Architecture @ Microsoft Blog : downloadable stuff

Security Guidance: Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) - Version 4.1a

architecture — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:00 GMT

As part of its commitment to a more secure and trustworthy computing ecosystem, Microsoft releases the SDL process guidance 4.1a. IT policy makers and software development organizations can leverage this content to enhance and inform their own software security and privacy assurance programs. The Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle Process Guidance 4.1a includes SDL for Agile Development.

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Get the Security Process Template for Visual Studio…
Get the SDL Threat Modeling Tool…
[ADT] Security Development Lifecycle Gets an Agile Update

Responsiveness: Web Applications Warm-Up

architecture — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:18:00 GMT

IIS Application Warm-Up for IIS 7.5 enables IT Professionals to improve the responsiveness of their Web sites by loading the Web applications before the first request arrives. By proactively loading and initializing all the dependencies such as database connections, compilation of ASP.NET code, and loading of modules, IT Professionals can ensure their Web sites are responsive at all times even if their Web sites use a custom request pipeline or if the Application Pool is recycled.

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Web Building and Hosting with Microsoft Web Platform

architecture — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:15:00 GMT

Get more than just a complete stack: get a complete, interoperable Platform that combines a rich and powerful web application framework with a supporting cast of tools, servers, and technologies including a complete eco-system of products, technologies, communities, and partners, working together, to help you succeed on the Web. Large or small, blog or the next MySpace.

Meet the Platform

Install just released version 2.0

Revenue Assurance: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit Beta

architecture — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:02:00 GMT

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit is an IIS7 extension that helps identify search engine and user experience optimizations for Web sites. The following features are included:

Site Intelligence

Reporting and error identification for broken/invalid links, duplicate content, tag validation, etc.
Visibility into user routes, referring pages and other patterns
Drilldown into page resource usage and load time

Search Relevance

Best practice rules for optimizing URL structure for search engines
Extensibility model to enable integration for keyword acquisition
Automatic generation of search engine support files like sitemaps and robots.txt

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Security Verification: BinScope Binary Analyzer

architecture — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

The BinScope Binary Analyzer is a Microsoft verification tool that analyzes binaries to ensure that they have been built in compliance with Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) requirements and recommendations. BinScope checks that SDL-required compiler/linker flags are being set, strong-named assemblies are in use, and up-to-date build tools are in place.

BinScope also reports on dangerous constructs that are prohibited or discouraged by the SDL (e.g. read/write shared sections and global function pointers). For a more detailed enumeration of the checks performed by BinScope, please see the BinScope documentation. BinScope is available in two forms: as a standalone executable and as a Visual Studio add-on.

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Security Testing: MiniFuzz File Fuzzer

architecture — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

MiniFuzz is a basic testing tool designed to help detect code flaws that may expose security vulnerabilities in file-handling code. This tool creates multiple random variations of file content and feeds it to the application to exercise the code in an attempt to expose unexpected application behaviors.

Because fuzzing is effective at finding bugs, it is a required activity in the Verification Phase of the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL). With the release of MiniFuzz, we have made a simple file fuzzer available to assist developer efforts to find and address more bugs in code before it ships to customers.

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Desktop Deployment: a Toolkit for Operating System and Application Deployment Just Released

architecture — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:05:00 GMT

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 (MDT 2010) provides a common console with the comprehensive tools and guidance needed to efficiently manage deployment of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 is the recommended process and toolset to automate desktop and server deployment. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 provides detailed guidance and job aids for every organizational role involved with large-scale deployment projects.

Learn more about Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010

One-click downloads for:

Doloto: The Power of AJAX without Its Headaches (a Microsoft Research Project)

architecture — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Doloto is an AJAX application optimization tool, especially useful for large and complex Web 2.0 applications that contain a lot of code, such as Bing Maps, Hotmail, etc. Doloto analyzes AJAX application workloads and automatically performs code splitting of existing large Web 2.0 applications. After being processed by Doloto, an application will initially transfer only the portion of code necessary for application initialization.

The rest of the application’s code is replaced by short stubs—their actual function code is transferred lazily in the background or, at the latest, on-demand on first execution. Since code download is interleaved with application execution, users can start interacting with the Web application much sooner, without waiting for the code that implements extra, unused features.

Doloto reduces the size of initial application code download by hundreds of kilobytes or as much as 50% of the original download size. The time to download and begin interacting with large applications is reduced by 20-40% or dozens of seconds as shown below, depending on the application and wide-area network conditions.

