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Enterprise Library is a collection of application blocks intended for use by developers who build complex, enterprise-level applications. Enterprise Library is used when building applications that are typically to be deployed widely and to interoperate with other applications and systems. In addition, they generally have strict security, reliability, and performance requirements.

The goals of Enterprise Library are the following:

  • Consistency. All Enterprise Library application blocks feature consistent design patterns and implementation approaches.
  • Extensibility. All application blocks include defined extensibility points that allow developers to customize the behavior of the application blocks by adding their own code.
  • Ease of use. Enterprise Library offers numerous usability improvements, including a graphical configuration tool, a simpler installation procedure, and clearer and more complete documentation and samples.
  • Integration. Enterprise Library application blocks are designed to work well together or individually.

These are typically rationalized through:

There will be a webcast in June 2008  giving an overview of the new features of Enterprise Library 4.0. You can find more detail on the Enterprise Library landing page.

What's New

This release of Enterprise Library includes the following:

  • Integration with the Unity Application Block
  • Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) 2.0 support and improved instrumentation
  • Performance improvements (particularly, in the Logging Application Block)
  • Pluggable Cache Managers
  • Visual Studio 2008 support
  • Bug fixes

Note: existing public APIs (v3.1) are still supported.

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