Microsoft .NET Services is a component in the Azure Services Platform.
Microsoft .NET Services was formerly available at labs.biztalk.net as BizTalk Labs
Microsoft .NET Services Logo
Microsoft .NET Services make developing loosely coupled cloud-based applications easier. .NET Services includes access control to help secure your applications, a service bus for communicating across applications and services, and hosted workflow execution. These hosted services allow you to easily create federated applications that span from on-premises environments to the cloud.
The wording on the
.NET Services Blog hints at additional services being offered at a later time.
EditServices Provided by .NET Services
- Access Control Service
- Service Bus
- Workflow Service
EditAccess Control Service
The
Access Control Service provides an easy way to secure web applications and services while integrating with standards-based identity providers, including enterprise directories and web identity systems such as Windows Live ID. Authorization decisions can be pulled out of the application and into a set of declarative rules that can transform incoming security claims into claims that applications understand.
For the Community Technology Preview shown at PDC, only Windows Live ID and
"Geneva" Server have been tested as Identity Providers.
EditService Bus
The
Service Bus provides a secure, standards-based messaging infrastructure that dramatically reduces the barriers for building composite applications, even when their components have to communicate across organizational boundaries.
With the Service Bus, an applications and services can expose endpoints that would otherwise difficult to reach -- whether the endpoints are located behind NAT boundaries or bound to dynamic IPs. The Service Bus allows users to access a global hierarchical namespace that is DNS and transport independent. This allows services to be located through a stable, Internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location.
The Service Bus supports Web Service specifications (WS-*), REST and HTTP, and as such access from non-.NET platforms.
By default, all communication with and through the Service Bus infrastructure is subject to authorization by the Microsoft .NET Access Control Service. Service endpoints can be secured with a Web interface or programmatically, based on Access Control Service rules. Anonymous access to services is supported only if you permit it.
EditWorkflow Service
With the
Workflow Service, you can declaratively configure a predefined set of activities that manage and control the interactions between services. These workflows are created in Visual Studio and defined in
XOML.
At this time it does not appear that one will easily be able to convert any random existing WF workflow, as Workflow Services Workflows can only use a
subset of the activities supported by WF. Additionally WF-based applications running in the Workflow Service can only use WF’s sequential workflow model.
EditInteroperability
Java developers will be able to leverage the Service Bus and the Access Control service by way of the open source
Java SDK for .NET Services. Ruby developers will be able to utilize .NET Services in their applications using plain HTTP through the
Ruby SDK for .NET Services.
EditExternal Links