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Enterprise Library 4.1
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Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable software components (application blocks) designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges (such as logging, validation, caching, exception handling, and many others). Application blocks are a type of guidance encapsulating Microsoft recommended development practices; they are provided as source code, tests plus documentation that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on complex, enterprise-level line-of-business development projects.
Whatz New?
This release of Enterprise Library is a service release that includes the following:
- Unity interception mechanism and integration of the Policy Injection Application Block with the Unity Application Block
- Added support for generics in the Unity Application Block
- Added support for arrays in the Unity Application Block
- Performance improvements
- Usability improvements to the configuration tool
- Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 support
- Bug fixes
Some Links:
− read the Introduction to the Enterprise Library;
− download, compile and run the QuickStart samples—study the code;
− read through the related QuickStart Walkthroughs and “Key Scenarios” sections of the documentation;
− practice the Hands-On Labs;
− review the source and unit tests for deeper understanding;
− view webcasts on Enterprise Library and Unity, review demo code.
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Patterns & Practices App Arch Guide 2.0 Beta 1
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This guide will help solution architects and developers make the most of the Microsoft platform. It's a distillation of many lessons learned. It’s principle-based and pattern-oriented to provide a durable, evolvable backdrop for application architecture. It's a collaborative effort among product team members, field, industry experts, MVPs, and customers. Keep in mind it’s Beta so there’s still moving parts and they are processing quite a bit of feedback across the guide.
App Arch Guide 2.0 – The Book (Beta 1) / Knowledge Base
Key Features of the Guide
- Canonical app frame - describes at a meta-level, the tiers and layers that an architect should consider. Each tier/layer is described in terms of its focus, function, capabilities, common design patterns and technologies.
- App Types. Canonical application archetypes to illustrate common application types. Each archetype is described in terms of the target scenarios, technologies, patterns and infrastructure it contains. Each archetype will be mapped to the canonical app frame. They are illustrative of common app types and not comprehensive or definitive.
- Arch Frame - a common set of categories for hot spots for key engineering decisions.
- Quality Attributes - a set of qualities/abilities that shape your application architecture: performance, security, scalability, manageability, deployment, communication, etc.
- Principles, patterns and practices - Using the frames as backdrops, the guide overlays relevant principles, patterns, and practices.
- Technologies and capabilities - a description/overview of the Microsoft custom app dev platform and the main technologies and capabilities within it.
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Project Velocity into CTP2
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Though I like this project for a number of reasons, there has been very less logging or usage on this new technology. It can really work wonders for you ASP.NET applications in terms of caching and boosting your performance. This CTP2 has a number of new additions of 64Bit support, Powershell integration, High-Availability, Stress Options and many more. Read more about this release on Velocity Team's blog.
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Happy Diwali - 08
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Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous Diwali. Often the festival of light is accompanied with lot of fireworks, but this time I saw the response from pubic and even the number of shop selling crackers have come down. Maybe times are changing ... Anyways, play safe and have lot of fun with family and friends.
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Reporting Services Scale-Out Deployment Best Practices
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SQLCAT Team is back with their good old wonderful articles and this time it is around the Scale-out of SSRS and these field notes are like goldmines. Anyways, read the article here.
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Report Builder 2.0 Released
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On October 17th, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Report Builder 2.0 was released as part of the SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack. The download provides a stand-alone installer for Report Builder 2.0. If you have used Report Builder 1.0 in SQL Server 2005, you may have already experienced significant productivity gains using this solution to quickly generate sophisticated reports. Report Builder 2.0 supports the full capabilities of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services including flexible data layout, data visualizations, and richly formatted text features. It also delivers an even more intuitive report authoring environment for business and power users with a Microsoft Office look and feel - plus:
- Easy to use wizards for creating table, matrix and chart data regions
- Support for directly opening and editing reports stored on the report server
- Support for using server resources such as shared data sources
- A query designer for Microsoft SQL Server data sources
Download it now and give it a try !!!
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Web Platform Installer Beta Released
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Developers and server administrators can use the Web Platform Installer Beta to more easily discover, download and install the Microsoft Web platform. Using the Web Platform Installer’s simple user interface, you can select specific components or install the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer easily and quickly. To help you stay up-to-date with product releases, the Web Platform Installer tool always contains the most current versions and new additions to the Microsoft Web Platform.
Examples of products which can be downloaded and installed through Web Platform Installer include:
• IIS7 Web Server
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
• SQL Server Express Edition
• .NET Framework
• IIS Extensions (such as FTP 7.0 and URL Rewriter)
• …and more
You can download it here.
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Sync Services optimizations - SQL CE
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This is apost from the SQL CE Team and is a very good start for people developing products on CE and using synchronization infrastructure that we give them. These are like some guidelines people can use and are not an exhaustive ruleset to work. Read the post here.
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The letter SHA
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I have admired Michael Kaplan for the really great work he does around Fonts, Unicode etc. I was very fortunate to attend one of his session during his trip down to India. I was surprised to look at a blogpost around Tamil and how the font is dealt with inside Vista etc. Being my mother-tongue, I was very excited to read the post :). So here it is.
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Silverlight 2 Release
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Though this looks like yet another mundane releases from MS, I see this to be really something interesting. Because there more to the much awaited release of SL2. Let me call-out some of them:
- There are now platforms other than Microsoft that can be used to Develop SL based applications. This is the real true interoperability one could have asked for. So now folks can integrate advanced Silverlight applications from the Eclipse IDE. Check it out for yourself.
- Next is the XAML Editor with instant preview - Cool Isnt it :). If that is not enough - Silverlight XAML vocabulary will be released under the Microsoft Permissive License, an OSI-approved license. This is the really cool because software vendors can now freely write in XAML for Silverlight to create their own controls and more.
- And we will still have the Visual Studio Web Developer 2008 Express Edition. And the tools to help with SL2 can be got here.
Catch the press release and blogs from Steve Sfartz (MS Architect Evangelist).
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Project Gemini and some info
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I wish we can talk more on this project, but the MS BI Conference attendees did get an glimpse of this. Catch this MSDN Blog that gives you some information on the roadmap of SQL BI & DW planned.
BTW, if you are wondering what Project Gemini is - It is the Self Service Analysis Services and by the initial looks I must admit it is a killer featureset that is getting added.
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Infrastructure Planning & Design - Solution Accelerators
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The Infrastructure Planning and Design series for Windows Server 2008 has been updated with Microsoft Application Virtualization, File Services and Print Services guides. Download the entire IPD series of guides or download an individual guide here.
These guides provide you with key information to bring your infrastructure up to date, saving you time and money. Strategically planning printer pool and file services can help you avoid problems before they begin, allowing you to serve your customers more reliably. Use these guides to determine the scope of the services and choose to partially or completely redesign your infrastructure. Each phase is thoroughly explained in easy to follow steps, helping you to efficiently navigate through the process of managing your infrastructure.
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VTD - Q&A Part 1
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In the recently concluded Virtual TechDays in Sep we had a track for SQL Server and we did 4 sessions. There were a number of questions that we were not able to answer during the session. I just compiled the Part I of the responses for "Top 10 DMV's" session by Praveen at our TechNetIndia Bog. Check the Q&A answered here.
Now that we are in this topic, the November VTD registration is opening. Guess what, we are taking a Poll and we will present you the sessions of your choice :). Yup, you read it correctly. Go on and register today.