Design Highly Manageable Applications

Article
10/15/2014

Design Highly Manageable Applications

Today's complex applications need to be highly manageable with respect to deployment, monitoring, and administration. The following technologies in Windows Server 2008 provide this manageability.

Microsoft Management Console 3.0

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) hosts management tools, known as snap-ins, that provide a consistent graphical user interface (GUI) and experience for administrators. Rather than defining a custom administrative interface, administrators can take advantage of the framework provided by MMC 3.0, allowing them to focus on the administration tasks and not the GUI plumbing. MMC 3.0 features include the following:

Full .NET Framework support
Massive reduction of code compared to previous versions
Windows Forms hosting
Improved reliability and snap-in isolation
Improved graphical layout and functionality

Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell™ is the next-generation command shell and scripting language for the Windows platform. Windows PowerShell ships with Windows Server® 2008 and is available for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP. Features of Windows PowerShell include the following:

Full access to the .NET Framework
Full access to existing scripting capabilities including WMI and COM
Object input and output
Built-in security
High extensibility

Developers can provide support in their applications for Windows PowerShell by simply exposing management functionality via a .NET class, or they can implement a fully functional PowerShell command, known as a cmdlet, using the .NET language of choice.

Windows Task Scheduler 2.0

The improved Windows Task Scheduler 2.0 allows administrators to schedule jobs at specific times more predictably, reliably, and securely. New features fulfill the need for more complex and proactive system and application management, especially task synchronization and activation on events.

Rather than an application implementing its own Task Scheduler, it should use the Windows Task Scheduler, which will provide a consistent interface and experience to operations. Features of the improved Task Scheduler include the following:

Trigger tasks based on events in the Event log
Multiple triggers per task
Improved security with process isolation
Improved reliability and performance
Support for scripting and command-line task management
Improved task monitoring

For more information, see Windows Vista Management (Windows Vista Developer Story).

Windows Eventing 6.0

Windows Eventing 6.0 is the updated event technology and API for writing events to the Windows event logs. One of the key improvements is the ability to write XML-structured data to the event log, allowing the details of the events to be searched and filtered. Features of Windows Eventing 6.0 include the following:

XML-based manifest for events
Improved performance and reliability
Improved log management
Improved Event Viewer
Event forwarding

For more information, see Developing using Event Reporting and Tracing (Windows Vista Developer Story) and Events in Windows Vista.

Windows Installer

Windows Installer is the technology that allows software to be installed and uninstalled in a clean, structured, and repeatable way. The new Windows Installer 4.0 provides enhancements that make application deployment smoother and more successful. Features of Windows Installer include the following:

Automatically works with the Restart Manager
Is compliant with User Access Control on Vista and Windows Server 2008
Adheres to Windows Resource Protection

To take advantage of the features in Windows Installer 4.0, simply create a Windows Installer package for the application. For more information, see Installation and Update Management (Windows Vista Developer Story).

Design Highly Manageable Applications