Microsoft CRM Software Development Kit

Microsoft CRM is a fully customizable solution built upon the .NET platform. Microsoft publishes a detailed Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows developers to fully understand the technical details of Microsoft CRM. In addition, the SDK contains detailed information about the classes available for developers to program against. Here is a high level overview of the Microsoft CRM software architecture: In general, there are three physical layers within the Microsoft CRM architectural "stack," as illustrated in the following figure. These are the client, application, and server layers. The server layer contains what you use in the Microsoft Platform SDK. Microsoft CRM relies on Active Directory, the Microsoft Windows operating system directory service, and on two external Microsoft applications to perform additional processing. Active Directory is used for identifying security principals, roles, and groups within the product. Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 are used for sending and receiving e-mail messages. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is used as the data storage mechanism. The complete Microsoft CRM SDK is available on the MSDN website.