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Microsoft, COM + MTS = Component Services Architecture
APRIL 1998

Microsoft is giving IT managers plenty more reasons to consider COM as the answer to their enterprise distributed application problems.

The company is working to turn Component Object Model+--the ongoing upgrade of COM--and the MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server) into one programming model that company officials are calling a Component Services Architecture, according to Dave Reed, general manager of COM technologies in Redmond, Wash.

Reed discussed the future of COM here at the Internet Application Development 98 conference.

The merging of the two means a transformation of MTS into a series of COM-based Component Services that run on Windows NT server, which in turn will allow developers to build transaction-based distributed applications from COM components that can be managed from a single point of administration.

COM will absorb current MTS transaction, security administration and infrastructure services and gain new Queued Request, Event and Load Balancing services when a COM upgrade goes into beta in the first half of this year, Reed said.

The Queued service will add a layer of reliability not available in COM, he said. Under the new services, developers can use Microsoft's message-queuing server, MSMQ, to employ COM as an "invocation method."

The new Event service will use publish-and-subscribe technology to provide developers with greater control over their transactions.

Finally, the Load Balancing service will leverage Microsoft's Wolfpack clustering technology and Active Directory to allow transaction requests to be dynamically spread across multiple servers, he said.

In related advancements, Reed said Microsoft will offer COM service interoperability on the Solaris platform. An implementation of COM for Solaris is due next month, he said.

Microsoft also will upgrade the COM run-time environments for Windows 95 and Windows NT in May, allowing better Internet tunneling through a firewall via the Distributed COM protocol, said Don Chouinard, Object Services manager for Microsoft.

Microsoft officials say the single-platform series of services that will comprise COM+ give IT managers an alternative to piecing together "best of breed" solutions involving Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Enterprise JavaBeans and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture.

"Solaris [still] rules on Wall Street, but NT server sells more units per day than all Unix vendors combined," said Chouinard. "The question isn't if NT is ready for you, but if you and your enterprise are ready for NT." For Microsoft, COM + MTS = Component Services Architecture

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