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Contains everything that a project team needs to know about the development and deployment of Web services with the IBM WebSphere product family. Includes examples for all development artifacts in a format that can be reused in the reader’s project. The text combines the authors’ own practical experiences with consolidated information on the latest product capabilities in a unique approach that allows the book to be easily accessible to a broad spectrum of readers. Finding a balance between a euphoric/optimistic and down-to earth/realistic view on the subject, this book should sit on every Web service developer’s bookshelf.

ASP.NET revolutionized Web application development. The platform handles many of the complexities of creating Web applications. Now ASP.NET AJAX takes the development platform even further. The lines between rich client applications and traditionally less interactive browser-based applications are being further blurred with the use of this technology.

The ASP.NET AJAX Library brings object-oriented programming to JavaScript development for modern browsers, and the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions makes it easy to write rich Web applications that communicate with the Web server asynchronously. Again, the complexities are made easy by using ASP.NET.

The new server controls that are part of ASP.NET AJAX make it simple to designate parts of the page to be updated automatically without making the user pause and wait while the data is refreshed. You can have partial page updates without writing a single line of code. Other new controls let you alert the user that background work is happening and designate regular intervals at which updates occur. In addition, the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit makes it easy to make your user interface really come to life with animations, modal dialogs, transition effects, and more.

Ajax is definitely the hot buzzword in the Web application world at the moment. Ajax is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and, in Web application development, it signifies the capability to build applications that make use of the XMLHttpRequest object.

The creation and the inclusion of the XMLHttpRequest object in JavaScript and the fact that most upper-level browsers support the use of this object led to creation of the Ajax model. Ajax applications, although they have been around for a few years, gained greater popularity after Google released a number of notable, Ajax-enabled applications such as Google Maps and Google Suggest. These applications demonstrated the value of Ajax.

Shortly thereafter, Microsoft released a beta for a new toolkit that enabled developers to incorporate Ajax features in their Web applications. This toolkit, code-named Atlas and later renamed ASP.NET AJAX, makes it extremely simple to start using Ajax features in applications today.

Prior to Visual Studio 2008, the ASP.NET AJAX product used to be a separate application that developers were required to install on their machine and the Web server that they were working with. This release gained in popularity quite rapidly and has now been made a part of the Visual Studio 2008 offering. Not only is it a part of the Visual Studio 2008 IDE, the ASP.NET AJAX product is also baked into the .NET Framework 3.5. This means that in order to use ASP.NET AJAX, developers are not going to need to install anything if they are working with ASP.NET 3.5.

Overall, Microsoft has fully integrated the entire ASP.NET AJAX experience in that developers can easily use Visual Studio and its visual designers to work with your Ajax-enabled pages and even have the full debugging story that they would want to have with their applications. Using Visual Studio 2008, developers are now able to debug straight into the JavaScript that they are using in the pages.

In addition, it is important to note that Microsoft focused a lot of attention on cross-platform compatibility with ASP.NET AJAX. Developers will find that the Ajax-enabled applications that they build upon the .NET Framework 3.5 are able to work within all the major up-level browsers out there (e.g., FireFox and Opera).

This book is aimed at experienced ASP.NET developers looking to add AJAX to their applications, and experienced Web developers who want to move to using ASP.NET and AJAX together.

In this book, I assume that you already have an understanding of how ASP.NET works. For an in-depth discussion of ASP.NET, I recommend Professional ASP.NET 3.5 by Bill Evjen, et al. (Wrox, 2008). The focus here is on how you can extend ASP.NET applications to update portions of the page asynchronously and to add richer UI elements to a page. ASP.NET AJAX makes it easy to enrich your existing application or to design a new application to provide a better experience for users. The differences among modern browsers have been abstracted, allowing you to write to a common set of APIs and trust that the user will get the correct behavior whether they are using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari.

