Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies [Paperback]

Curt Simmons (Author), Ash Rofail (Author)

Book Description

Series: Prentice Hall Series on Microsoft Technologies | Publication Date: November 15, 2001

Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies is the complete guide to Microsoft's .NET initiative for both IT professionals and business decision-makers. Curt Simmons and Ash Rofail explore the goals and design of the .NET framework, the Microsoft technologies that enable it, what .NET means to the Internet, and what it can (and cannot) offer your business. If you need to make intelligent decisions about .NET, this is the to-the-point, up-to-the-minute briefing you've been searching for. The authors begin by exploring the foundational concepts that underlie the .NET platform. They present a high level overview of .NET's goals and processes, introducing the new Web services .NET is intended to support, and showing how businesses can use them for competitive advantage. They walk through the .NET framework, its protocols and programming interfaces, introduce the Visual Studio.NET programming environment, and explain the central role of XML in .NET and Microsoft's approach to Web services delivery. In Part Two, the authors review Microsoft's key .NET Enterprise servers, showing how they work and how they function within the .NET initiative.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The complete .NET briefing for every IT professional and business decision-maker.

• Evaluating .NET: technologies and business opportunities
• .NET Web Services, e-business, and application integration support
• .NET tools and standards: Visual Studio.NET, ASP.NET, XML, and SOAP
• .NET Enterprise Servers: BizTalk, SharePoint, Mobile Information Server, and more

Now, there's an expert, straight-to-the-point introduction to Microsoft's .NET for IT professionals and business decision-makers. Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies explores the design and goals of the .NET framework, the Microsoft technologies that enable it, what .NET means to the Internet, and what it means to your business. Simmons and Rofail begin by exploring the foundational concepts that underlie the .NET platform. They present a high-level overview of .NET's goals and processes, introducing the new Web services .NET is intended to support and showing how businesses can use them for competitive advantage. They walk through the .NET framework and its protocols and programming interfaces, introduce the Visual Studio.NET programming environment, and explain the central role of XML in .NET and Microsoft's approach to Web services delivery. The authors also review Microsoft's key .NET Enterprise servers, showing how they work and how they function within the .NET initiative.

• What .NET means to your e-business initiatives
• How .NET Web services may deliver competitive advantage-and how to build them
• .NET standards-including detailed coverage of .NET's XML and SOAP support
• .NET tools: introducing the Visual Studio.NET programming environment
• .NET Enterprise Servers: BizTalk, SharePoint, Commerce Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server, Mobile Information Server, and more

Highly readable and thoroughly objective, Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies gives you .NET's essence without its hype. If you need to make intelligent decisions about .NET, this is the book you need by your side.

About the Author

CURT SIMMONS is an author and technical trainer specializing in Microsoft operating systems, BackOffice products and Internet technologies. A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) based in Dallas, TX, his books include Configuring Windows 2000 Server (Prentice Hall PTR).

ASH ROFAIL is Chief Technology Officer of User Technology Associates (UTA, Inc.) a consulting firm in Northern Virginia. The author of several books and articles on Microsoft-based Technologies and XML, Rofail is a frequent conference speaker who also teaches at universities throughout the United States.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Education; 1st edition (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130341789
• ISBN-13: 978-0130341785
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,967,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful But Uneven Overview of .NET for Software Architects, January 13, 2002

By 

David Gurgel (Roseland, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies (Paperback)

In 254 pages prolific Microsoft technologies author (more than fifteen titles) Curt Simmons and newcomer Ash Rofail do a quick 254-page survey of .NET.

Part I, 1/3 of the book, gives a quick overview of the development environment including the common language runtime, framework classes, web services, ASP.net, ADO and XML. Part II has one brief chapter on the seven key MS server products that provide the horsepower behind the applications developed for .NET. An appendix covers the basic of Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory.

The book is meant as an overview for IS managers and software architects. Developers may want to read another book for their first look; C# is not even mentioned. The book is a bit uneven with unexpected bursts of detail on, for example, XML code and later on SQL Server.

I found the book useful, after several months working on a .NET project, as a quick check on whether our contemplated architecture was taking advantage of all of the Microsoft technologies. I am not sure that I would have enjoyed the book if I had not been already fairly well read on .NET; but none of the other overviews that I have read covered all of the MS technology bases. Architecture mistakes are costly, so the $... is well spent.

Curt Simmons writes nicely so the book is a quick read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Relates the "Big Picture" but not much detail, November 23, 2001

By 

William T. Katz (Ashburn, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft .NET Platform and Technologies (Paperback)

This book would be helpful if you need a big picture of Microsoft's product line under the .NET banner. It's brief and readable, not going into much detail under any section. In the first part, the authors cover the .NET framework but give rather skimpy coverage to ADO.NET. The second section describes the .NET Enterprise servers. Much of the material can be gathered from other sources, although the authors tie it together with some basic descriptions of e-commerce strategies, web services, and how the servers are employed. However I think the retail price is a bit high for the value added.

If you want to get a broad overview of .NET and don't need descriptions of the .NET Enterprise servers, I would suggest "Introducing .NET" instead of this book, since it provides more detail. If you don't care about the $$ but want an easy read pulling together Microsoft's strategy and product line, this book might suffice.