Microsoft Technologies Stack | A - Z

👤 Diwas Poudel 🕒 14 May 2022 📁 TECH

Microsoft Technology Stack

Microsoft is an American multinational technology company. It has implemented its own range of applications for developing a complete solution. Microsoft's technology stack helps numerous companies in succeeding their needs.

Before knowing about the Microsoft technology stack, we must know what is technology stack is ?. Simply a technology stack is a collection of software products, tools, libraries, frameworks, servers, UI/UX solutions, and software and programming languages used by programmers or developers to build a web or mobile-based application. Among many technology stacks, the Microsoft Technology stack is one of them. (Read More). Microsoft technology stack includes all development based on the .net framework, which primarily uses C# and F# programming language.

If we search on the Internet we will find only a few large applications and websites which are popular in the world that are built using Microsoft Technology Stack. Then we may think about how Microsoft Technology is popular among us? Microsoft Technology Stack is popular among banks and trading for making websites and applications. Diverse branches of government and army who need software solutions also use Microsoft technology as those governments and armies preferred closed source.

Any corporation nowadays needs a software solution. These corporations are willing to spend money on more expensive technology and feel more “at ease” with a big company like Microsoft backing it.

Microsoft is already king of Desktop OS development with a market share of 75.18%(Read More). But it's not enough to be king in only one field and is required to change themselves to exist in this competitive environment. Now computer-enabled devices like smartphones, tablets, and many other IoT devices appear to have spread unstoppably.

Times and markets are changing rapidly and all companies realize the importance of cloud and AI. Microsoft has also introduced cloud computing platforms like Azure and AI platforms like ML.Net.So,at present Microsoft is reshaping its technology stack almost completely by giving high priority to the latest technology and less to older and mostly unused technology like vb6 and SilverLight(will end after October 2021).

Microsoft has taken great pace to make it available to startups and small companies to the Microsoft Tech stack. When searching the Internet, we will find out that a number of large applications and websites have been built on a Microsoft Technology stack around the world. The Microsoft stack is highly popular with banking and website creation.

Developers are still less well conscious of Microsoft's technology stack powerhouse. Don't worry I am here to explain all of these and you will be somehow comfortable with those stacks.

popular microsoft stack

Explaining each of them in-depth.

1 .Net Framework

.NET is a Microsoft-created programming framework that programmers use to create desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications, console applications, web services, assemblies, websites, and many other types of applications. Once a .Net Framework is installed in the machine, we can continue developing the application rather than starting from scratch.Net framework provides the environment for developing and executing .Net Applications.

Like any other framework like Java Framework, Php Framework, .net frameworks also contains the following main components: RunTime, Built-in Libraries, Programming languages, or compilers.

Runtime: CLR is the runtime used in the.Net Framework. CLR is in charge of handling the execution of.NET programs regardless of the programming language used. CLR's primary function is to take Intermediate Language (DL) files such as.dll and.exe (machine-independent code) and pass them to a JIT compiler, which produces native code, which is machine-dependent code. As a result, the CLR is at the heart of the execution of.net programming. If the programs run under the CLR, programmers do not need to worry about memory management because the CLR provides memory management and thread management.

Libraries: Framework Class Library refers to the inbuilt libraries used in the.net framework (FCL). Namespaces commonly used in FCL include System, System.Collection, System.Threading, System.Net, Microsoft.CSharp, and many others.

Programming Languages: Some of the popular languages that .Net Framework supports are: C#, F#, Cobra, Fantom, JScript, etc.

2 ASP.Net MVC

ASP.NET MVC is an open-source framework for web development.SP.net MVC allows you to create web applications that are similar to ASP.net web forms. It outperforms Web Form in terms of performance. The MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern is used. Model View Controller (MVC) is used to decouple the user interface (view), data (model), and application logic (controller). The first version of the ASP.NET MVC framework was released on March 13, 2009, and the most recent version is.NET MVC 5.2, which was released in 2014.

Some of the advantages/features of the Asp.Net MVC framework are :

a)Highly Testable
b)Full HTML, JavaScript, and URL control.
c)Include Existing features of ASP.Net
d)Support Parallel Application Development
e)Include Separation of Concern by the use of MVC pattern.
f) Reusable framework
g)Support Test-Driven Development

In simple terms, MVC is defined as:

M(Model): Model handles the data and business logic of any MVC application.

V(View): View is what the user sees. View present data coming from the model to the user.

C(Controller): Controller is the heart of the MVC. It connects the model with the view.

The below image describes how the MVC pattern works.

