General Topics

Q. Why are you investing in "Oslo"?

IT is under ever increasing pressure to provide flexible applications that are easily configurable and customizable by developers, operations, and end users alike. Model-driven applications have proven to deliver increased flexibility. However, model-driven applications are expensive to build and maintain because each project implements ad-hoc solutions to model-driven patterns. If platform technologies were available that provide solutions to these reoccurring challenges IT could shift the cost of building and maintaining the modeling "plumbing" to their platform provider.

While there are many "modeling" technologies available today very few are focused on helping developers build model-driven applications. As a result, many developers view "modeling" as an ancillary activity that impedes their ability to deliver quality solutions on-time. However, developers could realize significant productivity gains if their development platform and tools provided modeling experiences that helped them get their job done faster and with less code to maintain.

Q. Who Is "Oslo's" target customer?

"Oslo" is focused on organizations building highly customizable applications that are configured and extended by their customers. ISVs delivering enterprise business solutions certainly fall in this category but this also includes organizations within enterprises that build reusable frameworks for other teams or applications customized for multiple divisions.

Q. Who is "Oslo's" intended user?

Initially, "Oslo" is focused on architects and developers building customizable frameworks and applications. Over time we expect to broaden the set of role specific scenarios by applying "Oslo" technologies to specific domains. Some potential examples include: conceptual modeling with UML, building web sites with ASP.NET, and managing services with System Center.

Q. What are the technical components of "Oslo"?

"Oslo" has three core technical components:

"Oslo" Repository
The "Oslo" repository is a SQL Server database enhanced with capabilities for the storage of model schemas and instances. These capabilities include patterns for the consistent partitioning, versioning, securing, relating, and localization of models.
"M" modeling language
"M" is a highly productive, developer friendly, textual language for defining model schema and instances. Models created with "M" lend themselves to progressive refinement and relational linking to each other.
"Quadrant" modeling tool
"Quadrant" is a customizable tool for visualizing and interacting with data stored in SQL Server including models stored in "Oslo" repository-enabled databases. "Quadrant" helps developers quickly navigate large datasets and get answers to questions that require understanding the relationships between models.

Q. What are the key customer benefits "Oslo" will provide?

Simplified Development
"Oslo" will help provide greater levels of agility and productivity by putting model-driven innovation directly into the .NET platform. Developers will be able to take advantage of pre-built domain specific models and languages that ease and simplify application development and management.
Application Flexibility
Applications built using "Oslo" technologies are more flexible because they are naturally data-driven and configurable/customizable by design. Because "Oslo" inherently brings best practices for building data-driven applications into the platform, organizations can spend less time and effort on the plumbing to support a model-driven approach and focus more on their business domain.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
While model-driven applications have proven to deliver increased flexibility, they are generally expensive to build and maintain because each project implements ad-hoc solutions to model-driven patterns. Because "Oslo" inherently brings best practices for building model-driven applications into the platform, multiple teams can adopt a consistent approach to implementing model-driven capabilities across a portfolio of products.
Visibility into Distributed Solutions
"Oslo" will bring together a connected view of today’s models, which are often built in vertical, isolated silos. Building upon the existing and familiar investments customers have already made in Microsoft platforms, while simultaneously opening up a rich new set of capabilities, "Oslo" will integrate with a variety of Microsoft technologies including Windows Server, System Center, Visual Studio, and SQL Server. These connections will provide greater visibility into the configuration of a solution that spans across multiple parts of the application platform.
Bridging the Gaps
"Oslo" technologies will integrate with and enhance Microsoft lifecycle tooling in Visual Studio Team System and System Center to unite development and management activities, helping information workers, developers, database architects, software architects, business analysts, and IT Professionals to better collaborate across development and operations.

Q. When will "Oslo" ship?

"Oslo" is current in Community Technology Preview (CTP) stage and we are committed to regular CTP releases to ensure deep engagement with the developer community on an on-going basis. As the effort progresses we will provide additional detail on Beta and RTM schedules.

Q. How will "Oslo" technologies be packaged, branded, and sold?

We are not disclosing packaging or pricing at this time. However, we expect that "Oslo" capabilities will be made available across existing Microsoft developer platforms and tools potentially including the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, SQL Server, and System Center families.

