Oslo (Microsoft) - History

History

Originally, in 2007, the "Oslo" name encompassed a much broader set of technologies including "updated messaging and workflow technologies in the next version of BizTalk Server and other products" such as the .NET Framework, Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft System Center (specifically the Operations Manager and Configuration Manager).

By September 2008, however, Microsoft changed its plans to redesign BizTalk Server around "Oslo". Other pieces of the original "Oslo" group were also broken off and given identities of their own; "Oslo" ceased to be a container for future versions of other products. Instead, it was identified as a set of software development and systems management tools:

• A centralized repository for application workflows, message contracts (which describe an application's supported message formats and protocols) and other application components
• A modeling language to describe workflows, contracts and other elements stored in the repository
• A visual editor and other development tools for the modeling language
• A process server to support deployment and execution of application components from the repository.

When "Oslo" was first presented to the public at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in October 2008, this list has been focused even further. The process server was split off as code name "Dublin" that would work with "Oslo", leaving "Oslo" itself composed of the first three components above that are presently described (and rearranged) as follows:

• SQL Server Modeling Services (formerly the 'repository'), a core database role for models and a set of shared, common domain models. Modeling Services is built on Microsoft SQL Server and is highly optimized to provide your data schemas and instances with system-provided best SQL Server practices for scalability, availability, security, versioning, change tracking and localization. Common domain models include identity, CLR and UML.
• A configurable visual tool (Microsoft code name "Quadrant") that enables you and your customers to interact with the data schemas and instances in exactly the way that is clearest to you and to them. That is, instead of having to look at data in terms of tables and rows, "Quadrant" allows every user to configure its views to naturally reveal the full richness of the higher-level relationships within that data. Microsoft stopped development on Quadrant in July 2010.
• A language (Microsoft code name "M") with features that enable you to model (or describe) your data structures, data instances and data environment (such as storage, security and versioning) in an interoperable way. It also offers simple yet powerful services to create new languages or transformations that are even more specific to the critical needs of your domain. This allows .NET Framework runtimes and applications to execute more of the described intent of the developer or architect while removing much of the coding and recoding necessary to enable it.

Most recently, at the Professional Developer's Conference in November 2009, Microsoft announced that the 'Oslo' name was being retired and that the technologies were now called the SQL Server Modeling CTP. This naming was chosen because of the natural alignment of the technologies with Microsoft SQL Server and because the technologies would be shipping with a future major release of that product.

The use of SQL Server in the name has generated some confusion about how things like the "M" language relate to a database engine. The SQL Server product, however, encompasses many features beyond the core database, as architect Douglas Purdy explains.