If you know how to author ASP.NET pages, you can easily start using the Microsoft AJAX library to manipulate the browser’s Document Object Model and communicate with the server to update the user’s view of data without forcing them to wait for the entire page to be refreshed.

This book covers ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX. It does not cover ASP.NET 3.5, on which ASP.NET AJAX is built. The examples lead you from the core of what is included in the ASP.NET AJAX Library through the core controls you would first start using. You build on that using the core JavaScript library and the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit before covering debugging, deployment, and custom control development.

The ASP.NET 3.5 release includes the Microsoft AJAX Library as well as the server controls that can be used in ASP.NET pages to extend applications, making them more rich and interactive. It does so by leveraging the ASP.NET AJAX Library, which is JavaScript that runs in the browser. The server controls and JavaScript Library work together to let you update HTML with data obtained asynchronously from the server. The ASP.NET application services are exposed to JavaScript classes in the ASP.NET AJAX Library, making authentication and personalization accessible from the browser.

Chapter 1 introduces you to ASP.NET AJAX. This book discusses the need for AJAX Libraries and explain how ASP.NET AJAX compares to other AJAX Libraries. You will see how ASP.NET AJAX is composed of client and server pieces and that you can use the client library with any server platform you choose. In Chapter 2, the focus is on the most popular and easily applied feature of ASP.NET, the UpdatePanel control. This control allows you to automatically update portions of a page asynchronously, without subjecting the user to a visible pause while the page refreshes. Chapters 3 and 4 give you some key information about working with JavaScript and how the ASP.NET AJAX Library makes development with JavaScript easier. The book then works through several key features, including control of script resources and working with the ScriptManager control in Chapter 5, the new ASP.NET 3.5 ability to work with the back button in Chapter 6, and the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit in Chapter 7 and all it has to offer for creating rich user interfaces. The next chapter, Chapter 8, looks at how to use ASP.NET’s application services (such as the Membership and Role management systems) with ASP.NET AJAX. Chapter 9 looks at networking objects. Chapter 10 looks at working with animations in ASP.NET AJAX. Chapter 11 shows you how to develop custom AJAX controls. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 shows the reader how to incorporate Ajax in some other ASP.NET core features such as Web Parts, localization, and state management. Chapter 15 looks at what is required to test and debug Ajax applications, and finally, Chapter 16 explores how to deploy ASP.NET AJAX applications.

“Explaining the intersection of these two worlds--service-orientation and .NET technologies--is exactly what this book does. Its team of specialist authors provides a concrete, usable guide to this combination, ranging from the fundamentals of service-orientation to the more rarified air of .NET services in the cloud and beyond. If you’re creating service-oriented software on the Microsoft platform--that is, if you’re a serious .NET developer--mastering these ideas is a must.”

--From the Foreword by David Chappell, Chappell & Associates

“Microsoft’s diverse product line has long supported the service-oriented enterprise, but putting it all together into a cohesive whole can be daunting. From more established products, like Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and BizTalk Server, to newer offerings like Windows Azure and AppFabric, the experts assembled here expose the sweet spots for each technology, talk through the high-level trade-offs, and offer a roadmap to a unified Microsoft SOA story.”

--Kevin P. Davis, Ph.D., Software Architect

“This book excels in giving hands-on and in-depth expertise on the SOA architecture style with the .NET framework and the Azure cloud platform. It’s a practical guide for developers, architects, and SOA implementers. A must read!”

--Ricardo P. Schluter, ICT Architect, Parnassia Bavo Group

“While the industry overall may have hyped ‘the cloud’ to the level it often seems to cure world hunger, SOA with .NET and Windows Azure helps cut through the questions and hype and more clearly discusses the benefits and practical techniques for putting it to work in the real world. This book helps you understand the benefits associated with SOA and cloud computing, and also the techniques for connecting your current IT assets with new composite applications and data running in the cloud. This book will help you understand modern middleware technologies and harness the benefits of the cloud both on and off premises.”

