Developing the Next Generation of Web Applications Using Silverlight and mv.NET

Microsoft's Silverlight product was launched in April 2007 and has evolved quickly to become a powerful framework for the creation of the latest generation of Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

Silverlight is an extensive web browser plug-in that allows web browsers to host desktop-like .NET applications.  These applications are created in a very similar manner to the way in which traditional (rich-client) desktop applications are built.  This means quicker, more effective application development and richer browser applications – especially for database-centric applications vital to the running of an enterprise – often referred to as Line of Business (LOB) applications.

Silverlight applications are created using Visual Studio – the foremost and by far the most widely used development environment worldwide.  The development process (both application programming and debugging) is very similar to that used when creating rich client applications.  This provides a far superior development process to that used in traditional web application development and allows much richer, more responsive and visually stimulating LOB applications to be easily created by any developer familiar with Visual Studio.

BlueFinity's Solution Objects, part of mv.NET, allows .NET developers to easily create powerful, nested data aware business objects-based access layers to MultiValue databases.  In line with BlueFinity's mission to provide state-of-the art Microsoft centric tool-sets, Solution Objects has been enhanced to generate access layers that are able to run within the Silverlight browser environment.  This means that Silverlight applications are able to access MultiValue data via industry standard interfaces and allows the full power of Silverlight's excellent data binding technology to be used against MultiValue data. 

The Solution Objects access layer handles all aspects of MultiValue database interaction within the Silverlight application in an efficient and intuitive manner.  This allows the developer to focus on creating the presentation and business logic layer of the application and utilize all of the many powerful user interface features of Silverlight within their application.

Microsoft has successfully encouraged the growth of a vibrant 3rd party tools vendor development community for the .NET environment.  This has had the effect of significantly broadening the breadth of technology available to .NET application developers.  Best of breed components ranging from data input, data visualization, mapping, inter-systems communications and many more are all available off-the-shelf at low cost.  This allows organizations to save significant development time and expenditure on the creation of underlying utility code and focus on revenue generating or cost saving business solutions.  Over the past 2 years, this 3rd party component vendor community has turned its efforts to creating Silverlight enabled tools, which has resulted in a superb range of application enhancing technology for this environment.

Any existing MultiValue-based application can be lifted above the competition using Silverlight and mv.NET without needing to move away from tried, tested and trusted MultiValue database technology or existing business logic.  Solution Objects allows you to retain existing investment in MultiValue-BASIC application code and, where necessary, enhance business logic within the .NET environment, while offering the ability to create application interfaces using the very latest industry standard RIA technology.

In summary, .NET, Silverlight and mv.NET together provide the tools to allow you to future-proof your MultiValue application, incorporate non-MultiValue programmers into your development teams and deliver cutting-edge, visually compelling browser-based applications.  All of this is based on industry standard technology at a cost which makes it affordable for even the tightest of development budgets.

Silverlight support within Solution Objects will be available for developers with the formal release of Visual Studio 2010, which has been scheduled by Microsoft for April 2010.