| Application Platform Optimization

Optimize Your Application Platform To Power The People Ready BusinessEmpower your company to achieve business results with innovative IT solutions that connect people, processes, and information

Is your Application Platform ?

A dynamic application platform can help accelerate business goals, deliver organizational agility and lower costsIn today’s highly competitive environment, IT can significantly improve business performance. In fact, recent research has found that companies with optimized IT platforms and infrastructure grow 3.5 percent faster, and have far more productive employees1. To enable this type of growth requires both an application platform and infrastructure that will deliver the manageability, security, interoperability, and connectivity needed to support dynamic line of business solutions.

Powerful, dynamic applications enable your business to compete more effectively by delivering company-wide capabilities and information and insights that enable employees to forge stronger customer connections and improve operational performance. Furthermore, with an adaptive, scalable application platform your business is empowered for the future, able to adjust to changing market dynamics, capitalize on new opportunities and deliver top-line results.

Microsoft’s commitment to the application platform is evident. In fact, Gartner rated Microsoft in the leader category in its Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure 2Q07.2 The report highlighted as strengths Microsoft’s credible application infrastructure stack and surrounding technology (for example operating system and database) and huge installed base. Other advantages included deep integration with the Windows operating system on server, desktop, and other hardware platforms.

The CIO dilemma: doing more with lessResearch shows that technology support and maintenance of legacy systems can consume as much as 89 percent of a typical enterprise IT budget3, leaving precious few resources to develop new standards-based, adaptive applications that meet the business needs. Consequently, managing complexity, aligning IT with the business, and enabling agility are top priorities for CIOs who are under pressure to do more for the business with fixed or diminishing budgets. In this environment, IT can no longer operate as a cost center or a limited business enabler. Instead, CIOs need to invest in infrastructure and tools that amplify the value of their people by facilitating closer collaboration, secure access to the right information at the right time and in the right place, and smarter, more responsive planning through sophisticated business intelligence and analytics.

The trend towards integrated, interoperable application platformsTo deliver on today’s connected, global economy, the industry is experiencing a paradigm shift from simply managing and connecting monolithic applications to building interoperable, service oriented solutions designed for change. Gartner has long recognized this shift and has dubbed this new category of software, application infrastructure.4 They define this as “the majority of runtime middleware, as well as application development and management tools that support the new generation of applications, based on service-oriented architecture (SOA)”. Microsoft delivers these capabilities through an integrated, interoperable application platform that provides core runtime, service orchestration, data and tooling, based on core Microsoft® technologies and products like .NET, SQL Server, BizTalk Server and Visual Studio. These capabilities enable you to manage, deploy and optimize service-oriented applications that can be accessed online or from within familiar Microsoft® applications right across your devices, platforms and systems. As a result, thousands of companies, (like BP featured right), have been able to benefit from successful solutions that connect their people and business processes more effectively.

Building dynamic applications that drive your businessAnother of today’s challenges is that trading partners and government agencies are mandating compliance with new security regulations. Enterprising CIOs are turning these new market dynamics into an opportunity to align IT with the business, where new dynamic applications can deliver true business innovation and differentiation. A service oriented architecture built on Microsoft’s application platform can securely connect and integrate disparate systems to deliver mission critical solutions that drive the business and provide a seamless, cost effective way to meet compliance.

The Microsoft Application Platform Optimization ModelTo help you understand how to turn your IT investments into strategic assets, Microsoft has developed the Application Platform Optimization model, featured on page 10 of this brochure.

Utilizing industry best practices and customer experience, the model is designed to help you map your IT investments and build a roadmap to a more optimized platform that can help you deliver dynamic applications to drive your business.

1. Keystone Strategy, Inc., “Enterprise IT Capabilities and Business Performance Study”, March 2006.2. Gartner Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure, 2Q07”, S Hayward, M Pezzini, J Thompson, Y Natis, June 2007.3. Gartner Inc., “Growing IT Trend’s Contribution: The 2006 CIO Agenda”, Gartner Executive Programs research team, January 2006. 4. Gartner Inc., “’Application Infrastructure’ Reflects New Dynamics in the Software Market”, S Hayward, Y Natis, December 2006.

