The Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Developer Story: Communication Infrastructure

Microsoft Corporation

January 2006
Revised January 2007

Contents

Communication
Network Infrastructure Improvements
   Network Stack Improvements
   Network Diagnostics Framework (NDF)
   Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)
   Network API Improvements
Collaboration Technologies
   Microsoft Terminal Services
   Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
Web-based Technologies
   Message-based Communication
   Distributed Solution Technologies
   Web Applications and Services: A User's Perspective
Other Communication Products and Services
   Microsoft Office "12" System
   Microsoft Live
See Also: Top Ten Development Opportunities

In our last installment of the Windows Vista Developer Story, we discussed Data: Search and Organize. Every two weeks, a new Story will be added to the downloadable Help file, which can be downloaded here. This week, we are presenting a discussion on Communication: Infrastructure.

Communication

There are several Communication technologies that are only introduced in this Story. The Windows Communication Foundation, .NET Framework, Collaboration Technologies, Internet Information Services, Office 12, and Microsoft Live will be explored in more detail in future Communication Stories. For more information, please stay tuned to the Windows Vista Developer Center (https://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/) site.

Connectivity has become an essential feature of computers and their applications, both in the home and at work. Modern organizations universally use networked computers with other computing devices for a variety of functions, including:

• The traditional role of the network is to share and manage computing resources, such as public files, networked printers and scanners, repositories and databases, and enterprise applications. Extensive research is currently being directed to how to share the idle processing power of networked computers.
• Networks also provide the backbone for distributed applications essential for business operations and special projects, such as e-mail, scheduling, shared version control, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRP). These applications are essential to knowledge workers.
• The Internet has led to a rapid growth of business-to-business financial and logistical transactions. Examples of this category include online catalogues and automated quote systems, order processing and value chain management, and industry exchanges and clearinghouses.
• Networked computers are increasingly being used as a hub to integrate and manage all forms of communication, including e-mail, real-time chat, web conferencing, and telephony.
• Increasingly, networks are being used to support the presence of off-site employees (sometimes called telepresence) and the formation and operation of virtual teams. Virtual teams allow the agile and efficient use of scarce employee resources regardless of geographic, cultural, or legal boundaries.

Residential connectivity to the Internet has become commonplace in industrialized societies and home networks are rapidly increasing in numbers, leading to the following uses of home computers.

• The home computer has become a primary means of communication through the use of e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, newsgroups, and VOIP telephony.
• It has also become a primary source of information and entertainment, alongside newspapers, periodicals, and television. Gaming is an area that has seen rapid advancement, including the use of networks for multiplayer engagements.
• The Internet has enabled the boom of business-to-consumer commerce. In its purest form, for digital offerings like music, the entire process (including marketing, sales, purchase, distribution, and support) can be performed over the Internet.
• With the advent of home networks and the convergence of electronic devices, the computer is increasingly being used as an entertainment hub for the creation, recording, storage, processing, and distribution of a wide variety of multimedia content, including television and radio broadcasts, movies, music, and animations.
• Telecommuting is increasingly blurring the distinction between work, traveling, and home, allowing employees to have an instant virtual presence (telepresence) from anywhere.

Windows Vista was designed to be the next generation platform for connectivity, providing native infrastructural support for all of these business and home functions. It delivers a foundation for secure and reliable connectivity so that connected solutions can be more easily created. Windows Vista enables anywhere, anytime connectivity for one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication topologies. The Windows Vista wave provides improvements to the basic network infrastructure, Web-based applications and services, and to the range of available collaborative technologies.

Wireless connectivity in both the workplace and at home has been growing in the last few years. This change brings greater emphasis in Windows Vista on wireless protocol support, quality of service guarantees, wireless security, and roaming profiles.

Network Infrastructure Improvements

The Windows Vista enhancements to the Windows network infrastructure increase the security, reliability, and efficiency of the network and provide a better platform for developers to build upon. Windows Vista provides enhanced support through the following new features and technologies.

Network Stack Improvements

The Windows Vista TCP/IP and HTTP stacks have been re-architected and re-implemented for improved performance, reliability, security, and extensibility. Support has been added or greatly improved for the IPv6 (scheduled for beta 2), IPSec, IDN, and RSS protocols. Kernel-mode access greatly improves the performance of the HTTP and Windows Sockets protocols. Significant improvements have also been made in the areas of wireless networking, quality of service (QOS), and Windows Firewall.

Network Diagnostics Framework (NDF)

NDF, an extension of the Windows Diagnostics Infrastructure (WDI), monitors the health of the Windows Vista network subsystem. With NDF, ill-behaving network components can be automatically identified, diagnosed, reported, and often corrected. ISVs developing network components should add NDF functionality.

Windows Filtering Platform (WFP)

WFP is a new modular, more efficient architecture for interfacing with the Windows Vista TCP/IP stack. WFP introduces a new, straightforward development model for ISV's network extensions and utilities, such as firewalls, new protocols, and stack inspection tools. The use of WFP is expected to eliminate many of the conflicts between ISV network products seen in earlier versions of Windows.

Network API Improvements

The WinINet, WinHTTP, and Winsock Layered Service Provider (LSP) APIs have also been updated. In .NET Framework 3.0, extensive network support has been added to the System.Net* namespaces.

