Development Perspective of Windows Server 2008
So much talk about Windows Server 2008 as an important part of infrastructure. So what does it mean to architects and developers?
Let's recap some of the goals...
- Application Platform - Flexible Solutions, Connected Systems, Rich Experiences
- Management - Control , Flexibility, Availability
- Investment in the Fundamentals - Security, Reliability, Performance
What are some of the technologies provided?
- Application Platform - .NET Framework 3.0, Windows Activation Service (WAS), IIS7 Modules, IIS7 Administration
- Management - WS-Management and Windows Remote Management, MMC 3.0, Task Scheduler 2.0 API
- Transactional Platform - Transaction NTFS (TxF), Transactional Registry (TxR), Kernel Transaction Manager (KTM)
- Concurrency - Thread Ordering Service, Thread Pools
- Recovery and Restart - Windows Error Reporting (WER), Application Recovery and Restart, Restart Manager
- Networking - Windows Filtering Platform (WFP), Network Stack Improvements, Network-Connected Devices (Function Discovery API, Web Services on Devices)
- Storage - Remote Differential Compression (RDC), Common Log File System (CLFS), Symbolic Links
Specifically, I would like to call out .Net framework 3.0 and IIS7 which are closer to the hearts of application folks.
The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 is the managed code programming model for Windows. It combines the power of the .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have visually compelling user experiences, seamless communication across technology boundaries, the ability to support a wide range of business processes, and an easier way to manage your personal information online.
- Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is the next-generation presentation sub-system for Windows. It provides developers and designers with a unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and documents.
- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s unified framework for building secure, reliable, transacted, and interoperable distributed applications.
- Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is the programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow enabled applications. WF radically enhances a developer’s ability to model and support business processes.
- Windows CardSpace enables users to provide their digital identities in a familiar, secure, and easy way. In the physical world, we use business cards, credit cards, and membership cards. Online with CardSpace we use a variety of virtual cards to identity ourselves, each retrieving data from an identity provider. Don’t struggle with usernames and passwords, just choose an information card!
Useful Resources
.Net Framework Developer Center
Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0 Community
More than a Web server, Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) provides a secure, easy to manage platform for developing and reliably hosting Web applications and services. IIS 7.0 is designed for modularity and provides an extensibility architecture for hosting content.
What are IIS7 Modules? IIS 7.0’s web-server feature set if componentized into more than thirty independent modules. A module is either a Win32 DLL (native) or a .NET 2.0 type contained within an assembly (managed). Similar to a Lego set, modules are added to the server in order to provide the desired functionality for your applications. Likewise, all IIS modules can be removed, or replaced with custom modules developed using the new IIS 7.0 C++ APIs, or the familiar ASP.NET 2.0 APIs.
What scenarios does this enable? In the past, ASP.NET modules were limited in functionality due to the ASP.NET request processing pipeline being separate from the main server request pipeline. In IIS7, with the Integrated Pipeline architecture, managed modules become virtually as powerful as native modules. Most importantly, the services provided by managed modules can now be applied to all requests to the server, not just requests to ASP.NET content like ASPX pages. Managed modules are configured and managed in a consistent manner with native modules, and can execute in the same processing stages and orderings as native modules. Finally, managed modules can perform a wider set of operations to manipulate request processing via several added and enhanced ASP.NET APIs. In summary...
- Both Win32 DLL (native) and .NET 2.0 type contained in assembly (managed) are supported.
- Add to server in order to provide desired functionality for your app (example: watermarking served up images)
- Managed modules virtually as powerful as native modules (thanks to Integrated Pipeline)
- Managed modules can be applied to all requests to the server, not just ASP.NET-oriented requests
- Managed and native modules are both configured and managed in a consistent manner (and can execute in same processing stages and orderings with each other)
Useful Resources
What is new in IIS7 Administration? IIS7 provides a comprehensive managed-code API that allows complete manipulation of the XML configuration files and convenience access to server objects. IIS7 includes Microsoft.Web.Administration, which is a new management API for the web server that enables editing configuration through complete manipulation of the XML configuration files and also provides convenience objects to manage the server, its properties and state. The configuration editing aspect of the API provides programmatic access to read and write configuration properties in the IIS configuration file hierarchy and specific configuration files. The object management aspect of this API provides a series of top-level administration objects for direct management of the server (i.e. sites, application pools, worker processes, etc.).
The management classes reside in the Microsoft.Web.Administration namespace. The classes provide a weakly-typed interface to access configuration sections and convenience objects with properties and methods representing attributes of the configuration (like the path of a virtual directory) or actions to take on the object (like recycling an application pool). In summary...
- Provides comprehensive managed-code API allowing complete manipulation of XML configuration files and convenience access to server objects
- Resides in Microsoft.Web.Administration namespace
Useful Resources
http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=952