BP cuts hours off emergency response with Microsoft application platform solution

Energy giant, BP used their existing Microsoft application environment to develop a Hurricane Management Solution which combines 3D satellite imagery from Microsoft Virtual Earth™ mapping software and real-time weather data with a visual representation of BP people and facilities. The solution saves BP crisis managers hours each day by automatically consolidating data from 20 sources. Most important, it enables BP personnel worldwide to respond to threats hours faster—improving safety for their workers and potentially saving millions of dollars.

“ The solution is changing the way we do business. When the data is presented though a map-based interface, it’s amazing. It gives you a richer, bigger, more intelligent picture of what’s going on.”

Steve Fortune, Information Management Director, Gulf of Mexico Strategic Performance Unit, BP

Today IT professionals are being asked to deliver more from their company’s investment in infrastructure and personnel, while containing costs for legacy systems and applications. The need for business differentiation has put pressure on to rapidly develop new solutions that will strengthen customer relationships, drive innovation, improve operations and build partner and supplier connections. By aligning your IT systems to deliver on these priorities, you can operate as a true partner to the business by enabling it to:

• empower your mobile workforce to increase customer satisfaction. • deliver flexible business processes both within and across

organizational boundaries.• streamline compliance through stronger visibility and record management• improve performance with real-time analytics and business scorecards.• build customer relationships online through new Web technologies.

Empower your mobile workforce According to Gartner1, “the mobile workforce enablement is a top three priority for CIOs”. With this in mind, a coherent application platform which supports wireless and mobile solutions with rich interfaces makes it simple for your people to securely access and update essential information wherever they are.

• Advanced Mobile Communications: Provide a more powerful mobile communications experience to your employees while securely extending corporate assets into a mobile environment.

• Increased Mobile Productivity: Improve productivity by extending e-mail access and a wide variety of applications including maps to industry-specific tools that can keep your mobile teams productive.

• Integrated Business Performance: Extend enterprise data management capabilities to mobile devices, so knowledge workers can be well-informed regardless of location.

Deliver flexible business processesIndustry analysts estimate that 30 percent of the working day is spent searching for data. By developing integrated software that spans diverse systems and organizations, you can automate routine and repetitious tasks while streamlining business processes to reduce duplication, errors, and double-handling.

• With one standardized way to do business, and wireless access to information and tools, your people can work far more effectively from virtually any location, enabling superior, more consistent customer service.

• To reduce costs, you need to leverage existing IT systems by making their functionality and applications available throughout your organization. A highly capable applications platform provides agile integration, intelligent real-time process visibility, and adaptive business processes to help you achieve this.

• Your entire enterprise will also benefit from the way Microsoft Application Platform Optimization enables you to move toward a service oriented architecture that aligns business processes with IT, greatly boosting agility and helping improving return on investment.

Streamline complianceBy 2012, the number of regulations that effect IT operations will double2. The Microsoft application platform provides data control, security and business process management to help you develop effective governance, risk management and compliance solutions.

• Centrally enforced policies regarding the routing, storage and disposal of data can be deployed with high levels of automation, making compliance an integrated part of business processes.

• Comprehensive identity management, authentication, and security are provided platform-wide and can be managed more efficiently.

• Automated back-up and recovery processes allow for safe storage and easy auditing of data, reducing the complexity of compliance.

• Business intelligence capabilities consolidate financial data from multiple general ledgers and reporting systems, helping managers achieve the level of visibility and risk management required by financial regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II.

Improve business performanceHelping employees to make better decisions quickly is a top priority for 54 percent3 of business executives. An optimized application platform enables you to extract data from multiple systems and aggregate it in a single coherent view.

• With up-to-date information at their fingertips, your people can work smarter, faster, and more productively—responding promptly to organizational and customer enquiries and requests.

• Instead of locking away data in line of business applications, you’ll be able to make it available enterprise wide, along with powerful data management, reporting, and analytical tools.

• The Microsoft platform can be optimized to enable your people to predict trends so they can deploy new applications enterprise-wide.

• Proactive security, high-level resilience, predictive analytics, outstanding productivity, and excellent customer service position the enterprise for strong profitability and long-term viability.

Build customer connectionsMore than 55 percent4 of business managers rate customer relationships as their most important strategic priority. A Microsoft Application Platform Optimization can help you acquire and retain profitable customers by improving the productivity and responsiveness of your sales and customer service team.