--Burley Kawasaki, Director of Product Management, Microsoft

“The authors have a combined SOA and .NET experience of several decades–which becomes obvious when reading this book. They don’t just lead you down one path with a single descriptive solution. Instead, the sometimes nasty trade-offs that architects face in their design decisions are addressed. These are then mapped to the Microsoft .NET platform with clear code examples. A very refreshing look at this major contender in the SOA space and a definite must for the .NET SOA practitioner!”

--Dr. Thomas Rischbeck, IT Architect, Innovation Process Technology

“In order to evolve as a software craftsman one must read excellent books that will help you grow and evolve in your profession. One of those books that every software craftsmen interested in good design and best practices should read is SOA with .NET and Windows Azure. With this book, you will learn which design patterns will provide the best solution for the kinds of software design problems you, as a developer or designer, face every day. This book has everything that software architects, software designers, and programmers need to know when building great quality software with Microsoft technologies.

“This will undoubtedly be one of those books that you reference repeatedly when starting new SOA projects. There is plenty of information that even those not working with typical service-oriented architecture will find very useful. With plenty of real-life examples (code, design, and modeling), readers see in a practical manner how they could use SOA patterns to solve everyday software problems and be more productive. SOA with .NET and Windows Azure will fit in my top three books and will definitely be one of those that I will use in my everyday work.”

--Arman Kurtagic, Consultant at Omegapoint AB

The Authoritative Guide to Building Service-Oriented Solutions with Microsoft .NET Technologies and the Windows Azure Cloud Computing Platform

In SOA with .NET and Windows Azure, top Microsoft technology experts team up with Thomas Erl to explore service-oriented computing with Microsoft’s latest .NET service technologies and Windows Azure innovations.

The authors provide comprehensive documentation of on-premise and cloud-based modern service technology advancements within the Microsoft platform and further show how these technologies have increased the potential for applying and realizing service-orientation practices and goals.

Specifically, the book delves into Microsoft enterprise technologies, such as:

• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
• Windows Azure
• Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
• Windows Azure AppFabric
• BizTalk Server
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

...as well as industry service mediums, including WS-* and REST, and many related service industry standards and technologies.

The book steps through common SOA design patterns and service-orientation principles, along with numerous code-level examples that further detail various technology architectures and implementations.

Topic Areas

This book covers the following primary topics:

• Microsoft Service Technologies
• Microsoft Enterprise Technologies
• On-Premise & Cloud-Based Service Topics
• Industry Service Technologies & Mediums
• Service-Oriented Technology Architectural Models
• Service-Orientation Design Paradigm
• Service-Orientation Design Principles
• SOA Design Patterns

About the Web Sites

This book series is further supported by a series of resources sites, including:

• www.soabooks.com
• www.soaspecs.com
• www.soamag.com
• www.serviceorientation.com
• www.soapatterns.org
• www.soaprinciples.com
• www.whatissoa.com

ASP.NET AJAX (formerly code-named ‘Atlas’) will provide a unified set of development tools within Visual Studio for rapid AJAX application development. For the first time AJAX applications can be developed seamlessly in conjunction with their supporting technologies of ASP.NET, SQL Server and Visual Studio. This is a break-through that is going to have enormous impact on the development world – as the success of the first edition of this book has shown.

Written by the author and technical reviewer of Apress’ successful Foundations of Atlas and Foundations of WPF titles, this book gives readers a deep and detailed grounding in how ASP.NET AJAX works. It takes readers swiftly through the first principals of AJAX, and deep into the heart of the technology. By the end of the book readers will know everything that they need to confidently produce cutting-edge ASP.NET AJAX applications swiftly and professionally.

This book will be based on the final full release candidate of ASP.NET AJAX as it is integrated into Visual Studio 'Orcas'.

