patterns%20

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patterns practicesEnterprise Library

• Brian Buttonbbutton_at_agilestl.comConsultant/Devel
  operpatterns practices

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Speaker Introduction

• Principal Consultant at Agile Solutions Group
• St. Louis-based
• Train, mentor, develop, lead teams in agile
  software development
• Consulted in Microsoft patterns practices since
  October, 2003
• Smart Client Offline Application Block
• Enterprise Library
• My badge is orange, not blue
• These opinions are mine and mine alone
• I do not speak for MS or patterns practices

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Welcome to an Exclusive Club!
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Short History
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patterns practices
Reference Architectures
Application Blocks
Patterns
Atomic solutions to recurring problems
Sub-system-level guidance for common services
System-level guidance for common customer
scenarios
Guidance on architectural principles and
cross-cutting issues such as security and
performance
Guides
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Application Blocks defined

• Reusable, extensible, modifiable
• Common mechanism
• Logging
• Caching
• Configuration management
• Reusable fragment of app architecture
• User interface process management
• Smart disconnected client
• Service aggregation

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Application Blocks are great, but

• In general feedback has been extremely positive,
  but there is room for improvement
• Make blocks consistent
• Make blocks work well together
• Minimize dependencies
• On other blocks
• On infrastructure
• Make it easier to configure blocks
• Make evaluation and understanding of blocks
  easier
• Make using blocks easier

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Introducing Enterprise Library

• Library of reusable software assets to address
  common enterprise development challenges
• Part of the patterns practices guidance library
• Strong focus on consistency, extensibility, ease
  of use and integration
• v1 produced in partnership with Avanade,
  leveraging experience from customer engagements
  and incorporating aspects of their ACA.NET
  application framework

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Included Application Blocks

• Caching
• Data
• Exception Handling
• Logging
• Security
• Cryptography (symmetric only)
• Common configuration and tooling

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Lets build an example app

• Simple data access to Northwind
• Add a bit of logging
• And some exception handling

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Enterprise Library v1 Architecture
Exception Handling
Caching
Data Access
Logging Instrumentation
Security
Crypto
Config Run-Time
Config Tooling
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Block Architecture
Block Configuration Design Code
Unit Tests
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What comes in the box?

• There is no box
• Released as guidance
• Source code format only
• As-is, like rest of pp guidance
• You get
• All source
• All unit tests
• Documentation
• Quick starts

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Caching Application Block

• Provides a flexible and extensible caching
  mechanism that can be used at all layers of an
  application
• Supports backing stores that persist cache data
  into a database or isolated storage, so the data
  can survive app restarts
• Can be used in ASP.NET apps, although the ASP.NET
  cache is preferred for simple scenarios
• Supports similar scenarios to the original
  caching block, but with a revised architecture to
  make it more thread- and exception-safe

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Data Access Application Block

• Provides simplified access to the most common
  data access operations
• Aim was to keep much of the simplicity of the
  original DAAB blocks, but to provide additional
  features requested by customers
• Notable new features
• Support for multiple database types through a
  factory (SQL Server, Oracle and DB2 out of the
  box). This provides consistent and portable code
  (caveats apply!)
• Connection strings are stored and managed in
  external configuration

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Exception Handling Application Block

• Facilitates consistent exception handling
  behavior at logical boundaries of an application
• Allows the creation of exception policies which
  dictate which actions should be taken for
  specific exception types at the logical boundary
• Example All security exceptions arising from the
  business layer need to be logged, and the
  messages sanitized before being propagated to the
  caller
• Actions are extensible we provide Logging,
  Wrapping one exception with another, and
  Replacing one exception with an other
• Block has little in common with the existing EMAB
  which was primarily used to log exceptions

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Logging Instrumentation Application Block

• Allows applications to log business and
  operations data to various destinations, which
  are externally configurable
• Replaces the Enterprise Instrumentation Framework
  and the existing Logging Application Block
• Configuration specifies which messages go where,
  and how they are formatted
• Formatters and sinks are extensible. We provide
  sinks for Event Log, Database, Text File, MSMQ,
  E-mail, WMI and Windows Event Tracing

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Security Application Block

• Provides a simple API and pluggable
  implementations of core security primitive
  operations
• Covers 5 security areas Authentication,
  Authorization, Roles, Profile and Security
  Caching
• Each module supports extensible plug-in
  providers. In general we supply plug-ins for
  common Microsoft infrastructure (AD, AzMan) as
  well as a light-weight database implementation
• Developers can build their own plug-ins to
  interface with existing security solutions

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Cryptography Application Block

• Provides a simplified approach to implementing
  common cryptography scenarios
• Includes modules for symmetric cryptography and
  hashing
• Each module supports pluggable algorithms and key
  stores
• Supports all .NET crypto algorithms out of the
  box, or developers can implement their own
• Algorithms and keys can be managed through the
  configuration tool

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Configuration Application Block

• Allows applications to easily read and write
  configuration data from configurable storage
  locations
• Used by all blocks in Enterprise Library, can
  also be used by customer blocks, frameworks and
  applications
• Includes two parts
• Configuration Runtime, which applications use at
  runtime to access configuration data
• Configuration Designtime, which provides nodes
  that are used by the configuration tool to give a
  simple design-time experience
• Configuration can be encrypted and individual
  elements can be masked in the tool

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Lots of places to go learn more

• Webcasts
• Several overview webcasts plus one webcast per
  block
• http//www.pnplive.com
• Hands on Labs
• Labs focused on learning to use each block
• http//www.pnplive.com/hands_on_labs.htm
• Podcasts
• Listen to the Enterprise Library developers talk
  about the culture, experiences, and history of EL
  V1.
• http//www.ronjacobs.com/podcast/default.htm

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Even more places

• Patterns Practices
• Download and install Enterprise Library
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/practices
• Enterprise Library GotDotNet Workspace
• http//practices.gotdotnet.com/projects/entlib

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Learn from the authors

• Enterprise Library team blogs
• Brian Button http//oneagilecoder.agilestl.com
• Scott Densmore http//blogs.msdn.com/scottdensmore
  
• Peter Provost http//peterprovost.org
• Jim Newkirk http//blogs.msdn.com/jamesnewkirk
• Tom Hollander http//blogs.msdn.com/tomholl
• Hisham Baz http//blog.hishambaz.com
• Tim Shakarian http//dotnetjunkies/WebLog/tshak

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Whats coming?

• Enterprise Library June 2005
• Bug fixes, a few new features, changes to compile
  on Whidbey
• June 30, 2005 or so
• Enterprise Library for .NET 2.0
• Same feature set implemented on Whidbey
• A little while after Whidbey ships
• Enterprise Library V?.?
• Solving the next batch of problems
• A year or more after Whidbey ships