This week Stephen Ibaraki, I.S.P.,
had the opportunity to interview the Internet guru,
Michael Flynn. Michael's current responsibilities
include media interviews, educational and
promotional initiatives for Microsoft employees,
customers, and partners on .NET, Developer Tools,
Commerce Server, BizTalk Server, ISA Server.
According to Michael, "My
background is 16.5 years in IT. Started building
clone PC’s, moved to field service, moved to large
scale IT management, moved into software
development, moved to computer sales, finally onto
marketing. Companies I have worked for include
Computer Junction, Office Equipment of Canada,
Nestle Enterprises, Compaq Computer, and Microsoft.
I have developed commercial software for Windows CE
(Pocket Administrator) and have developed over 20
different software products for various industries
include broadcast media."
Q: Can you describe your current and future role?
A: Currently I manage a number of products in a
marketing role. Primary responsibility is to develop
strategies for promoting / fostering excitement in
Microsoft products and technologies. If I had my
choice of jobs, I would like to design new products
that leverage web services.
Q: Can you describe XML Web Services?
A: Web services, based on XML will greatly simplify
application integration across the Internet. A great
example of this is to consider using your accounting
software vs. a browser to connect to a business
partner to purchase product for resale. Using the
accounting software, you could type in the
distributor’s web site URL, your accounting software
would then connect to a web service to order
products, the advantage is to have the inventory,
accounting, and pipeline databases within your
accounting software updated automatically at the
time of the order. If you use a browser to place the
order, you would have to manually enter the order
details into your accounting package.
Over time, any software package could be used to
connect to a web site (web service) for information
exchange. The big part of this is that with XML/SOAP
you will be using industry standard based messaging
protocols to develop these new connections.
Q: What are the capabilities of the new SOAP Toolkit
and why would developers be interested?
A: The new version, SOAP Toolkit 2.0 provides full
support for SOAP v1.1, the Web Services Description
Language (WSDL). With the Toolkit, developers can
build high performance, commercial quality XML Web
Services or add such capabilities to any existing
application that supports the Component Object Model
(COM). In addition to new samples and debugging
tools, this release also is fully interoperable with
XML Web Services built using the .NET Framework and
has been tested with SOAP implementations from a
variety of other vendors.
Although you can expose Web Services using any
programming language, object model, or operating
system, Windows, COM, and our tools make it a snap.
The SOAP Toolkit automates all the key parts of
creating a Web Service.
Interoperability with Visual Studio.NET Beta 1. You
can now use the SOAP Toolkit to call a Web Service
created by a Visual Studio.NET Beta 1 application.
You can also write a Visual Studio.NET Beta 1
application to call a Web Service created by the
SOAP Toolkit.
Source code cleanup and optimization, and better
performance. Our stress-test results showed a
performance increase of about three times faster.
Memory leaks and bug fixes. All known memory leaks
and many bug fixes are included in this release.
Improved error handling. We are now handling errors
properly, and returning meaningful error messages.
A new Visual Studio.NET ROPEDEMO sample. This is an
exciting addition to the SOAP Toolkit. Please see
the documentation included with the toolkit for more
details about this release.
Q: How is Native SOAP Support for Windows XP
provided?
A: In addition to the standalone Toolkit, Windows XP
will have native support for SOAP, simplifying the
efforts of developers building XML Web Services on
Windows XP, and ensuring customers will easily be
able to utilize such services. Just as Windows 2000
was the first operating system with native XML
support, Windows XP is expected to be the first in
the industry with native SOAP support.
Q: Can you describe the W3C Acceptance of New
Security Specification? Can you detail the XML key
management specification (XKMS) digital certificate
specification by the World Wide Web Consortium?
A: The W3C recently acknowledged the submission of
the XML key management specification (XKMS) which
was jointly authored by Microsoft, VeriSign and
webMethods with submission support from Baltimore
Technologies, Citigroup, Entrust Technologies,
Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business
Machines Corp., IONA, PureEdge Solutions, Reuters
Limited, RSA Security and Science Applications
International Corporation. The XKMS specification
helps enterprises and developers use Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI) digital signatures and
encryption with XML Web Services.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/Apr01/04-10VeriSignPR.asp
Q: Can you provide a road map for future XML Web
Services?
A: Primary developers and consumers of web services
will be corporate IT. Many customers are already
developing web services to simplify the connectivity
of disparate islands of information regardless of
the platform they exist on. Web services from MS
will include authentication, notification, and
access to data.
Q: What ten tips and recommendations would you give
to those entering the IT field and for seasoned
veterans?
A: 1 - Understand the different platforms available,
what are the pro’s, con’s
2 - Understand current industry trends, i..e. Web
Services – XML/SOAP
3 - Understand the new developer tools, why and how
they do most of the coding
4 - Understand advantages of different approaches to
information access
5 - Understand how the many different devices i.e.
PocketPC, play a role in IT
6 - Make education your everyday priority, every 24
hours the world turns, and with it so does your
choices with OS platforms, developer tools,
protocols, etc…
7 – If you are developing software, spend 90% of
your development cycle in design, if you have done
your job right, you only need 10% of the development
cycle to complete the actual coding
8 – Don’t be afraid of change, change is good,
looking back at the time of structured coding to
object coding, it was hard to make the move, but
making the move was one of the best decisions I had
ever made. The investment in time to learn this new
approach to development paid off on the very first
job.
9 – If you are managing a development project be
sure to leverage a good project management
application. Tracking progress, setting goals and
milestones is imperative to good project management.
10 – Documentation is another imperative to strong
IT and project management. Assume the people you
work with on a project will be replaced in 12 to 18
months. This is the nature of the business, so good
documentation is critical to project and long term
management success.
Q: Consider this a blank slate. Are there additional
comments you want to make?
A: Web services represent one of the most important
changes in application design, development,
deployment, and management. This is clearly one of
the biggest paradigm shifts since the advent of the
GUI. Those who understand this change and those who
leverage this new approach will be the most
successful in the future. |