Rethink the way you plan, design, and build Web applications—with expert guidance from Web development luminary Dino Esposito. Whether giving legacy sites a much-needed tune-up—or architecting rich Internet applications from the ground up—you’ll learn pragmatic approaches to AJAX development that you can employ today.

Discover how to:

• Delve into the mechanics and design goals of partial rendering—such as improving page-refresh speed
• Use AJAX-enabled server controls to bring desktop-like functionality to Web solutions
• Apply design patterns to common Web development issues, including client-side data binding
• Manipulate JavaScript more easily using the jQuery and Microsoft AJAX libraries
• Examine the interoperability and security models in Microsoft Silverlight
• Weigh the tradeoffs when architecting Web applications for richness (Silverlight) vs. reach (AJAX)—and deliver the right solution for your audience

“Whether this is the first time or the fifty-first time you’re using WCF, you’ll learn something new by reading this book.”

--Nicholas Allen, Program Manager, Web Services, Microsoft

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is the easiest way to produce and consume Web services on the Microsoft platform. With .NET 3.5, WCF has been extensively revamped--and Visual Studio 2008 gives developers powerful new tools for utilizing it. Essential Windows Communication Foundation shows developers exactly how to make the most of WCF with .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.

Drawing on extensive experience working with early adopters, three Microsoft insiders systematically address the topics developers ask about WCF. The authors approach each subject with practical advice and present best practices, tips, and tricks for solving problems. Throughout, you’ll find detailed explanations, solutions for the “pain points” of WCF development, and an extensive collection of reusable code examples. Coverage includes

• Using WCF contracts to define complex structures and interfaces
• Understanding WCF’s channel stacks and channel model architecture
• Configuring the WCF communication stack to use only the protocols you need
• Using standard and custom service behaviors to manage concurrency, instances, transactions, and more
• Serializing data from .NET types to XML Infosets and representing Infosets “on the wire”
• Hosting WCF services via IIS, managed .NET applications, and Windows Activation Services
• WCF security, in depth: authentication; transport and message-level security; and Internet and intranet scenarios
• Improving reliability: exception handling, diagnostics, and more
• Workflow services: new integration points between WCF 3.5 and Windows Workflow Foundation
• Building client-to-client, peer network-based applications
• Utilizing WCF for non-SOAP Web services: AJAX and JSON examples and .NET 3.5 hosting classes

Microsoft’s Steve Resnick, Richard Crane, and Chris Bowen are technology experts at the Microsoft Technology Center in Boston. They specialize in helping customers improve their technical agility by applying WCF and related technologies. Resnick has specialized in Internet technologies and distributed computing at Microsoft since 1995. He is a frequent speaker at Microsoft events and is now technology director for the U.S. Microsoft Technology Centers. Crane has more than 15 years of experience in senior software development roles. He specializes in large-scale Web sites, distributed computing, transactional systems, and performance analysis. Bowen has been an architect and developer for more than 15 years at companies such as Monster.com and Staples and is co-author of Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Foreword xxv

Preface xxvii

Chapter 1: Basics 1

Chapter 2: Contracts 33

Chapter 3: Channels 91

Chapter 4: Bindings 111

Chapter 5: Behaviors 181

Chapter 6: Serialization and Encoding 241

Chapter 7: Hosting 287

Chapter 8: Security 315

Chapter 9: Diagnostics 375

Chapter 10: Exception Handling 403

Chapter 11: Workflow Services 423

Chapter 12: Peer Networking 459

Chapter 13: Programmable Web 503

Appendix: Advanced Topics 537

Index 553

An accessible and step-by-step approach to using VB.NET and XML enterprise application development

XML is a tool for interacting with, describing, and transporting data between machines across networks and across the Internet-perfectly suited for Microsoft's .NET plan to fully integrate the Internet into distributed computing. By using real-world and fully-functional examples, this book quickly brings Visual Basic programmers and developers up to speed on XML for enterprise application development. The authors include an overview of XML and how it works with VB.NET, then explain how to use it to manipulate data in distributed environments.

