Preface

---

This book has come about following desperate attempts by the author to understand what .NET really means to information technology (IT) professionals. Engaging with many corporate customers each month, the paucity of knowledge around this subject is worrying, as it will impact how we design, build, and deploy IT solutions for years to come.

Searching the Internet for sensible information is time-consuming and often shrouded in marketing speak that frustrates technical decision makers. The range of Microsoft server products, now marketed as .NET Enterprise Servers, has grown considerably over the past year, and many IT architects are struggling to find out how these products work, and are integrated, and what impact they may have on their businesses.

The importance of .NET to Microsoft cannot be underestimated. As Microsoft is the world's largest software company, this in turn makes .NET important to anyone working within IT.

This book will give you an excellent insight into .NET and how it will affect you and your business in the coming years. This is not a developer's guide, containing pages of code and systemwide settings. Rather, it has been designed for the busy IT professional who needs to learn quickly about .NET, key technologies, and products that make up a .NET solution.

• Chapter 1: Introducing .NET. Where it has come from and the core architecture

• Chapter 2: eXtensible Markup Language (XML.) What is it, how does it work, and what is its importance in today's IT systems

• Chapter 3: Visual Studio.NET. Building .NET solutions

• Chapter 4: Microsoft BizTalk Server. What is it, how does it work, and what is its importance?

• Chapter 5: Microsoft Commerce Server. What is it, how does it work, and what is its importance in building consumer Web sites

• Chapter 6: Microsoft SQL Server. The data storage product used in most .NET solutions

• Chapter 7: Microsoft Content Management Server. How to manage a Web site and ensure that the content is up-to-date and accurate.

• Chapter 8: Microsoft Application Center Server. Managing and scaling a solution

• Chapter 9: SOAP Web Services, and UDDI. A new way of building and deploying distributed solutions using SOAP and introducing UDDI and GXA.

• Chapter 10: Security and Scalability. Making .NET secure and scalable to meet enterprise requirements

• Chapter 11: Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. Managing documents and information repositories with a Portal front end

• Glossary: A shorthand guide to the key .NET technologies and products

• Appendix: A guide to Microsoft .NET product system requirements

---