Microsoft Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable software components (also known as Application Blocks) that are designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Before using an Application block, you should have a good understanding of your application requirements and of the scenarios that the Application Block is designed to address.

This book covers the fundamental elements of each Application Block so that you get a good understanding of its concepts. This is followed by referencing the required and optional assemblies and the initial configuration of that block using the configuration editor. Finally, leverage Application Block features to achieve goals of the enterprise application development.

You will first get an overview of the different Application Blocks in Enterprise Library and their inter-dependencies. Then you will learn to install the Enterprise library and optionally the source code. Then you will learn about the individual functional Application Blocks: the Data Access Application Block, Logging Application Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Caching Application Block, Validation Application Block, Security Application Block, and Cryptography Application Block.

In the Caching Application Block chapter you will learn to reference the required assemblies, configure the initial settings, cache, retrieve, remove, and flush cached data. You will also learn to configure and leverage encryption providers to encrypt cached data.

In the Validation Application Block chapter you will be introduced to concepts such as Validators, ValidatorFactory, ValidationResults, and so on. You will learn to reference the required assemblies, set up the initial configuration, validate objects using attributes, validate values programmatically, validate using configuration, and also learn to integrate the Application block with Windows Forms and ASP.NET. Finally you will learn to implement a custom validator.

In the Security Application Block chapter you will be introduced to Authorization Providers and the Security Cache Provider. You will then learn about referencing required assemblies, configure security settings, and learn to set up and validate based on the authorization rules. You will also learn to leverage the Security cache provider to cache user Identity, Principal, and Profile. Finally you will learn to implement a custom Authorization Provider.

In the Cryptography Application Block chapter you will be introduced to Hashing and Cryptography providers; you will learn to reference required assemblies, set up the initial configuration, generate/compare hash values, and implement a custom hash provider. You will also learn to encrypt/decrypt data and also implement a custom symmetric cryptography provider.

A step by step tutorial that guides you through the process of building Enterprise applications using the Application Blocks in Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0.

What you will learn from this book

• Implement a custom trace listener, log formatter, and log filter
• Configure the Exception Handling block and wrap or replace exceptions using a Wrap Handler or a Replace Handler.
• Log exception information using the Logging Handler.
• Integrate the Validation Application Block with Windows Forms-based applications.
• Integrate the Validation Application Block with ASP.NET web applications.
• Configure the Security block and authorization rules to validate based on the configured rules.
• Save user Identity/Principal/Profile in cache and obtain a temporary token
• Retrieve cached user Identity/Principal/Profile using a token
• Terminate a user session by expiring the cached identity
• Configure the Cryptography block, generate a hash value for a given string, and compare a hash value with a string
• Implement a custom Hash Provider and Symmetric Cryptography Provider
• Perform database operations more efficiently by leveraging the rich features of Data Access Application Block
• Retrieve records as objects using Parameter, Row and Result Set Mappers
• Log messages to Event Log, flat file and learn to configure categories, trace listeners and logging filters

Approach

This is a step-by-step tutorial in which a chapter is dedicated to each Application Block of the Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0. We will develop small applications to implement the functions in each Application Block all through the book..

Who this book is written for

If you are a Programmer, Consultant, or an Associate Architect, who is interested in developing Enterprise applications, this book is for you. We assume that you already have a good knowledge of Microsoft .NET framework and the C# programming language.