Enterprise Library 4.0 for Visual Studio 2008

lavssun — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:54:00 GMT

What is Enterprise Library?

Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable software components (application blocks) designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges (such as logging, validation, caching, exception handling, and many others). Application blocks are a type of guidance encapsulating Microsoft recommended development practices; they are provided as source code plus documentation that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on complex, enterprise-level line-of-business development projects.

Goals for Enterprise Library

Enterprise Library is a collection of application blocks intended for use by developers who build complex, enterprise-level applications. Enterprise Library is used when building applications that are typically to be deployed widely and to interoperate with other applications and systems. In addition, they generally have strict security, reliability, and performance requirements. The goals of Enterprise Library are the following:

Consistency. All Enterprise Library application blocks feature consistent design patterns and implementation approaches.

Extensibility. All application blocks include defined extensibility points that allow developers to customize the behavior of the application blocks by adding their own code.

Ease of use. Enterprise Library offers numerous usability improvements, including a graphical configuration tool, a simpler installation procedure, and clearer and more complete documentation and samples.

Integration. Enterprise Library application blocks are designed to work well together or individually.

What's New in v4.0?

This release of Enterprise Library includes the following:

- Integration with the Unity Application Block

- Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) 2.0 support and improved instrumentation

- Performance improvements (particularly, in the Logging Application Block)

- Pluggable Cache Managers

- Visual Studio 2008 support

- Bug fixes

Note: existing public APIs (v3.1) are still supported.

The Application Block Software Factory and the Strong Naming Guidance Package are not included in this release but are available as a separate download. Thus, there is no longer a dependency on Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX).

For the detailed list of all changes, see About This Release of Enterprise Library.

Getting Started

If you are new to the Enterprise Library:

- read the Introduction to the Enterprise Library;

- download, compile and run the Quick Start samples-study the code;

- read through the related Quick Start Walkthroughs and "Key Scenarios" sections of the documentation;

- practice the Hands-On Labs;

- join the webcast in June 2008 (the exact date will be announced on the Enterprise Library landing page).

If you already know and love the Enterprise Library:

- Check out the change log for this release;

- upgrade to V4.0-no code change is required-simply update the references to the corresponding application block assemblies and to the common assemblies;

- download the updated Quick Starts and run through the Unity-integrated examples to get the flavor of new dependency injection style of using the Enterprise Library;

- join the webcast in June 2008 (the exact date will be announced on the Enterprise Library landing page).

Sundar Narasiman's Random Musings on .NET and SharePoint : .NET Development

Enterprise Library 4.0 for Visual Studio 2008