Go to project Doloto at Microsoft Research website

Download and install Doloto (get the User's Manual here)

FAQs

IT Governance: Microsoft Operations Framework 4.0

architecture — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) 4.0 delivers practical guidance for everyday IT practices and activities, helping users establish and implement reliable, cost-effective IT services. It encompasses the entire IT lifecycle by integrating:

Community-generated processes for planning, delivering, operating, and managing IT.
Governance, risk, and compliance activities.
Management reviews.
Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) best practices.

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Acceptance Test Engineering Guide, Beta 2

architecture — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:28:00 GMT

How to decide if software is ready for you and your customers. The authors are looking forward to your feedback.

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Security Threats: Code Analysis Tool .NET (CAT.NET) Preview

architecture — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:00:00 GMT

CAT.NET is a binary code analysis tool that helps identify common variants of certain prevailing vulnerabilities that can give rise to common attack vectors such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), SQL Injection and XPath Injection. The tool can function as a plug-in for Visual Studio 2005/2008, FxCop custom rule, MSBuild custom task or through the command line prompt and analyzes compiled .NET binaries.

Enterprise Service Bus Toolkit 2.0

architecture — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:40:00 GMT

The Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0 provides architectural guidance, patterns and practices, and a collection of BizTalk Server and .NET Framework components to simplify the development of enterprise-scale solutions on the Microsoft platform.

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Offline Management: Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0 CTP2

architecture — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:35:00 GMT

Microsoft Sync Framework is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline scenarios for applications, services, and devices. Using Microsoft Sync Framework, developers can build applications that synchronize data from any source using any protocol over any network.

Get Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0 CTP2

Learn more about Microsoft Sync Framework

Security Guidance

architecture — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:00:00 GMT

As part of its commitment to a more secure and trustworthy computing ecosystem, Microsoft releases the SDL process guidance v4.1. IT policy makers and software development organizations can leverage this content to enhance and inform their own software security and privacy assurance programs.

Get the guidance…

Get the security process template for Visual Studio 2008…

On Demand: UK Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2009 Sessions

architecture — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:20:00 GMT

The fourth annual Microsoft Architect Insight Conference was again a real success.

The format of the Architect Insight Conference in 2009 changed this year, to reflect the challenging business environment that many companies are experiencing, whilst still focusing on arming IT Architects with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed.

The key themes running through the event were:

Enterprise Architecture: focusing on cost reduction, improved agility and responsiveness to the business.
Solution Architecture: focusing on the changing architecture of the client, from thick to thin to rich to smart.
Infrastructure Architecture: focusing on the infrastructure tools and technologies of the server and data centre.

As well as compelling speaker presentations from companies such as Easy Jet, Astra Zeneca and Equinti the conference provided delegates with a number of opportunities during the conference to get up close and personal with Microsoft and its partners in the form of round table sessions.

You can now access the content from the event or view the recordings of the key note speakers .

If you have any queries about the conference, please email the organizers at: msaic@microsoft.com

Get conference videos and decks…

Model-View-Controller Framework for Web Applications

architecture — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:09:00 GMT

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 provides a new Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework on top of the existing ASP.NET 3.5 runtime. This means that developers can take advantage of the MVC design patterns to create their Web Applications which includes the ability to achieve and maintain a clear separation of concerns (the UI or view from the business and application logic and backend data), as well as facilitate test driven development (TDD).

The ASP.NET MVC framework defines a specific pattern to the Web Application folder structure and provides a controller base-class to handle and process requests for “actions”. Developers can take advantage of the specific Visual Studio 2008 MVC templates within this release to create their Web applications, which includes the ability to select a specific Unit Test structure to accompany their Web Application development.

The MVC framework is fully extensible at all points, allowing developers to create sophisticated structures that meet their needs, including for example Dependency Injection (DI) techniques, new view rendering engines or specialized controllers.

As the ASP.NET MVC framework is built on ASP.NET 3.5, developers can take advantage of many existing ASP.NET 3.5 features, such as localization, authorization, Profile etc.

Get the Framework

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Threat Modeling Tool 3.1

architecture — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This tool allows non-security subject matter experts (SMEs) to enter already known information, including business requirements and application architecture which can then produce a feature-rich threat model.

