Microsoft is intent on proving that .NET's no dog when it comes to Web application development. Using C#, Microsoft. NET, and SQL Server 2000, Microsoft has implemented Sun's Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) best-practices blueprint application, the Java Pet Store. According to a Microsoft white paper, "Implementing Sun Microsystem's Java Pet Store J2EE Blueprint Application using Microsoft .NET," Microsoft implemented the exact same application functionality in one-third the amount of code by using C# and ASP.NET. The white paper says the .NET implementation performs up to 28 times faster than previously published benchmarks of the J2EE application. The three-tier application is composed of an Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 firewall; a Web and application server tier that includes IIS 5.0, the ASP.NET Web forms, and ADO.NET for data access; and the pet shop database, which runs on SQL Server 2000. You can read the white paper and download the .NET Pet Shop application code on the GotDotNet Web site