Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders))
 

Applying COM+ (Landmark (New Riders))

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