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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, scaleable, secure enterprise level solutions in Financial Services.
Letter from the Editor
Greetings and welcome to the summer edition of the Developer Newsletter for Financial Services. It’s packed with the latest tools and resources for developing solutions in the complex financial services space.
We are fresh off of the SIA industry show, where Microsoft and our partners, including Hewlett-Packard and Digipede Technologies, demonstrated the next-generation modeling and trading platform. The solution features Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server built upon a Windows CCS (Compute Cluster Server) 2003 HPC (high-performance computing) cluster.
As shared by my colleague Stevan Vidich, the new platform “leverages the ubiquity of Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets in financial services firms as a front-end interface, combined with the scalability and availability of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 software as a back-end analytic engine.” This is a very exciting announcement and a showcase for some of our newer thinking in the financial services space.
This newsletter includes several new offerings that I hope you will find of value, including a new Identity and Access Management site launched for developers, a new site for Risk Management and Compliance, a look at the architecture aspects of Software as a Service, a guide for mainframe developers on running batch jobs on Windows, and a great new update from our Patterns and Practices group on the Smart Client Software Factory concept.
In addition, Microsoft recently announced and launched CodePlex, an online collaborative software development portal for community-oriented shared-source and open-source projects. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback.
Several folks have asked about the next version of Visual Studio and what the Developer Tools roadmap looks like as Windows Vista and Office 2007 are launched. The latest on “Orcas” can be found below.
Thanks again to all of you who attended our 4th Annual Financial Services Developer Conference. All presentations from the conference are now available at our community site.
Thanks,
Mike
Michael K. Wons, Technology Strategy Director, World-wide Financial Services Group
Mikewons@microsoft.com
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Developers, please give us your feedback! At Microsoft, we want to ensure that we are meeting your needs. The following survey should take no more than 10 minutes of your time. Please let us know how we are doing in the Financial Services developer space so we can better target our offerings for you. Please visit the Web site to take this brief survey and forward along to other developers in your organization. We appreciate your time and input!
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Featured Articles
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Capital market institutions and their throngs of traders are constantly looking for new ways to stay ahead of the game. Time is money, and in the world of equity trading and investments, the power of Microsoft Office Excel as a strategic business tool is growing. At the SIA (Securities Industry Association) Technology Management Conference and Exhibit, a leading forum for the financial services industry, Microsoft’s U.S. Financial Services Group is showcasing what promises to become one of the world’s most advanced modeling and trading platforms: the Microsoft Office Excel Services/Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 solution.
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This article provides an in-depth look at the challenges and requirements of securing the exchange of information and services between independent organizations. It also explores a solution to solve the challenges and requirements associated with using technology to securely interact between organizations.
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Recently, we launched a new “Identity and Access Management Resources” site for developers on MSDN. It focuses on the concept of developing "identity-aware" applications. Identity and access management has become more complex as digital identities take on an increasingly important role in specifying how users interact with computer networks and line-of-business applications. It is a “must” for application developers to have a consistent and effective strategy for building software that takes advantage of the identity-rich capabilities of the Windows platform.
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A new site for Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance (ERMC) is now on ms.com. The new content includes an overview of our efforts with Risk Management and Compliance and features a series of white papers, customer case studies, and partners. The content also highlights the use of Office through the Solutions Showcase for Financial Reporting via XBRL, Financial Dashboards to support compliance efforts, and the support of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements through the Microsoft Platform.
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Trust, or the lack thereof, is the number one factor blocking the adoption of software as a service (SaaS). A case could be made that data, which is at the heart of SaaS, is the most important asset of any business -- data about products, customers, employees, suppliers, and more. SaaS applications provide customers with centralized, network-based access to data with less overhead than is possible when using a locally installed application. But in order to take advantage of the benefits of SaaS, an organization must surrender a level of control over its own data, trusting the SaaS vendor to keep it safe and away from prying eyes.
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There is tremendous value invested in batch applications that may seem locked in mainframe architecture. This paper examines the primary aspects of migrating batch jobs to the Windows operating system and the Microsoft .NET Framework. It reviews solutions from vendors and third parties that are available to support these batch migrations.
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With the Smart Client Software Factory, architects and developers can quickly incorporate many of the proven practices and patterns of building composite smart client applications. These practices and patterns have been identified during the development of many smart client applications and their components. This new guide uses the Global Bank as the Smart Client Baseline example.
