Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders)) [Paperback]

Gregory Brill (Author)

Book Description

Series: Landmark (New Riders) | Publication Date: October 4, 2000

COM+ is Microsoft¿s new version of its COM object-oriented programming framework. Built into Windows 2000, this is an extremely powerful and complex technology that consolidates the features of a number of existing Microsoft tools: OLE, ActiveX, DCOM, Microsoft Message Queue, and Microsoft Transaction Server. By pulling all of these disparate services into one unified technology, COM+ hold the promise of greater efficiency and more diverse capabilities for developers who are creating applications - either enterprise or commercial software -- to run on a Windows 2000 system. The demand for reliable and real-world application-based information on COM+ is huge, and so far greatly exceeds the availability of such documentation.This book will provide a coherent, unified view of the COM+ architecture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Aimed at the knowledgeable C++/VB programmer, Gregory Brill's Applying COM+ offers a state-of-the-art tour of today's COM+ as used in Windows 2000. Whether you want to build more robust components or take advantage of enterprise-level features, like transactions or asynchronous processing, this title can help put leading-edge techniques into your programming arsenal.

An in-depth perspective on the older COM and the new COM+ helps set this text apart. The author is an expert on recent Microsoft technologies, and the book offers plenty of detailed insight into how the new COM+ works with higher-end, enterprise-level standards, like distributed transactions, queued components, and compensating resource managers (CRMs). A superb explanation of the differences between apartment models used in COM+ components follows a basic tour of COM. Core COM concepts like late binding and automation are also explained. Examples in both C++ and VB (and sometimes Java/Visual J++) illustrate essential concepts.

Although it's aimed clearly at the more experienced developer, the book doesn't skimp on the specifics of working with Microsoft tools, and it has plenty of screen shots that illustrate the text. The emphasis on new tools also helps make it a strong choice for anyone coming to COM+ from a background in the older COM standard. The author shows you how to make use of essential COM+ features like transactions and asynchronous message processing through message queue services. There's full coverage of the new publish-subscribe event model in COM+, along with event filtering. The book closes with an expert's-eye view of the much-improved security model in Windows 2000, plus techniques that will allow your components to work in a secure enterprise setting.

The bottom line is that any expert will want to take a look at this book when figuring out how to write scalable, high-end components on the Microsoft Windows platform. With plenty of expertise on display, backed by a hands-on perspective of the current generation of Microsoft tools, this title strikes an appealing balance between the theory and practice of COM+. It can help you write better enterprise applications on Windows 2000. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Overview of COM+, RPC, IDL and COM+, IUnknown, and COM internals
• Threading basics
• Apartment models (MTA, STA, and neutral threading)
• Type libraries and marshaling
• IDispatch
• Late binding and OLE Automation
• The COM registry and the COM+ catalog
• Microsoft Transaction Services and COM+
• Transaction contexts
• Database and distributed transactions
• MS DTC
• Compensating resource managers (CRMs)
• Microsoft Message Queue and asynchronous processing
• Queued components
• COM+ event model (publishers and subscribers)
• Event filtering
• The COM+ declarative security model
• Low-level security and roles
• Quick introduction to OLE DB and ADO
• Object pooling basics

From the Back Cover

COM+ is Microsoft's new version of its COM object-oriented programming framework. Built into Windows 2000, this is an extremely powerful and complex technology that consolidates the features of a number of existing Microsoft tools: OLE, ActiveX, DCOM, Microsoft Message Queue, and Microsoft Transaction Server. By pulling all of these disparate services into one unified technology, COM+ hold the promise of greater efficiency and more diverse capabilities for developers who are creating applications - either enterprise or commercial software -- to run on a Windows 2000 system. The demand for reliable and real-world application-based information on COM+ is huge, and so far greatly exceeds the availability of such documentation. This book will provide a coherent, unified view of the COM+ architecture.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 504 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1st. Ed edition (October 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735709785
• ISBN-13: 978-0735709782
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #519,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very strong and worth buying., October 30, 2000

By 

Don Kingstey (Palo Alto, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders)) (Paperback)

Humorous and lightly written, Brill's book provides (to my knowledge) on of the most definitive accounts of COM+ out there. The first five chapters, focus solely on COM, and in themselves they provide a great introduction to those unfamiliar with this topic. Chapters 6 thru 12 then address the major COM+ topics: transactions, security, queued components, while the appendices cover some of the more esoteric ones (object pooling, application proxies etc). Many of the chapters include practical "provisos" one must watch out for when implementing COM+. Mr. Brill has definitely done his homework here. A must buy for anyone wanting to write enterprise COM+ applications.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading, October 25, 2000

By 

Beth - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders)) (Paperback)

I disagree with the previous reviewer. I have a strong background in COM/MTS architecture and wanted to understand what was different in the COM+ arena. The book provided me a well-organized overview of the COM+ architecture. New (and old) features were accurately described. Discussions of when and how to implement various aspects of COM+ were well-reasoned. I have not found any inaccuracies. Building enterprise-class COM applications involves more than understanding how to build a COM object -- you have to know how to install and administer those objects within the COM+ architecture. Brill's book targets that need.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST READ -- This is my COM+ Bible!, October 30, 2000

By 

"bbaldasti" (Waterloo, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders)) (Paperback)

Brill's book should really be called "COM and COM+", because the first section of the book is dedicated entirely to explaining Microsoft's Component Object Model. With his intuitive analogies and witty style, Brill articulates some of the more complex COM concepts (Marshalling, Threading etc), although the understanding of some of these concepts is probably not central to those who will be utilizing COM+. The coverage of COM+ is outstanding - far more definitive and lucid then anything I have from Microsoft. Much empirical experimentation is evident from reading the text. This not another COM+ book which simply retreads existing MSDN documentation, but a work that transcends it.