Companion Web site at www.vb-helper.com features the complete working code for all the examples built in the book.

Microsoft Technologies
.NET Platform: The next big overhaul to Microsoft's technologies that will bring enterprise distributed computing to the next level by fully integrating the Internet into the development platform. This will allow interaction between any machine, on any platform, and on any device.

Visual Basic.NET: The update to this popular visual programming language will offer greater Web functionality, more sophisticated object-oriented language features, links to Microsoft's new common runtime, and a new interface.

ASP.NET: A programming framework (formerly known as Active Server Pages) for building powerful Web-based enterprise applications; can be programmed using VB.NET or C#.

C#: Microsoft's new truly object-oriented programming language that builds on the strengths of C++ and the ease of Visual Basic; promises to give Sun's Java a run for its money.

Silverlight 4 in Action is a fast-paced, comprehensive tutorial that guides the reader from creating "Hello World" to coding production-quality, data-driven rich internet applications with graphics, audio, and video content. Written for a developer who already knows how to code in C#, this fluff-free book covers the basics quickly and dives into the heart of Silverlight development using XAML (a markup language for creating user interface elements) and Visual Studio 2010. You'll learn not only how to accomplish tasks, but how the underlying runtime works.
In addition to the fundamentals, the book covers the new features in Silverlight like pixel shaders, webcam and microphone, and raw media, as well as WCF RIA Services and patterns like MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel). It explains developing offline and "out-of-browser" applications, managing video and audio, handling validation, navigation and deep-linking, and how each Silverlight feature fits into the overall Silverlight ecosystem.
Table of Contents

1. Introducing Silverlight
2. Core XAML
3. The application model and the plug-in
4. Integrating with the browser
5. Integrating with the desktop
6. Rendering, layout, and transforming
7. Panels
8. Human input
9. Text
10. Controls and UserControls
11. Binding
12. Data controls: DataGrid and DataForm
13. Input validation
14. Networking and communications
15. Navigation and dialogs
16. Structuring and testing with the MVVM/ViewModel pattern
17. WCF RIA Services
18. Graphics and effects
19. Printing
20. Displaying and capturing media (including webcam/mic)
21. Working with bitmap images
22. Animation and behaviors
23. Resoures, styles, and control templates
24. Creating panels and controls
25. The install experience and preloaders

The web services architecture provides a new way to think about and implement application-to-application integration and interoperability that makes the development platform irrelevant. Two applications, regardless of operating system, programming language, or any other technical implementation detail, communicate using XML messages over open Internet protocols such as HTTP or SMTP. The Simple Open Access Protocol (SOAP) is a specification that details how to encode that information and has become the messaging protocol of choice for Web services.

Programming Web Services with SOAP is a detailed guide to using SOAP and other leading web services standards--WSDL (Web Service Description Language), and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration protocol). You'll learn the concepts of the web services architecture and get practical advice on building and deploying web services in the enterprise.

This authoritative book decodes the standards, explaining the concepts and implementation in a clear, concise style. You'll also learn about the major toolkits for building and deploying web services. Examples in Java, Perl, C#, and Visual Basic illustrate the principles. Significant applications developed using Java and Perl on the Apache Tomcat web platform address real issues such as security, debugging, and interoperability.

Covered topic areas include:

• The Web Services Architecture
• SOAP envelopes, headers, and encodings
• WSDL and UDDI
• Writing web services with Apache SOAP and Java
• Writing web services with Perl's SOAP::Lite
• Peer-to-peer (P2P) web services
• Enterprise issues such as authentication, security, and identity
• Up-and-coming standards projects for web services

Programming Web Services with SOAP provides you with all the information on the standards, protocols, and toolkits you'll need to integrate information services with SOAP. You'll find a solid core of information that will help you develop individual Web services or discover new ways to integrate core business processes across an enterprise.