MSDN Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 56)

Key Quadrant Model Deployment to “Dublin” “Dublin” adds Visual Studio WF and WCF Project Templates “Dublin” enhances Windows / IIS / .NET Framework 4.0 IIS Manager App Server SCOM Pack WF and WCF Management Modules Management APIs ( Windows PowerShell Cmdlets ) Hosting Discovery and Control Durable Timer Service Persistence Scale-Out and Reliability SQL Persistence Provider Monitoring Application Monitoring WCF SQL Tracking Provider WCF SQL Tracking Behaviors Messaging Versioning, Partitioning, Routing System Center LR Comp. Service Forwarding Service Persistence Schema Runtime Databases WF and WCF Frameworks IIS / WAS Windows Application Server Role Monitoring Schema Figure 6 The “Dublin” Architecture doesn’t provide built-in support for simplifying scale-out deployments or common WCF configuration tasks, which turns out to be a sore spot for WCF. The hosting challenges are worse for WF applications in server environments because of the inherently stateful model required to support long-running workflows across server farms. Because of these complexities, Microsoft didn’t ship a WF server host in the .NET Framework 3.0—developers had to write this themselves. It wasn’t until the .NET Framework 3.5, with the introduction of the WorkflowServiceHost class, that it was possible to host WF workflows as WCF services out of the box, thereby making it possible to host your WF workflows within IIS/WAS as well. WorkflowServiceHost was a good start, but it didn’t come with any tool support for managing stateful workflows across an entire Web server farm, nor did it provide tools for monitoring and managing running workflow instances at run time. In terms of service and workflow management features, most developers expect an experience similar to what’s provided by BizTalk Server, yet simpler. Many organizations want the BizTalk management experience, but they don’t need the integration capabilities or the reliability semantics (and corresponding performance hit) that’s inherent in the BizTalk Server MessageBox. A lighter-weight model, specifically designed for WCF and WF applications, is more appropriate. 56 msdn magazine A Guide to “Dublin” Microsoft has been working on a new set of extensions to Windows Server—code-named “Dublin”—that provides valuable hosting and management features for your WCF and WF applications. “Dublin” is essentially a set of service management extensions built on top of IIS/WAS that will ship as part of Windows Server. When using the “Dublin” extensions, you’ll still be hosting your service and workflows in IIS/WAS, but your applications will enjoy additional WCF and WF-specific management capabilities and tools that don’t currently exist in IIS/WAS. The various “Dublin” extensions will ship in a future version of Windows Server as part of the Windows Server Application Server role. Hence, the set of features is often referred to as the Windows Application Server, although that’s not the official name sanctioned by Microsoft. For the rest of this article, I’ll refer to the new Windows Server Application Server extensions as simply “Dublin.” The key capabilities provided by the “Dublin” extensions include management support for reliable and durable services and long-running workflows. “Dublin” makes it possible to deploy an application to individual servers across a farm, and it provides the tools you need for specific service management tasks. I will be discussing these capabilities in more detail throughout the following sections, but first let’s take a look at the overall architecture, which is illustrated in Figure 6. .NET 4.0 and “Dublin”

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - January 2009

Toolbox CLR Inside Out Basic Instincts Cutting Edge Test Run First Look� Geneva Framework Silverlight Windows Mobile Service Station Security Briefs Extreme ASP.NET Foundations .NET Matters { End Bracket }

MSDN Magazine - January 2009

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