• From platform to end user, the right applications, correctly integrated and deployed, give your sales and customer service people a complete, real-time view of each customer.

• Customer profitability and opportunities are understood quickly through easy to use analytical tools and scorecards that provide visibility into business health and evolving customer needs.

• Enterprise search lets you find the right customer and ordering information anywhere, any time. Portal sites integrate data from multiple systems to get a view of customer relationships and activities.

• Unified agent desktops integrate billing, customer relationship management, and ordering applications to improve contact center productivity and create a more personalized customer experience.

1. Gartner Inc., Transformation of IT Organization is Accelerating, Gartner EXP, January 2006.2. Gartner Inc., Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Practices within IT Organizations and businesses,

F Caldwell, C Adams, J Bace, September 2006.

3. BusinessWeek Research Services, Wave VIII: Tighter Embrace of IT, April 2006. 4. Forrester Consulting: http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/business/

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Building Solutions That Drive the Business Forward

Building Solutions That Drive the Business Forward

Deliver Flexible Business Processes

Empower Your Mobile Workforce

Streamline Compliance

Build Customer Connections

Improve Business Performance

Streamline Compliance

The IT infrastructure and platform to drive your business

YOUR BUSINESSToday business requires that IT secures

assets, maintains legacy applications and meets compliance mandates. At the same time, IT is also being

asked to amplify the impact of their people, and deliver agile solutions that

advance the business.

APPlICATION PlATFORMMicrosoft delivers an integrated,

interoperable application platform with five core capabilities—Development,

Data Management, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and

Business Process, Business Intelligence, and User Experience. These essential

capabilities enable IT professionals to provide connected, adaptable solutions.

CORE AND BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY INFRASTRUCTURE

To deliver an optimized application platform, you need to start

with Microsoft’s end-to-end infrastructure. It provides a secure,

scalable, and interoperable foundation for seamless, company-wide capabilities,

including identity and access, data protection and recovery, search,

and unified communications.

The power of an integrated application platform and infrastructureThe Microsoft application platform builds on the core infrastructure of Microsoft® Windows Server® and the business productivity infrastructure of the Microsoft® Office system, including Microsoft® SharePoint® Server. This foundation enables you to build connected, secure and highly interoperable solutions that span people, processes and systems, enabling you to:

• Reduce IT complexity and increase business agility.• Deliver intuitive and productive user experiences.• Amplify the impact of your people.• Build connected and adaptable systems.• Help deliver on the most mission critical requirements.

1. Data Management CapabilityIn today’s connected world, data is paramount. Therefore, the systems that manage data must be highly available, and make it easy for customers, employees, and partners to find and use information at their authorized level. A scalable and integrated database platform can help you securely store and manage ever-increasing amounts of data from disparate sources and ensure that business-critical systems and applications stay up and running. The Microsoft Application Platform utilizes Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as the core data management system. It delivers a comprehensive and integrated data management and analysis solution with:

• Scalability. With scalability advancements such as table partitioning, snapshot isolation, and 64-bit support, IT professionals can build and deploy the most demanding applications and significantly enhance query performance against large databases.

• Availability. IT professionals can minimize an organization’s downtime and help to ensure that critical systems remain accessible and available with innovative, high-availability features such as database mirroring, failover clustering, and enhanced online operations.

• Manageability. Database administrators can focus on high-value tasks like database architecture while spending less time on routine database operations, with integrated management tools, expanded self-tuning capabilities, and a powerful new programming model.

• Built-in Business Intelligence. IT professionals can lower costs and increase productivity with the integration, analysis, and customizable reporting tools in SQL Server, such as SQL Server Report Packs for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Business Solutions. They can improve access to information by consolidating and integrating data from multiple data sources with SQL Server Integration Services. They can help everyone in the organization better understand business data with powerful OLAP and data-mining tools.

2. Service Oriented Architecture and Business Process Capability

Service orientation modularizes IT resources, creating loosely coupled business processes that integrate information across business systems. This enables the greater agility that businesses are seeking. Building a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enables the delivery of a new generation of dynamic applications which bring together software and services into composite applications that are more adaptive. These solutions built on the Microsoft application platform are easily accessible through the Web or through a rich client or mobile device. Delivering software and technologies that enable SOA and agile business processes is built into every aspect of the Microsoft technology stack:

• Developer tools build Web services such as .NET

• Server products, including BizTalk® Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server further Web service construction by connecting and orchestrating services.