Also Read: How to remove Microsoft account from Windows 10?

mvc pattern

3 Dot Net Core

.Net Core is a cross-platform, open-source framework designed for modern, cloud-enabled, internet-connected applications. It is lighter and more optimized than.Net Framework. It is compatible with microservices. The.net core, like the.net framework, does not support WCF services.

4 .Net 5 , .Net 6

.Net 5 is Open Source and Cross-Platform intended to replace .Net Framework,.Net Core and Xamarin with a single platform called .Net 5 Framework.

.Net 6 is in preview.

5 SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Sybase developed it for UNIX systems in the 1980s. It's coded in C and C++. MSSQL is another name for SQL SERVER. The primary function of the SQL Server is to store and retrieve data required by an application.

Download

MySQL is the most frequently used database, as it was last year. This year, PostgreSQL took second place, ahead of Microsoft SQL Server. So Microsoft SQL Server is the third most frequently used database, according to the survey of Stackoverflow 2021.

It is the most widely used commercial database server. It is an ideal database server if you use Microsoft Stack for application development.

Some of its important features are:

High performance.
Platform dependent.
Maintain standby Server.
Separate security privileges.
Good for large organizations.
Supports both ANSI SQL(standard SQL Language) and Microsoft-owned T-SQL language.

SQL Server is available in various editions some of them are: Enterprise Edition, Standard Edition, Express Edition(free version with limited features), Developer Edition(also free edition ), Datacenter Edition, Compact Edition, and many more.

Also Read: History of Windows Operating System

These below are a part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server Services:

SQL Server Analysis Services(SSAS):

SSAS is a business intelligence analytics tool used to analyze and gain insights into data stored in various database systems, files, or tables. It supports OLAP as well as data mining and has two distinct structures: multidimensional and tabular.

SQL Server Integration Services(SSIS):
SSIS is a simple and scalable data warehousing tool used to capture, load, and transform data such as clean up, aggregate, merge, etc. It is used to migrate data from one database to another database in an easier manner. It helps to merge data from various data stores.

SQL Server Reporting Services:(SSRS):

SSRS is a Microsoft-based server-based report generating software system. It is used to produce a visual format of data in graphs, images, and charts. This service comes free with SQL Server.

Download

6 Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is Microsoft's integrated development environment. It is used for the development of websites, console applications, desktop applications, web applications, web services, and mobile apps. Visual Studio contains a code editor that supports IntelliSense and the code refactoring. Built-in languages supported by Visual Studio are C, C++, C++/CLI, VB.Net, C#, F#, and Typescript. It also supports other languages like Python, Ruby,Node.js and M, etc if you installed them separately.

It is 2nd most popular development environment after visual studio code(also Microsoft product) according to Stackoverflow survey 2021

A free version of Visual Studio is Community Edition.

Download

Microsoft Visual Studio has become a popular and trustworthy IDE, which developers can use for all development applications.

7 Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight free open source code editor for various leading operating systems like Windows, Linux and macOS developed by Microsoft and released on November 18, 2015, under the MIT license. According to StackOverflow survey 2021, Visual Studio Code is one the most popular code editor among web developers.

It comes with great features built-in and you can customize more to add other external plugins as well. It includes support for code debugging, inbuilt version control support (Git and Github), Syntax highlighting for various language,code refactoring,bracket-matching,auto-indentation,snippets,box-selection etc.

Download

8 Windows Azure

Windows Azure is a private and public Microsoft-owned cloud platform.IT professionals use it to create, deploy and handle apps. It has already provided SAAS, PAAS, and IAAS services to numerous clients.

Azure was launched in 2010 and used by most Fortune 500 companies in the world. Best of the best companies in the world choose to work only with Azure. Even it beat Amazon in this case. It provides services to more regions of the world than any other cloud service in the market. According to Market Share A2 2018, Azure covers 30% of the total cloud computing market share. It provides 25 always free services to the client. Some of them are App Service, Functions, Container Service, Active Directory, and 8 other services are offered for 1 year as free some of them are Linux/Windows Virtual machines, Blob Storage, and SQL Database.

9 Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is a popular single package software that contains a set of apps related to the office. It includes MS Word(a word processor), MS Powerpoint, Ms Excel, MS Publisher, MS note, and many more. It provides both offline and online-based versions of these applications. For many applications, Microsoft Office is taken as the de-facto standard.

Some of the application presentations in the MS Office package with its use:

Ms. Word: Used for creating documents.

Ms PowerPoint: Used for creating presentations.

Ms. Excel: Used for numerical data recording and analysis by creating spreadsheets.

