Developing ASP.NET 2.0 Applications with the Microsoft Data Access Application Block - What are Microsoft Enterprise Application Blocks?
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Extending the definition from the previous section, we can define an Enterprise Library (or Enterprise Application Blocks) as "a collection of application blocks and guidance documents that together provide functionality common to enterprise applications." The library consists of several applications blocks which are very commonly used while developing enterprise scale applications. The entire library is free to download, develop and deploy.
At the time of this writing, Microsoft released the “Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0” (January 2006 version). It has been updated to take advantage of the features available in .NET Framework 2.0 and to work with Visual Studio 2005. If you are working with Visual Studio.NET 2003, you need to work with the "Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 1.1" (July 2005 version).
At the time of this writing, the Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 contains the following application blocks:
- Caching Application Block.
- Cryptography Application Block.
- Data Access Application Block.
- Exception Handling Application Block.
- Logging Application Block.
- Security Application Block.
We need not use every application block in every application. It all depends on what we need our application to do. Microsoft recommends following its "Practices & Patterns" to develop enterprise scale applications, and gives this enterprise library (along with its source code) as an example.
In this contribution, I mainly focus on working with the Data Access Application Block available in the Enterprise Library For .NET Framework 2.0 together with a simple ASP.NET application.
Before you proceed to the next section, you need to download and install the Enterprise Library For .NET Framework 2.0 available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5A14E870-406B-
4F2A-B723-97BA84AE80B5&displaylang=en.
Please note that you should select the "compile library" option when you install the library. This will lessen future complications in working with the samples given in this contribution.
Next: Developing an ASP.NET application using the Data Access Application Block: adding references >>
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