14 DAY TRIAL // With Volta, formerly code-named Tesla, Microsoft is delivering a programming toolset designed to build multi-tiered applications in the cloud. Volta is currently available for download as a technology preview, addressed to web developers familiar with other Microsoft technologies, such as Visual Studio 2008, C#, Visual Basic and the .NET Framework. Essentially, Volta is a new component added to the puzzle that is Microsoft's Software plus Services strategy. At the heart of the toolset there is a declarative tier-splitting technique, which enables the developer to assign declarations to the source code and in this manner to componentize classes and methods according to various layers in a multi-tier .NET application.
"Volta is a toolset created by Microsoft Live Labs that allows developers to build multi-tier web applications using established languages, libraries, development tools and the .NET Framework. Volta offers a specialized facility for partitioning functionality across client and server via declarative tier-splitting. Volta extends the .NET Framework to distributed Software + Services applications, allowing developers to use existing and familiar tools and techniques. Additionally, Volta?s design allows developers to delay some decisions until later in the development process ? making it faster and cheaper to adjust architectures to accommodate evolving requirements," explained Erik Meijer, main architect for Volta.
You will be able to download the Technical preview of Volta via this link. Via the toolset, the focus is placed on the building process, and only late in the development process Volta will deal with distributing portions of the application between the server and the client tiers. In this manner, Volta is connected with a client-side perspective, by enabling developers to bring functionality to the foreground, and only at the end to deal with the tiering of the application.
"Volta makes it easier to interface with existing web services from familiar .NET programming languages and libraries. By automating some deployment aspects, Volta makes it considerably easier and faster for developers to create multi-tier applications, freeing them up from repetitive, low-level communication software, so they can devote their time and creative energy to more in depth aspects of their designs," Meijer added.