MS Outlook: It includes email, calendars, address book, task manager, etc. It enables organize our email, handles and share our calendar, shares cloud files, etc.

MS Access: It is a database management system used to store and retrieve data in an easy manner.

MS Publisher: It is used for the page layout and page design. The other is similar to Ms Word.

Other applications are: Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Visio, and many more

Also Read: What is OEM in Windows? OEM Windows OS vs Retail Windows OS

10 Sharepoint

SharePoint is the leading collaborative server environment of Microsoft which provides tools for document and data sharing across different organizations in the network of a company. This is a place where team members can interact, exchange information, and collaborate. It is a b-based collaborative system.

Some of the important advantages of Sharepoint are :

File Versioning: Sharepoint can manage the versioning of your document so you can go back to the old version of the document.
Check-in/Check-out: These features were developed to prevent conflicts when multiple people are trying to edit the same content at the same time. By checking out a file, they can prevent other users from editing that file. y checking in a file, the user can allow others to edit the content.
Indexing and Searching Features: When a user searches for a certain keyword in Sharepoint then the result will show as soon as you start typing, and this is based on their previous and trending content in office 365.
Integration with Windows Apps: Have easy integration facilities with Microsoft office, excel, and many more.
It has also other miscellaneous features like a calendar, task list, alert message facilities, recycle bin, etc.

Also Read: Do Windows 10 needs antivirus?

11 Microsoft Silverlight

Silverlight is a powerful tool for the development of interactive web- and mobile user experiences. It is a platform applied to rich media on the web, developed by Microsoft. It is built on XAML and. NET. It was designed as an Adobe Flash competitor. It is now a deprecated application in 2012 and security patches and bug fixing is provided up to 2021. Like adobe flash, SilverLight also integrates animation, video, and interactivity into
the web pages. Most of the multimedia content available on the internet use adobe flash player.

12 Windows OS

Windows OS is a series of Microsoft-developed operating systems. It has both graphical and non-graphical versions.OS controls the memory and processes of the computer, along with all its software and hardware.

Some of the important features of Windows OS are :

It is easy to use, has better performance, plug-and-play support, better file management, and memory management, better looks, design, and interfaces, has a large amount of software as compared to Linux os, continually improving its security features, etc.
Common Windows OS available to date are: MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11

For more visit: the history of windows os

13 Xbox

Xbox is a Microsoft-owned video gaming console brand. It is one of the strongest competitors in the gaming console world. This gaming console device can be connected to a TV or other display devices. It offers realistic graphics for games. It also gives players the chance to use Xbox Live for online games.

There is currently 3 generation console of Xbox in the market:

First Generation - Xbox
Second generation - Xbox 360
Third generation - Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X

14 Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

The WCF is a secure service used for building service-oriented, distributed, and reliable applications where mostly message exchange is performed in the form of synchronous and asynchronous manner from one service endpoint to another service endpoint. It makes inter-process communication easier.

It is a part of .NET 3.0.
Previously, it is known as Indigo.
It is not open-source software.
It does not have Model View Controller Features as .Net MVC has.
It supports HTTP, UDP, and custom transport protocols.

When to use WCF?

If you plan to use. NET Framework 3.5, WCF will be an excellent option.
Multiple protocols WCF supports, including HTTP, TCP, and pipe name.
If you want to create a service with standards like Messaging and Reliable Message Protection, WCF Service is useful.
You can use various message exchanging patterns with WCF. Some of them are Request-Reply, One way, and Two way (Duplex) patterns.

15 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is one of the leading CRM in the market today. It is a customer relationship management software package. The main focus of the product is sales, marketing, and service(help desk).

It is a server-client application

16 WinJs

WinJS is a free and open-source javascript library developed by Microsoft with the goal of developing native Windows Store apps and Windows Phone Apps quickly using Html and Javascript instead of using C#, XAML, and C++. The library is composed of modules and functions that expose the Windows Runtime to a JavaScript-coding format and convention.

17 Git Virtual File System (GVFS)

Virtual Filesystem (originally Git Virtual File System (GVFS)) is an open-source system allowing Git to run at an enterprise level. It helps in managing huge Git repositories like Windows Repository.

Windows repository is around 270 GB and has millions and millions of files. Actually, when pulling and using this repo in general Github, bitbucket then doing all the things like clone, checkout, status, add, etc takes lots of time.

According to Microsoft, even in the incredibly fast network, it takes 12 hrs to clone the windows repository locally, 3 hrs to checkout the branch, 8 mins to do check the status, and 30 minutes to add a commit. So we can say git couldn't handle a large repository like git.

