Distributed application development for three-tier architectures: Microsoft on Windows DNA

The organizational boundaries that have traditionally constrained applications are giving way to the opportunities inherent in electronic commerce and networked operations. Today, the geography of an application can extend far beyond an organization´s boundaries, literally into consumers´ homes. It is possible to think of an Internet application needing to handle literally millions of users. The argument for responding to these changes with three-tiered component computing is deceptively simple: partitioning applications cleanly into presentation, application logic and data components enhances scalability, reusability, security and manageability. Yet, even with new Web front ends, most companies have not taken full advantage of multi-tiered architectures. The Windows DNA (Distributed interNet Applications) architecture creates a seamless environment for developing multi-tier distributed computing applications. Windows DNA does this by unifying PC, client-server and Web-based application development around a common, component-based application architecture. Large and small organizations alike can improve their effectiveness by creating a new class of business solutions. Unless such an architecture is ubiquitous and accessible to virtually any organization, a broad shift to three-tier Web-enabled computing cannot occur