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January 27, 1997 10:00 AM ET=20
Microsoft to integrate its Internet Information Server with Transaction
Server for distributed object platform
By Norvin Leach and Michael Moeller=20
=A0Microsoft Corp. this spring will take a big step toward making
communication between World Wide Web-based objects transparent to
developers when it integrates Internet Information Server with the
Microsoft Transaction Server.
By combining the next version of IIS, code-named K2, with the next versio=
n
of the Transaction Server, formerly known as Viper, Microsoft will provid=
e
a tighter way to set up, manage and deploy objects across an intranet.
K2, which will include the next version of Transaction Server, is due to
enter beta testing by April, said officials from Microsoft, in Redmond,
Wash.
The integration will streamline the amount of programming needed to link
IIS' Active Server Pages engine to the Transaction Server.
Microsoft will add to the forthcoming version of Viper the ability to
schedule and queue transactions through integration with the
message-queuing technology code-named Falcon, now in beta testing.
Microsoft, however, will continue to provide a separate, lightweight
version of Viper with Windows NT, sources said.
Microsoft officials insisted that the integration is not a concerted effo=
rt
to make the Web server itself a platform, and that NT is still the centra=
l
platform.
However, as Microsoft readies the next version of NT, now called NT 5 and
due at year's end, the company will release new technologies and integrat=
ed
services as they are developed.
"The way these Internet interfaces evolve, we need to ship them at a much
faster rate than the core NT," said Rich Tong, vice president for
Microsoft's desktop and business systems division.
The goal of the integration is to build a complete architecture in which
applications function as distinct business objects, with little reference
to their environment or the communications architecture.
"When you're building business applications, we want to separate what an
application does from how it does it," said James Utzschneider, lead
product manager for the Transaction Server. "The same customer-registrati=
on
application could be used in an office with four people or an office with
4,000."
Ideally, developers will be able to create HTML pages that act as
rendezvous points for application objects scattered across an intranet.
Although developers can integrate IIS with other NT and BackOffice servic=
es
today, the task is not easy. Viper components can be invoked by the Activ=
e
Server Pages scripting server; however, developers have complained that
extensive scripting is required. In addition, not all services can be
shared between two scripted HTML pages.
"You can link [IIS and BackOffice] together, but you have to do quite a b=
it
of programming," said Chuck Toussieng, a principal at Alpha Information
Systems, in Temecula, Calif. AIS is an Internet consultancy that builds W=
eb
applications for IIS 3.0 for companies such as Bank of America and the
Money Store