At the 2007 Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Technology Management Conference & Exhibit in June, Microsoft launched its first-ever reference implementation, or sample application, to help Wall Street build trading solutions on the Microsoft platform. The sample application, called .NET StockTrader, is an end-to-end application based on an online stock trading scenario that is meant to give companies a blueprint for how they can use Microsoft technologies, such as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), to create service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions to advance their businesses. It’s accompanied by a technical white paper that provides guidance for developers. The technical white paper information includes benchmark data to illustrate alternative technologies within .NET and their relative performance. The application also offers full interoperability with J2EE and IBM WebSphere’s Trade 6.1 sample application, providing developers with an opportunity to see first-hand the possibilities for building interoperable .NET-based service-oriented applications.

Microsoft’s .NET StockTrader sample application provides developers with a blueprint for using Microsoft technologies to create service-oriented architecture solutions for stock trading scenarios.

As developers have now had many long summer days to pore over the white paper, kick the tires and tinker with the application, we asked Greg Leake, senior product manager in the Connect Systems Division what type of feedback has been received and how the responses from the customer community will be put to use.

Were there any aspects of the sample application (i.e., interoperability, performance testing) that customers and partners have indicated were most useful to them in moving forward with developing a solution of that type on the Microsoft platform?

The two key aspects that customers have expressed the most interest in are interoperability, and a practical sample on how to integrate .NET and J2EE-based systems using Windows Communication Foundation/Web Services as well as performance. On the performance side, they specifically wanted an enterprise-based design with logical separation of user interface, business services and data access, and to see how to achieve this with high performance and scalability. As such, the sample demonstrates the use of an n-tier architecture where all database access is performed by middle tier services (not the user interface); and the data access layer is stateless for very high performance. In addition, customers wanted practical guidance on specific WCF/Web Service programming techniques and tuning to achieve better throughput for Web Services, and the sample serves as a design pattern for this, illustrating both design and tuning for high Web Service performance.

Are there plans to further enhance this sample application?

Yes, we expect to release a version for the .NET Framework 3.5 and do further performance testing for Windows Server 2008, along with other areas we will enhance based on customer feedback.

Are there any enhancements you are planning based on feedback you have received so far? If so, can you explain?

We are still collecting feedback from customers, but the .NET Framework 3.5 performance testing/analysis and Windows Server 2008 benchmark results on IIS7 are top on the list to date.

Was this sample application based in any way on any existing partner or customer applications, or did you work with any customers and partners in putting together the initial sample application?

No, we did not work directly with customers and partners in developing this initial sample application, but the application was created based on customer feedback on their desire to have a comprehensive enterprise sample application for interoperability as well as performance, especially with respect to building service-oriented applications using .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Communication Foundation. We welcome further customer feedback on this technology as well as on our other product offerings.

www.msdn.microsoft.com/stocktrader/