Metablogging via Live labs: The announcement of Volta, downloadable as technology preview for Visual Studio 2008 (release).

It is described as a developer toolset for building multi-tier web applications using existing and familiar tools, techniques and patterns in a declarative manner. This makes it possible for developers do make architectural decisions on which parts of their applications execute in which tier (backend, middle, user-interface/browser) very late in the project. Furthermore, Volta offers great, built-in profiling tools, helping to support the late-bound architectural decisions.