So, Visual Studio Team Services and Windows Team have to build GVFS to help Git Scale and this reduces all limitations that git has.

18 Xamarin - For Mobile App Development

Xamarin is Microsoft Owned Software company founded in May 2011. Xamarin helps to create apps for android, IOS, and windows with just one technology stack. It uses C# language running on the .net framework. Xamarin extends the .NET platform with tools and libraries.

For building apps using Xamarin, you just need 3 things and they are:

C# language
.Net
Visual Studio with installed Xamarin

Xamarin apps. while created for the different operating systems, share all business logic, database access, and network communication. Only the user interface is built separately to maintain each platform's native look and feel.

Try Xamarin

19 vb.net

VB.net is a modern, general-purpose, object and component-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft in 2002. It is the successor of Visual Basic Language.

If you have knowledge of BASIC and Visual Basic Programming language then you can easily do VB.Net programming. In 2017, VB was introduced alongside Visual Studio 2017. It runs on the .Net framework and has a drag and drop features for creating the user interface.

20 ASP.NET Web Forms

ASP. NET Web Forms is a web application framework that allows you to create dynamic websites with an event-driven drag & drop model. You can use C#, the visual basic programming language for creating a web form application. Webform application runs on the server and generates output in the browser.

21 Microsoft Win Forms / Microsoft Windows Forms

Microsoft Windows Forms is a graphical API that provides a platform for building rich desktop, laptop, and tablet applications.

22 ASP.NET Web API Framework

The ASP.NET Web API is a Microsoft extensible platform that used HTTP-based services that can be accessed in different applications on different platforms such as mobile, web, and desktop. It is built on top of ASP.NET and supports ASP.NET request/response pipeline.

Business Tools of Microsoft

1 Microsoft Team

Microsoft Teams is a unified platform for communication and collaboration that combines constant chat in the workplace, video conferencing, file storage (including file collaboration), and application integration. You can use interesting features like document collaboration, personal chat, team chat, and more. Microsoft teams also are fully integrated with many other Office 365 services such as Skype.

Try Microsoft Team

2 Power BI

Cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS), and Desktop applications are the three categories of tools that are included in Microsoft Power BI. The primary functions of this software are data analysis and report generation. Power BI is primarily utilized for reporting that is dependent on APIs.

Its key features are :

Convenient Reporting of Data
Transformation of Data
Discovery of Data
Creation of a powerful Dashboard and Informative Reports
Better Data Visualization

Try Power BI

Utilities

1 Azure Machine Learning

Using Azure Machine Learning, you can speed up and manage the lifecycle of a machine learning project.

2 Azure Cognitive Search

Azure Cognitive Search is a Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform component that provides indexing and querying capabilities for data uploaded to Microsoft servers.

In Summary: Microsoft Technology Stack

Products that make up Microsoft’s tech stack include:

Client APPS Layer:

Web Form

The asp.net web form is based on Microsoft ASP.NET technology, where code executed on a server dynamically generates web page output for any browser or computer or mobile device. The asp.net web form is compatible with any browser or mobile device. , The ASP.NET web page automatically displays the correct browser-compatible HTML for functions such as styles, layout, etc. We can write a web application using a web form with any .Net runtime Common language like Visual Basic or C #.Asp.net web form offers loose coupling by separation of HTML from business logic and other UI code.

Win Form
ASP.Net SPA
XAMARIN
Apps for Office
Dynamic Online
Apache Cordova
ASP.Net MVC
ASP.Net Core

Collaboration Layer:

SKYPE: Skype is a VoIP service that allows users to use a device, web browser or cell phone to make and receive free voice and video calls over the internet.

Sharepoint Server
LYNC Server
LYNC Online
Exchange Server
Sharepoint Online
Yammer
Office 365
Microsoft Team

Middleware Layer:

BIZTALK Server
BIZTALK Services
Signal R
WCF
ASP.Net
Cloud Services
Cache
CDN
IIS
Kestrel
Workflow Manager
WF

FAQ

How can I learn Microsoft technologies?

Ans: You can learn about Microsoft technologies from Microsoft Official website link. click here.

Why Microsoft Stack is still a viable choice?

Ans: Some of the reasons are as follows:

.Net Framework is one the best framework for developing applications. This framework has evolved a lot.
It has SQL Server which is one of the most powerful database servers.
It has a large ecosystem.

Assistive Technology

The secret of CPU Hyperthreading

Importance of social media

Windows 10 Internet Connection Sharing