• Web-based applications available via the Intra-, Extra- or Internet, as well as rich client applications can be developed using Microsoft Office or smart client technologies.

3. Business Intelligence CapabilityBusiness Intelligence (BI) is all about helping people at all levels of your organization to get the information they need to make faster, better decisions, which drive the business forward. With Microsoft, business intelligence is no longer exclusive to a small group of executives and analysts. Everyone in your company can now have access to critical business data across a diverse set of devices and applications. Timely access to critical data can empower your information workers to become real-time decision makers who take informed actions that reflect and achieve your corporate goals. Microsoft offers a complete

solution that helps contain costs by relieving IT professionals of the need to maintain disparate BI systems. Microsoft Business Intelligence is built on the proven and scalable Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence platform and is delivered through the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It includes analytic applications, scorecards, dashboards, reports, analysis, data mining, online analytical processing (OLAP), extraction, transformation and loading (ETL), and data warehousing.

4. User Experience CapabilityWith productive, intuitive, and highly innovative user experiences, you can increase application usage across your company as well building differentiated and compelling solutions that can help strengthen customer relationships. Microsoft offers a suite of products that enable designers and developers to collaborate to create rich interactive experiences for all platforms including the Web, desktop, and devices.

• Microsoft® Expression® enables professional designers to collaborate with developers who are using Visual Studio® 2005 in the same project file—while still retaining design fidelity.

• The Microsoft .NET Framework, including the Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft® Silverlight®, enable developers to create rich, visually appealing applications across multiple platforms and devices.

• The 2007 Microsoft® Office System provides an intuitive, familiar user experience for composite or LOB applications that can empower employees to be more productive through rich, customizable views of business data

5. Development CapabilityDeriving business value comes from efficient management of your development teams, increasing your people’s ability to meet project deadlines, and deliver high-quality software. With the .Net Framework, Microsoft provides a common development framework and integrated software development tools for your teams to create dynamic, data-driven applications, while providing your managers with more predictability and visibility into their development life cycle.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System offers a fully integrated development environment for both developers and development teams. Utilizing these tools across the Microsoft application platform organizations can deliver solutions across Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Web, and mobile applications. Microsoft’s development solutions can help developers and development teams to:

• Increase productivity and quality through highly productive and integrated tools for development, testing, source code control, and deployment of applications.

• Improve project management and delivery through better visibility of your development process.

• Improve team communication and collaboration through integrated process and methodology support.

The Microsoft Application Platform

Looking at where you are now— and where you want to beTo enable you to systematically improve your IT infrastructure, Microsoft has created the Application Platform Optimization (APO) model. By answering a few, vendor-agnostic questions about your IT infrastructure, the APO model can help you determine whether your IT infrastructure can deliver the solutions your business requires. The first step in using this model is to work with Microsoft or one of our partners to evaluate which level your enterprise has reached—and then determine how to progress to the one that provides maximum business benefit.

The Basic application platform is characterized by static, disconnected applications and platforms which hinder the rapid development and interoperability of business-critical applications. Businesses at the basic stage will experience such shortcomings as:• a general lack of process and rigor in how these

applications are developed• ill-defined business processes• insufficient knowledge of the overall health of applications

and services due to a lack of tools and resources• the lack of a vehicle for collaboration and exchange

across development teams or with business users• an IT environment that is hard to manage and

optimize, resulting in higher costs, application backlogs, and lower IT productivity

The organization with a Standardized application platform has begun to adopt XMl and other industry standards more broadly across departments and with trusted trading partners. Businesses at the Standardized stage will be able to:• introduce a more sophisticated development and data

infrastructure which can begin to deliver business intelligence reports and business analytics

• automate some business processes and departmental services

• regard their IT departments less as a cost center than a business enabler that can help them build more adaptive applications quickly

BasicStatic, disconnected applications and platforms. IT is a cost center

StandardizedStandards-based, flexible business applications. IT is a most efficient cost center

Development: Move from ad hoc development on legacy systems to modern team development and management throughout the Application Lifecycle Management

User Experience: Move from no User Experience awareness to proactive collaboration of design and development

Business Intelligence: Move from data silos and manual analysis to real-time, and closed loop analysis