Q. Where can I learn more about "Oslo"?

The latest Community Technology Preview release, samples and documentation can be found on the Oslo Developer Center http://msdn.microsoft.com/oslo.

Interoperability

Q. Is "Oslo" interoperable?

We are making the "M" language specification available under the Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP) so third parties, including open source projects, can build implementations of "M" for other runtimes, services, applications, and operating systems. Interested parties are also encouraged to join the "M" Specification Community to participate in the ongoing evolution of the "M" language specification.

Q. What specifically are you committing to by publishing the "M" language specification under the OSP?

We are making the "M" language specification (including MSchema, MGrammar and MGraph) available under the OSP so third parties, including open source projects, can build implementations of "M" for other runtimes, services, applications, and operating systems.

Q. What is the "M" Specification Community?

The "M" Specification Community is an online discussion group that will be used to gather feedback on the "M" specification during its development and represents our approach to enabling the broadest set of contributors to provide input to the development of "M". We are interested in working with the industry to generalize an approach to model-driven programming and develop a consistent approach needed to make this a mainstream application development activity. We believe it is very important that the efforts to form the specification are done jointly with members across the community and reflect priorities/input that is both cross-platform and cross-language (much as we helped establish feedback within the XML and Web services arena, and our participation with industry leaders as part of the Web Services Interoperability Organization, WS-I).

Q. How does the "M" Specification Community discussion group work?

Interested parties may join the "M" Specification Community by going to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/oslo/msc.aspx and agreeing to "M" Specification Participation Agreement. This agreement states that you agree to allow Microsoft to release the spec, including your accepted contributions, under Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP). The OSP provides assurances to individuals and organizations wishing to create or use an implementation of the "M" spec that they may comfortably do so under relevant Microsoft patents. Once you have accepted the participation agreement, you can participate in the development of the spec by using the "M" Specification Community mailing list. If you do not choose to accept the agreement, you can still monitor the development of the spec on the mailing list, as it is public.

Q. What opportunities does the "M" Specification Community present for partners and community members?

Customers and partners have the ability to influence Microsoft’s direction with "M" by providing early feedback and gain early insight and education into Microsoft’s approach to developing "M" and "Oslo". This level of participation will also help our partners get ready to take advantage of new business opportunities with the "Oslo" technologies at an earlier stage.

Microsoft always appreciates the feedback and partnership it has with the community in these early development stages, and regards the feedback with utmost importance.

Relationship to other Microsoft technologies

Q. How does "Oslo" relate to Visual Studio?

"Oslo" will provide additional capabilities to the Visual Studio family to support the authoring, manipulation, and sharing of models and development of model-driven applications.

Developers will be able to author models using the "M" language in Visual Studio.
Models stored in the "Oslo" repository can be queried and analyzed using standard Visual Studio database tools.
Over time, multiple roles will use the "Quadrant" tool as part of the Visual Studio family to view, edit, and share models.

Q. How does "Oslo" relate to .NET?

"Oslo" is related to the .NET Framework in two principal ways:

"Oslo" is providing capabilities into the .NET Framework to make it easier for developers to create model-driven applications.
Many parts of the .NET Framework itself are already model-driven. "Oslo" will drive consistency in how .NET Framework components implement a model-driven approach.

Q. How does "Oslo" relate to SQL Server?

The "Oslo" repository extends SQL Server with additional capabilities for relating, versioning, securing, localizing, and packaging models.

Q. How does "Oslo" relate to the Azure Services Platform?

The Azure Services Platform uses models in many areas including solution architecture, deployment, management, and access control. The "Oslo" team is working with the teams building cloud infrastructure and services to identify opportunities to best leverage "Oslo" technologies.

Q. How does "Oslo" relate to the Entity Framework(EF)/Entity Data Model (EDM)?

"Oslo" full embraces EF/EDM as a primary mechanism for applications to access the "Oslo" repository. We are working closely with the Entity Framework team to enable this scenario. As we continue the development of "Oslo" we expect deeper alignment with EF/EDM. In particular, we expect that to have "Oslo" textual and visual DSLs for EDM and for these to play an important role in how application developers build model-driven applications.