OpenLink Uses Microsoft .NET and Mono to Extend Virtuoso

Universal Server upgrade provides disparate Data Source and disparate Application Logic integration via cross platform .NET integration.

Burlington, Mass. - January 23, 2003 - OpenLink Software, Inc., an industry leader in the development and deployment of secure, high-performance Universal Data Access, Virtual Database Technology and Web Services middleware, announces the public availability of OpenLink Virtuoso 3.0 the latest incarnation of its highly acclaimed Universal Server.

This new product release extends Virtuoso's existing Virtual Database Engine and Web Services Platform functionality by providing transparent integration of Microsoft's .NET and Mono, an open-source community effort spearheaded by Ximian to provide .Net compatibility on Linux and UNIX. The end result is a Virtual Database Engine and Application Server that can be extensible in a variety of ways using any .NET CLR or Mono-bound language. A typical use would be to development of database-hosted application logic using a variety of different programming languages, applied transparently, in real-time, to heterogeneous databases from a variety of database vendors. These stored procedures in turn could optionally be published as SOAP and WSDL compliant XML Web Services for future use internally or externally.

Virtuoso 3.0's integration with the ASP.NET Frameworks implementations from both .NET and Mono enable the separation of ASP.NET applications from IIS such that these solutions can be deployed on Windows platforms without IIS, and to other platforms such as Linux that have no IIS implementation. Virtuoso also provides platform independent deployment to PHP and Java Server Pages (JSP)-based Web Applications.

'Our main goal at OpenLink is to consistently deliver leading edge technology that addresses real and current corporate IS challenges. The biggest challenge today is cost-effective integration of disparate applications and data sources,' said Kingsley Idehen, President and CEO of OpenLink. 'Virtuoso's integration with .NET and Mono not only validates the importance of these ECMA-CLI implementations, but more importantly demonstrates practical use of these technologies in the realm of simple and complex systems integration', he added.

'We are very excited that OpenLink has been able to build on Mono to bring the unique features that Virtuoso offers with the Microsoft .NET platform to UNIX,' said Miguel de Icaza, CTO of Ximian and leader of the Mono Project. 'We have started a collaboration effort in Mono, and the experience gained from this partnership will simplify the development of cross platform .NET applications,' he added.

Virtuoso 3.0 is currently available from http://www.openlinksw.com/virtuoso as a public beta with support for Windows and Linux.

There are live demonstrations of Virtuoso 3.0 working with Microsoft .NET and Mono at: http://demo.openlinksw.com:8890/tutorial.