Microsoft Enterprise Library is a collection of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Application blocks are a type of guidance, provided as source code that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers for use in enterprise development projects.
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Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0
Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 Documentation
Overview
Enterprise Library consists of reusable software components that are designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. It includes a collection of functional application blocks addressing specific cross-cutting concerns such as data access, logging, or validation; and wiring blocks, Unity and the Interception/Policy Injection Application Block, designed to help implement more loosely coupled testable, and maintainable software systems.
Different applications have different requirements, and you will find that not every application block is useful in every application that you build. Before using an application block, you should have a good understanding of your application requirements and of the scenarios that the application block is designed to address. Note that this release of the Enterprise Library includes a selective installer that allows you to choose which of the blocks you wish to install.
Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 contains the following application blocks:
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Caching Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate a cache in their applications. Pluggable cache providers and persistent backing stores are supported.
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Cryptography Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate hashing and symmetric encryption in their applications.
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Data Access Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate standard database functionality in their applications, including both synchronous and asynchronous data access and returning data in a range of formats.
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Exception Handling Application Block. Developers and policy makers can use this application block to create a consistent strategy for processing exceptions that occur throughout the architectural layers of enterprise applications.
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Logging Application Block. Developers can use this application block to include logging functionality for a wide range of logging targets in their applications. This release further improves logging performance.
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Policy Injection Application Block. Powered by the Interception mechanism built in Unity, this application block can be used to implement interception policies to streamline the implementation of common features, such as logging, caching, exception handling, and validation, across a system.
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Security Application Block. Developers can use this application block to incorporate authorization and security caching functionality in their applications.
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Unity Application Block. Developers can use this application block as a lightweight and extensible dependency injection container with support for constructor, property, and method call injection, as well as instance and type interception.
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Validation Application Block. Developers can use this application block to create validation rules for business objects that can be used across different layers of their applications.
Enterprise Library also includes a set of core functions, including configuration and instrumentation, and object lifecycle management. These functions are used by all other application blocks.