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Welcome to CodePlex, Microsoft's online collaborative software development portal for community-oriented shared-source and open-source projects. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback.
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The Atlas Control Toolkit is a set of controls and extenders that use Atlas technologies to enable developers to easily improve the client experience on their Web sites. The toolkit includes components that enable developers to enrich their Web applications and examples for those wishing to write client-side code, and highlights the work of some of best script developers. Questions about the toolkit can be asked at the ASP.NET Forums.
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The Microsoft Visual Studio Extensibility Center is the place to share, buy, create, and sell add-ins and packages. Sync your IDE with the way you think and work. Add functionality like multilevel undo-redo power. Collaborate using a project dashboard. Or just rearrange the interface to suit your preferences. Customizing your work environment can save you time -- time that can be better spent solving creative challenges.
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Visual Studio "Orcas" delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that offer the highest quality, rich user experiences. With Visual Studio "Orcas," organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information so that they can make effective business decisions. Visual Studio "Orcas" enables any size organization to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system.
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Customer Case Studies/Power of the Platform
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DenizBank, one of the largest private banks in Turkey, needed to find a more flexible infrastructure for its core banking to make it easier to integrate and deploy new solutions to help it keep pace with its rapid growth. The bank is replacing its old core banking platform, which was based on UNIX and the ADABAS database, with a new solution that uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as the database and Microsoft development tools, including the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0. The company has found it significantly easier to create new banking applications since moving to SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) and the new unified development environment. The solution has given the bank the agility it needs to quickly develop new applications to respond to market opportunities. DenizBank plans to use SQL Server 2005 Database Mirroring to enhance high availability of its data.
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Fidelity Information Services wanted to make its flagship loan origination software, Empower, fully Internet-enabled and more scalable. It alto so wanted make it easy to integrate Empower with a customer’s other systems and easy to customize with new and additional services. To meet those objectives, Fidelity worked with Avanade and Microsoft Services to migrate the Delphi-based solution to a service-oriented architecture running on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Today, Empower supports a range of Internet-based front ends, including smart clients, Web browsers, Web services, and external services. The .NET-connected Empower is expected to boost revenues for Fidelity by up to U.S.$30 million, and its development has already shaved 18 months and $4 million off the time and cost of developing on an alternative platform.
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Millions of people in the United States rely on government assistance. But the complex enrollment process causes billions of dollars to go unclaimed and is expensive for government and non-government organizations to deliver. To effect change, H&R Block and Nets to Ladders (N2L), a Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner, developed the Benefits Enrollment Network. Built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, this Web-based service closes the gap between unclaimed benefits and those who qualify for them. The Benefits Enrollment Network is easily adopted by human services organizations and H&R Block Tax Professionals; provides a central access point to client information; matches clients to available federal, state, and local benefits; and supports electronic enrollment. Overall, it simplifies the process and enables H&R Block clients to obtain life-altering government benefits.
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To continue meeting its mission of connecting healthcare providers with timely and comprehensive patient information, executives at Misys Healthcare Systems wanted to replace the Java environment in which they had developed the company’s flagship electronic health record product family. Seeking an environment that would support interoperability, ease of enhancement and maintenance, and simplified user accessibility, they selected Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Consequently, developers have taken advantage of a service-oriented architecture and XML Web services model to make their product highly interoperable with diverse hardware and software alike. They have built equivalent functionality with half the code and in half the time as in the Java environment. And, they have delivered to customers a product that is easily usable in virtually any healthcare setting.
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Events
Save the Date: Unwrapped for Financial Services Webcast Series III
September 6-12, 2006
Now in its third year, the Unwrapped for Financial Services webcast series is back! Sessions will be both technical and strategic in nature, covering the newest Microsoft solutions for Capital Markets, Retail Banking, and Insurance firms. All sessions will be presented live. Join us starting September 6, 2006, for this new series in which we will highlight common concerns, case studies, and best practices within financial services. To receive an invitation to all of the webcast sessions, please e-mail fsmkt@microsoft.com or search under all event types for “Webcast: Unwrapped for Financial Services."
2006 PASS Community Summit
November 14-17, 2006
Microsoft SQL Server Users Conference and Expo, Seattle, Washington
Join PASS as it heads back to Seattle, November 14-17, 2006, to host the premier event exclusively dedicated to Microsoft SQL Server education.
Webcasts
For MSDN webcasts, visit the Web site.
For other upcoming webcasts and events, go to the Web site.
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