Introduction to Middleware Services
Is This for You? This document set is written to meet the requirements of IT professionals who are responsible for the planning, design, deployment, and operations of applications created using the .NET Framework. The readers of this document set are expected to have an understanding of its technical details; however, service-level expertise is not needed to follow the enterprise-level discussions and to understand the decisions that are made.
On This Page
 | Introduction |
| Blueprint |
| Planning Guide |
| Build Guide |
| Operations Guide |
Introduction
The role of information technology (IT) in an organization continues to change at an accelerated pace, shifting the focus from cutting costs to helping drive revenue and profits. This change in focus requires an emphasis on quick, cost-effective integration with suppliers, partners, and customers outside the corporate local area network (LAN) and the firewall. In short, this means doing more with less. In the present environment, organizations are not only trying to react more quickly to rapid changes in the market place, they are also trying to reduce costs and simplify the complexities of their IT infrastructures. The .NET Framework is the portion of the application infrastructure that provides a manageable environment for running applications. The key advantages of the .NET Framework include the following:
| • | Provides IT professionals with the ability to integrate existing systems with its native support for Web services. |
| • | Assists with the deployment of software for both users and Web servers. |
| • | Facilitates the development of software with improved security, scalability, manageability, performance, and reliability. |
Helps developers be more productive by:
| • | Making it easier for them to reuse existing code. |
| • | Enabling them to integrate components written in any of the supported programming languages. (Currently, more than 20 languages are supported.) |
| • | Helping them build software more easily for a wide range of devices using same skills and tools. |
The .NET Framework is an installable add-in to Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP (it is not supported in Windows 95), and is part of the operating system in Windows Server 2003. The .NET Framework consists of the following two main components: Common language runtime: Provides common services for the .NET Framework applications. Programs can be written for the CLR in just about every programming language, including C, C++, Microsoft C#.NET, and Microsoft Visual Basic as well as some older languages such as Fortran. The runtime simplifies programming by assisting with many mundane coding tasks, including memory management (which can be a significant generator of bugs), security management, and error handling.
The .NET Framework class library: The library consists of prepackaged sets of functionality that developers can use to extend the capabilities of their software more rapidly. The library includes the following key components: ASP.NET to help build Web applications and Web services.
Windows forms to facilitate development of smart client user interface.
ADO.NET to help connect applications to databases.
Interoperability support for existing COM applications.
Improved component versioning and deployment.
Further information about design and deployment of .NET framework may be found at the following URLs:
| • | To familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of the .NET Framework see the following URL: msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconinsidenetframework.asp |
| • | For a good introduction to the .NET framework see the following book: Title: Introducing Microsoft .NET Author: David S. Platt Publisher: Microsoft Press; 3rd edition (May 2003) ISBN: 0735619182 |
| • | For an excellent reference guide on the use of the security features available in Microsoft's .NET framework, see the following book: Title: .NET Framework Security Authors: Brian A. LaMacchia, Sebastian Lange, Matthew Lyons, Rudi Martin, Kevin T. Price. Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co; 1st edition (April 24, 2002) ISBN: 067232184X |
The Middleware Services Blueprint provides a number of references to support the design of middleware services using the .NET Framework. Additional information can be found in the following chapters in the MSA Enterprise Data Center v1.5 Reference Architecture Guide:Chapter 11, “Web Tier Services”
Chapter 14, “Security Services”
These guides are available at the following URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/msa/edc/all/solution/en-us/rak/rag/default.mspx For further information on securing .NET, refer to the article “Securing ASP.NET Web Services” at the following URL:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/infrastructure/default.aspx For information on deploying the .NET Framework, refer to the .NET Deployment Guide at the following URL:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyinfo/infrastructure/deployment/default.aspx
Blueprint
The .NET Framework implements the middleware services required for .NET applications to operate, and is required on all computers that host or run .NET applications. The .NET Framework itself has no installation options, but system implementers must decide whether to host multiple versions of the .NET Framework side-by-side on each server or whether to use different servers to host different versions. The components of a distributed .NET application communicate across computers and across trust zones using XML Web services and .NET Remoting or DCOM; this communication requires the appropriate configuration of firewalls and SSL server certificates. The .NET Framework supplements traditional user identity-based security with a new security system called Code Access Security (CAS), which operates by assigning privileges to code that are based on its identity, such as the publisher, version, or the network location from where it was loaded. System administrators and application developers work together to modify Code Access Security configuration on the server to modify the trust level of .NET assemblies on an application-by-application basis.
Planning Guide
This guide described the .NET framework design for both the CDC and SBO scenarios in the WSSRA release. It included a description of the design choices made during the course of the design process and provided an explanation of each choice where applicable. The goal of this guide was to provide the reader with the ability to understand how the design guidance provided in the Middleware Services Blueprint can be used to formulate a complete and tested instantiation of a Web application solution for both CDC and SBO scenarios.
Build Guide
This guide provided the steps necessary to configure middleware application servers as they were deployed in the test lab. It also provided general guidance on the installation of the .NET Framework. Installation guidance provided in this guide is primarily for situations where there is a need to install previous versions of the Framework. However, this guidance will also be useful for installing the Framework on client workstations or older servers that do not have the Framework installed as part of the operating system. This guide also provided details of the testing that was carried out for middleware services. Test methodology and the test tools used were discussed, along with details of their setup and how they were used for data analysis after testing.
Operations Guide
This guide helps the readers understand the extent of operations guidance that is available for the middleware services discussed in WSSRA. This guidance has been tested in a WSSRA environment and the project team deferred to this guidance as the authoritative source of operations content.