Chapter 2 -- Designing for Scalability

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Chapter 2

In this chapter, we'll give you a practical overview of a set of design ideas that will help you design and implement scalable Microsoft Windows DNA applications. In later chapters, we'll present a set of design patterns based on these ideas. Applications you build using these patterns will scale well and will make good use of underlying technologies, such as Microsoft COM+ and Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS).

Originally, Windows DNA stood for Windows Distributed interNet Applications Architecture, which is rather an abstract concept. Lately Microsoft has expanded Windows DNA to include the tools, database, operating system, programming model, and application services you need to build applications for the enterprise. Windows DNA 2000 is a specific version of Windows DNA. Platforms such as Microsoft Windows 2000 and COM+ are part of Windows DNA 2000, and so are development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio and databases such as Microsoft SQL Server. Other tool sets will be part of Windows DNA 2000 as they become available. Among them are

• The next version of SNA Server, code-named Babylon. When released, its name will be Host Integration Server 2000. Babylon will make it easy for a Windows DNA application to integrate with IBM and UNIX applications. Babylon will include strong support for Extensible Markup Language (XML).
• AppCenter Server, a new product designed to help administrators deploy, monitor, and manage distributed applications using Web farms and application clusters just as easily as if these applications were located on a single computer. (A Web farm is a group of servers that, combined, serve a Web site.) Component load balancing will be part of AppCenter Server when it becomes available by the end of the year 2000.

Other tool sets and technologies will also be part of Windows DNA 2000, but this is not the place to list them. Instead, let's go back to the architecture that's the focus of our book. Windows DNA is, in effect, Microsoft's strategic framework for component-based distributed applications. A whole lot has been written about it, and you'll find heaps of material on it if you search Microsoft's Web site.