Web Service Software Factory - Guidance Automation Extensions on Steroids
by David Hayden
I mentioned earlier how the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Group came out with the Guidance Automation Toolkit ( GAT ) to help with building code generation and automation within Visual Studio. The Microsoft Patterns and Practices Group uses the Guidance Automation Toolkit and Guidance Automation Extensions as the foundation for their software factories.
The Web Service Software Factory shows off the power of the Guidance Automation Extensions through the use of two guidance automation packages:
- ASMX guidance package. This guidance package helps build the service interface, the messages the service will expose and consume, and the translators that map these messages to domain model entities.
- Data Access guidance package. This guidance package helps build business entities from and existing data model, build stored procedures from a data model, and generate the repository classes and factories that comprise the data access logic.
Here is a short description of the Web Service Software Factory from Microsoft:
"The Web Service Software Factory (also known as the Service Factory) is an integrated collection of tools, patterns, source code and prescriptive guidance. It is designed to help you quickly and consistently construct Web services that adhere to well known architecture and design patterns.
If you are an architect or developer responsible for building service-based applications, the patterns & practices team would like to invite you to learn how the Service Factory can help your future service development activities. The Service Factory provides guidance that addresses many of the challenges associated with building Web services and the components of a distributed application. These challenges include:
- Designing messages and service interfaces.
- Applying exception shielding and handling.
- Designing business entities in the domain model.
- Translating messages to and from business entities.
- Designing, building, and invoking the data access layer.
- Planning for the migration to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)."
You owe yourself to check out the Web Service Software Factory as the guidance packages are extremely useful and show off the power of the Guidance Automation Extensions. Download the Web Service Software Factory from here.
Written By: David Hayden ( ASP.NET C# SQL Server Developer )
Filed: Web Service Software Factory, Guidance Automation Toolkit, RAD Code Generation