1.NET and XML Web Services A Primer for Network Administrators John Robbins Version 1.0 Copyright © 2002 Wintellect

2 What are we going to cover?  What’s this.NET thing?  XML Web Services – The Glue .NET Framework  Visual Studio.NET .NET for Administrators  Useful Links Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

3 What Is This.NET Thing?  Microsoft has been slapping.NET on everything from servers to languages  Many people are confused!  The basic idea  A means of providing software integration and interoperability between everything from back end servers to smart clients  A complete set of products for business from Microsoft  Built to use or support XML and industry standards  Cover each aspect of  Experiences (MSN, bCentral)  Clients (PC’s, Mobil devices)  Services (MyServices, MapPoint)  Servers (AppCenter, BizTalk)  Tools (Visual Studio.NET,.NET Framework) Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

4 The Glue – XML Web Services  The communication layer between these.NET business products are XML Web Services  XML (eXtensible Markup Language)  A consistent means of describing the data layout  A means to build self-describing data sets  A text file format  Easily parsed by industry standard methods  Operating system and language independent  Web Services  A means for communication between computers  Uses SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) over HTTP to affect communications  Operating system and language independent

5 The Glue – XML Web Services (cont.)  XML Web Services are ways to transport industry standard XML data between software and machine using industry standard protocols  You can think of XML Web Services as “functionality units”  The XML Web Service does one thing well (i.e., a “functionality unit”)  Developers can string web services together to build more powerful applications Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

6 XML Web Service Example  Many companies have customer databases scattered between different departments  Coordinating data exchange between those databases is very difficult  The company can build a XML Web Service to provide a consistent interface to all customer data and hide the complexity  All applications needing customer data can call the XML Web Service to get that information  The company can provide the XML Web Service interface to key partners so they can access customer information as well  XML Web Services are universal!

7.NET Framework  Building XML Web Services with traditional tools and technologies (i.e., C++) is difficult  Memory leaks  Crashes  We need a faster and better way to develop XML Web Services  Microsoft’s answer: The.NET Framework  Eliminates ALL memory problems  Provides ALL the plumbing so developers concentrate on the business logic Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

8.NET Framework (cont.)  Necessitates programming to a different model to make development easier  Microsoft also tackled other hard development problems with the.NET Framework  Traditional ASP applications are a nightmare  ASP.NET provides a clean model for weblications  Data access can be a nightmare  ADO.NET lets developers treat ALL data one way  A clean Application Programming Interface (API)  The Framework Class Library (FCL) is huge!  Impressively covers nearly everything an internet application needs .NET is an API on top of internet applications

9 Visual Studio.NET  The development environment for writing.NET applications  It’s debugger is fantastic  The one debugger for every type of application  Visual Basic has changed considerably  You will still be supporting Visual Basic 6.0 development for quite a while  C# is the new Java-like language that makes developing.NET applications easier Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

10.NET For Administrators  In many ways, does not make your life change very much  Today, requires you install the.NET Runtime on any servers/workstations running.NET applications  Provided free of charge from Microsoft  Check with your developers for the redistributable  Future operating systems from Microsoft will have.NET built in Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

11.NET for Administrators (cont.)  The big news  Developers no longer have to be local machine administrators on servers to debug applications written using.NET  Microsoft deserves a Peace Prize!!  Install the Remote Client Debugging from the Visual Studio.NET CDs for remote debugging  Work with the developers on the infrastructure to host web services  Plan for growth (web gardening/farming) and exchanging data with key company partners  XML Web Services requires a much larger investment in software design and architecture planning than before

12 Useful Links  The basic elements of.NET   What are XML Web Services   XML Web Services you can call across the internet  Submit a question anytime by clicking on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.

13 Questions? Click on the Ask a Question link in the bottom left corner of your presentation screen.