The Advanced infrastructure is one in which IT can truly become a business enabler and partner. The infrastructure and applications are more easily managed, optimized, and delivered throughout the IT lifecycle. Businesses with this kind of infrastructure will be able to:• improve visibility of core business processes• gain a clearer insight into performance• use IT to quickly build applications that take

advantage of new business opportunities or cope with competitive threats

• standardize on a flexible and robust application platform for their most critical applications and business processes

Customers with a Dynamic infrastructure are fully aware of the strategic value it provides in helping them run their businesses efficiently so they stay ahead of competitors. They benefit from being able to:• seamlessly integrate both users and data and

customers and partners• achieve collaboration between business and IT• automate processes, often through integrated

technologies, helping to align IT with business needs• control costs, while knowing that additional investments

in technology will yield specific, rapid, measurable business benefits

• fluently use service-oriented architecture to deliver adaptive and cost-effective applications and application development

| Application Platform Optimization 11

AdvancedAdaptive application development, driving core applications and business processes. IT is a business enabler

DynamicFully service-oriented dynamic application platform. IT is a strategic asset

To learn more about Application Platform Infrastructure Optimization and to take the assessment, visit: www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform

Data Management: Move from managing disparate data silos to a scalable, integrated data management platform

Business Process And Service Oriented Architecture: Move from disconnected applications and services to Service Oriented Architecture and adaptive business processes

User Experience: Move from no User Experience awareness to proactive collaboration of design and development

Business Intelligence: Move from data silos and manual analysis to real-time, and closed loop analysis

n BUSINESS n IT

No or basic mobile phone support, web, static email, calendar, and tasks. On‑device stored processes. Non‑secure and corporate IP at risk.

n BUSINESS n IT

Customer responsiveness and connection to others enhanced through Direct Push email, GAL access, and updated calendar.

n BUSINESS n IT

Access to voice, and data applications remotely, online and offline mobile forms and web applications.

n BUSINESS n IT

Staff benefit from Line of Business applications regardless of location with data storage and robust device and application management.

n BUSINESS n IT

Data is stored in siloed applications with one‑off back‑up strategies for individual applications, endangering compliance and making information discovery time‑consuming and expensive.

n BUSINESS n IT

Data stores and applications are centralized and Storage Area Networks reduce the costs of back‑up and time to recovery, which enables basic compliance needs to be met.

n BUSINESS n IT

Centrally managed applications can be monitored and rapidly reconfigured, improving resiliency. With consistent management tools, IT staff can more easily provide multiple off‑site back‑ups and establish a data lifecycle plan to meet compliancy requirements.

n BUSINESS n IT

Centrally enforced policies regarding the storage and disposal of data are deployed enterprise‑wide with high levels of automation, making compliance an integrated part of the business process. Staff are able to search from within business applications across structured and unstructured data making information discovery affordable and simple.

n BUSINESS n IT

Business processes are managed with manual or limited applications and are time intensive and highly dependent on individual capabilities. Introducing technological improvements into work processes is difficult.

n BUSINESS n IT

Business processes are handled with simple financials, spreadsheet-based planning, and disparate manufacturing and distribution systems. There is limited ability to look at business from a customer or a corporate view without days of work to create reports from data available from multiple systems.

n BUSINESS n IT

Integrated approach to real time data access and the elimination of batch updates. Processes are handled with integrated financial, order entry, distribution and manufacturing capabilities. Consistency in applications increases responsiveness, productivity, and visibility.

n BUSINESS n IT

Business software is part of a collaborative platform. Real time information is available to and from customers, vendors, etc. Work is process‑driven and standardized across the enterprise through a software platform that connects people with the information and business processes they need.

n BUSINESS n IT

Data sets and spreadsheets are disconnected from the central data source, leading to multiple versions on disparate workstations. KPIs are manually‑generated and there’s no single ‘system of record’. There’s also difficulty getting a holistic view of the business, including getting timely information.

n BUSINESS n IT

Standardized applications improve the ability to achieve the level of productivity, security, resiliency or customer satisfaction required for effective competition.

n BUSINESS n IT

With greater software integration, the enterprise can start to react to trends and rapidly deploy new services and applications to differentiate its offerings and compete.