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Desktop Integration: .NET Composite Application Guidance

architecture — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:32:00 GMT

The Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight is designed to help you more easily build enterprise-level Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) client applications. This guidance will help you design and build flexible composite client applications-composite applications use loosely coupled, independently evolvable pieces that work together in the overall application.

The Composite Application Guidance can help you develop your client application in a modular fashion. With this approach, you manage the complexity of a large application by breaking it down into smaller, simpler modules. The modules can evolve independently while working together as a unified application.

This version of the Composite Application Guidance is designed to help you build applications in WPF and Silverlight that have a single code base.

The guidance includes a reference implementation, reusable library code (named the Composite Application Library), documentation, QuickStarts, and hands-on labs.

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Application Architecture Guide 2.0

architecture — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:04:00 GMT

Design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics.

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Application Building Blocks: Enterprise Library 4.1

architecture — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:54:00 GMT

The Microsoft Enterprise Library is a collection of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Application blocks are a type of guidance, provided as source code that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on enterprise development projects.

Enterprise Library 4.1 – October 2008 contains the following application blocks:

Caching Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate a cache in their applications. Pluggable cache providers are supported.
Cryptography Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate hashing and symmetric encryption in their applications.
Data Access Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate standard database functionality in their applications.
Exception Handling Application Block. Developers and policy makers can use this application block to create a consistent strategy for processing exceptions that occur throughout the architectural layers of enterprise applications.
Logging Application Block. Developers can use this application block to include standard logging functionality in their applications.
Policy Injection Application Block. Developers can use this application block to implement interception policies that can be used to streamline the implementation of common features, such as logging, caching, exception handling, and validation, across a system.
Security Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate authorization and security caching functionality in their applications.
Unity Application Block. Developers can use this application block as a lightweight and extensible dependency injection container with support for constructor, property, and method call injection, as well as instance and type interception (via an extension).
Validation Application Block. Developers can use this application block to create validation rules for business objects that can be used across different layers of their applications.

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Dependency Injection Container: Unity Application Block 1.2

architecture — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:50:00 GMT

The Unity Application Block (Unity) is a lightweight, extensible dependency injection container with optional support for instance and type interception. It facilitates building loosely coupled applications and provides developers with the following advantages:

Simplified object creation, especially for hierarchical object structures and dependencies.
Abstraction of requirements; this allows developers to specify dependencies at run time or in configuration and simplify management of crosscutting concerns.
Increased flexibility by deferring component configuration to the container.
Service location capability; this allows clients to store or cache the container.
Instance and type interception (via an extension introduced in this release).

Learn more about…

FxCop 1.36

architecture — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements .

FxCop is intended for class library developers. However, anyone creating applications that should comply with the .NET Framework best practices will benefit.

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Health Monitoring: Designing Manageable Applications

architecture — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:26:00 GMT

This guide describes how to create applications that are easier to manage. When used alongside the associated code artifacts, this guide should help dramatically simplify the process of creating manageable applications, and therefore reduce the costs associated with application operations.

This guide is designed for people involved in designing, developing, testing, deploying, and operating business applications. These include people in the following roles:

Solutions architects
Infrastructure architects
Developers
Senior operators

People in each role are likely to use the guide in different ways; different sections are suitable for different roles.

The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool is a productivity tool that helps architects and system designers to generate models of an application that contribute to minimized TCO. These models include configuration, instrumentation, health, and performance information. The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool also assists developers to implement the required instrumentation, and create management packs for monitoring systems such as Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.

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Point of Service for .NET v1.12 (POS for .NET)

architecture — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:42:00 GMT

Microsoft Point of Service for .NET v1.12 (POS for .NET) is a class library that enables POS developers to apply Microsoft .NET technologies in their products. It provides a simple and consistent interface for .NET Framework applications to interact with POS devices, in compliance with the UnifiedPOS standard (aka UPOS). In addition, it provides windows plug and play (PnP) support. There are thirty-six classes of POS peripherals supported including cash drawer, receipt printer, barcode scanner, magnetic strip reader (MSR), line display, RFID, Biometric, Belt, Check Scanner, Fiscal Printer, Electronic Journal, Image Scanner, Item Dispenser, Magnetic Ink Character Recognition Reader (MICR), PIN Pad, signature capture device, etc. In addition, POS for .NET supports many legacy devices where OPOS service objects are available.

Download POS for .Net v1.12