Volta

Abstract

Developing software as a service is a new trend in the IT industry. Volta is a new technology that targets simplifying this type of software. It offers developers a toolkit that enables Web development in any .NET language. This is done by recompiling the CIL code to JavaScript for the client tier (browser) and a .NET application for the Web server. The decision of determining on which tier certain code should run is easily carried through by adding an attribute to a class. A showcase has been developed stretching the possibilities of the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Volta. A CTP is a pre-release version of software intended as a proof-of-concept for the community. The idea of the showcase was to provide users an impression of their carbon-footprint relative to others, accomplished by using Web services and information provided by users themselves. The experiences gained by building this showcase have been used in the research for Voltaâs value for Web application projects. The showcase was also submitted for Microsoftâs Imagine Cup software development competition, which imposed additional requirements on the showcase. Many issues were encountered during the development, which forced the project group to adjust the requirements while implementing. The end result offers users login functionality, the ability to enter its food, house and travel CO2-emission and provides an overview of the userâs past and present carbon-footprint. The project also focused on researching the possibilities of Volta. A number of research questions were posed and investigated in order to provide better information about the strengths and weaknesses of Volta. This led to the discovery of a number of problems from which the following suggestions for improvements were derived: 1. Provide more documentation 2. Equalize the behavior of Volta code in Debug and Release mode 3. Decrease the number of restrictions on classes 4. Increase cooperation with other technologies 5. Optimize performance 6. Increase security functionality Although a developer should still be aware of the traps of distributed computing, Volta can offer benefits for developing applications. Web applications can be built with all .NET languages. Developers do not have to worry about the communication code between tiers. The facilities of the Visual Studio IDE can be used for testing, debugging and cooperating with other technologies. The end-to-end profiler is a useful tool for analyzing and optimizing a tier-split application. The community technology preview of Volta looks promising. It is currently not fit for developing actual Web applications, but if the developers continue working on Volta and address the issues mentioned, Volta could prove to be a useful toolkit for Web development.