n BUSINESS n IT

The software platform enables staff to diagnose and predict trends and rapidly deploy new applications enterprise‑wide to capitalize on them. Proactive security, high level resiliency, outstanding productivity, and excellent customer service position the enterprise for strong profitability and long-term viability.

n BUSINESS n IT

Reliant on high‑touch individual relationships and customer knowledge without any unified view of customers across touch points Not scalable.

n BUSINESS n IT

Basic contact center and Web site improve ability to service customers. However, there is no integration with customer data from CRM systems or capability for customer self‑service, so the experience is limited.

n BUSINESS n IT

Integrated contact center and customer data is provided through standardized network applications. Interactive Web capabilities improve service.

n BUSINESS n IT

Responsive customer service is available enterprise‑wide, supported by next generation applications and enterprise search. Staff can access customer and ordering information anywhere/ anytime and view data from multiple systems in a portal site. Virtual contact center capabilities are also integrated.

BASIC

Understanding how to meet and exceed business requirementsTo track where your organization’s current application platform capabilities are relative to business requirements, we have devised a checklist to help facilitate the conversation between business and IT. To help both groups to appreciate each other’s priorities and plan the way forward, we invite business managers to identify where they want the business to be by ticking the relevant box in each capability category. Similarly, we invite you and other IT managers to identify what your current application platform and infrastructure can deliver today.

We’re sure this exercise will unveil synergies and insights into your organization and help you prioritize IT investments that deliver the greatest business impact. To make a more detailed and in-depth assessment of your organization’s current IT capabilities, please visit www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform

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STANDARDIZED ADVANCED DYNAMIC

Combined these core principles have enabled customers, like NASDAQ (featured below), to more efficiently build secure, reliable mission critical applications which drive and differentiate their business. Recent research also finds that companies who have delivered highly optimized application platforms and infrastructure can also quantify the impact both to the bottom line through reduced costs and through employee productivity with increases as much as 23 percent2. In addition, companies rely on the Microsoft application platform to deliver industry-leading interoperability through its deep support of Web services and other technologies. In fact, Jupiter Research found that 72 percent of IT managers rated Microsoft technologies as the most interoperable within their existing environments1.

Understanding how to utilize and optimize your application platform to deliver these benefits and align IT with business can be challenging. However, customers who have utilized the Microsoft Application Platform Optimization model confirm that it has helped them by providing a powerful tool to help them build a roadmap for future IT investment to enable business critical solutions.

1. Interoperability: Jupiter Research, April 2004.2. Keystone Strategy Inc., “Enterprise IT Capabilities and Business Performance Study”, March 2006.

A platform you can trust to grow and differentiate your businessThe Microsoft application platform is focused on three core principles:

Helping companies build connected and adaptable systems

Offering platform capabilities to deliver innovative and productive user experiences across multiple devices, Web platforms and applications

Deliver mission-critical capabilities through proven enterprise scalability, security and availability

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| Application Platform Optimization 13

“Scalability was a huge factor in our decision to move to Microsoft® SQl Server 2005 ... It’s good to know that SQl Server 2005 will be able to support our very real expectation of long-term growth.”

Brad Chapman Application Team Lead Weyerhaeuser Company

NASDAQ supports real-time trade booking and queries with Microsoft application platform solution

NASDAQ, the world’s first electronic stock market replaced its aging mainframe computers with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 on two 4-node clusters to support its Market Data Dissemination System (MDDS). Every trade processed in the NASDAQ marketplace goes through the system with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 handling some 5,000 transactions per second at market open. The system also responds to about 10,000 queries a day and is able to handle real-time queries against data without slowing the database down. As well as being able to service customers more efficiently with the new system, NASDAQ is enjoying a lower total cost of ownership.

“ NASDAQ is devoted to delivering real-time solutions, so the ability to use ClR from within the SQl Server 2005 database is a much appreciated feature.”

Paul Buu, Senior Technical Specialist, NASDAQ

www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform

May we help?If you are planning to advance your application platform, talk to a Microsoft partner. With thousands of reference sites and successful deployments across the world, we have both the experience and expertise to help you assess your IT infrastructure and select and deploy cost-effective, proven solutions that meets your needs today and tomorrow.

To learn more about Application Platform Infrastructure Optimization and to take the assessment, visit www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform

To locate your nearest Microsoft partner, visit https://solutionfinder.microsoft.com

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