NET Framework Addon: This brief, high-level overview covers how the .NET Framework relates to COM+ services (hereafter referred to as Enterprise Services, as COM+ is known in .NET). It then walks you through building an application that makes use of one of the most important Enterprise Services.

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by Patrick Barnes, Web application developer. Intel Corp.

This brief, high-level overview covers how the .NET Framework relates to COM+ services (hereafter referred to as Enterprise Services, as COM+ is known in .NET). It then walks you through building an application that makes use of one of the most important Enterprise Services: Transactions. It assumes that you are familiar with the .NET Framework in general as well as with Enterprise Services and why they are needed. It also assumes that you are running Windows XP, allowing you take advantage of some enhancements included with COM+ 1.5. Windows 2000 users (running COM+ 1.0) will, however, still find this article very applicable.

Writing COM components can be difficult and tedious. The .NET Framework is a significant improvement over the COM programming model. This is mainly a result of the Common Language Runtime, which provides the following key features:

• A better, more intuitive API. Classes in the System.EntepriseServices namespace wrap COM+ and make it much easier to build COM components. In this sense, the CLR is a replacement for COM. The CLR does not, however, replace COM+, which is a component runtime environment that provides critical middle-tier services not included in the .NET Framework.


• Assembly metadata that is accessible using reflection. Information about an assembly is now directly associated with the binary and accessible at pre-compile time, compile time, and runtime with the Assembly class in the System.Reflection namespace. This metadata is also extensible with attributes that are provided for most Enterprise Services. This makes it possible to declaratively mark up a component to run under a variety of services without having to manually configure everything using the COM+ MMC snap-in.

Building, deploying, and consuming a managed (.NET) component that runs under Enterprise Services involves the following major steps:

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