisors are independent contractors who operate remotely, the company found it challenging to share business and customer information. Raymond James needed a customer relationship management solution that could support its remote workforce, integrate easily with existing business systems, and offer compelling capabilities to encourage widespread adoption. The company adopted Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a global standard, with more than 1,800 current users, and with plans to make the solution available to nearly 5,000 people across its branch offices.
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Fall Edition  October 2007 |
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