Collaboration Technologies

Businesses and organizations increasingly depend upon efficient and pervasive collaboration between individuals and groups to perform essential processes and tasks. Collaboration will also become more important to individuals as they form ad-hoc online groups for entertainment and cultural purposes. Windows Vista provides two advances in collaboration.

Microsoft Terminal Services

Allows remote access to computers and their applications, and enables teams to more easily share applications without physically installing these applications on each client computer. Windows Vista provides the following benefits as a Terminal Services client: application remoting, an improved proxy that supports connection over the Internet without a VPN, composited remoting preview feature, and significant performance improvements.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P)

Infrastructure improvements reduce the complexity of adding P2P functionality to applications, including better support for identity and contact management, peer naming and discovery, peer presence and session initiation, and mesh communication. Many of these improvements apply to the existing Windows XP collaboration architecture, although Peer Channel is a collaboration extension of Windows Communication Foundation.

Web-based Technologies

The world we live in is more connected than ever before. Web-based technologies are also starting to play a central role in many internal network (intranet) solutions, as represented by products such as Microsoft SharePoint Services and the new Web Services on Devices (WSD).

This Windows Vista Developer Story introduces Web-based technologies, in general. Detailed Stories for the Windows Communication Foundation, .NET Framework, Internet Information Services, Office 12, and Microsoft Live will be presented in future Stories. Visit the Windows Vista Developer Center for details of upcoming Stories.

Message-based Communication

Microsoft provides a range of technologies that enable applications to communicate over open Internet-based technologies, particularly based on the HTTP protocol. Increasingly, this type of communication is used to enable direct application-to-application communication with little user interaction, a use that is commonly termed "Web services." Windows Vista provides a range of technologies to support message-based communication over open Internet protocols, across a wide range of hardware and information exchange requirements, including:

Windows Communications Foundation

The new .NET Framework 3.0 framework provides a highly productive infrastructure for message exchange in a secure, reliable, and interoperable way. Based on open protocols, it combines the best of many older Microsoft technologies to provide a flexible and extensible approach to building service-oriented applications.

Web Services on Devices

WSD extends the Web services approach to resource-constrained network-connected devices (for example, PDAs, computer peripherals, computing appliances, and consumer electronics). Microsoft will supply the APIs and tools to enable both device manufacturers and client applications to communicate between each other using Web-based protocols.

.NET Framework Distributed Computing

Although the Windows Communications Foundation represents the main thrust of Microsoft's future support for managed Web services, the .NET Framework contains other communication technologies (ASP.NET, .NET Framework Remoting, Message Queuing, and Enterprise Services) that have specific domain applicability and large installed bases.

Internet Information Services (IIS)

In addition to providing most of Microsoft's Web service technologies (including ASP.NET and Windows Communication Foundation), IIS represents a powerful, flexible, extensible platform for creating and managing Internet-enabled solutions.

Distributed Solution Technologies

The most important improvements to the communication infrastructure in Windows Vista is improved support for distributed solutions, as embodied by technologies such as Windows Communication Foundation, Internet Information Services (IIS) 7, and improvements in the .NET Framework version 2.0. Because all of these technologies can be used to directly integrate distributed applications, the following table contrasts the most important:

Although Windows Communication Foundation is the future choice for distributed application integration, the other Microsoft integration technologies are in widespread use. These other technologies often offer other benefits (for example, extensive Web-page support (ASMX), and DCOM, compatibility with the Windows OS). For more information about distributed application integration, see the articles Understanding Microsoft Integration Technologies - A Guide to Choosing a Solution and Choosing Communication Options in .NET Framework.

Web Applications and Services: A User's Perspective

From the user's perspective, improved communication and Web services result in more powerful, secure, reliable, and better integrated distributed applications. These range from Internet Explorer-hosted Web applications, web-based smart devices, peer-to-peer communication tools, and network-aware, distributed enterprise solutions. The purpose of all these diverse communication technologies is to eliminate the division between local and remote resources.

These technologies enable the developer to create the broad range of network- and Internet-aware applications more efficiently and with better results. One of the main challenges for the developer is selecting the correct technology from the range of Microsoft communication technologies represented in this section.

Other Communication Products and Services

Microsoft offers a broad range of products and services to support and enrich the experience of Windows Vista users. Many of these other offerings possess rich communication capabilities that are exposed to the solutions developer.

Microsoft Office "12" System

The next version of Microsoft's leading suite of personal and business productivity applications includes many extensible applications with powerful communication and collaboration capabilities, including Microsoft Outlook, Exchange Server, SharePoint Services, Office Live Meeting, Office Communicator, and Groove Networks. Each of these provides an API to allow developers or administrators to extend and control the product.

Microsoft Live

A set of Web-based services designed to supplement and enrich the experience of consumers and small businesses as they use the associated Microsoft product: Xbox Live, Windows Live, and Office Live. Many of these services can be extended through the development of Web-based components called Gadgets. For example, Gadgets are used to extend the Windows Vista Sidebar and SideShow display. Microsoft Live services will undergo rapid change and expansion, in part because of the straightforward nature of their design and extensibility. For more information, see the Xbox Live (https://www.xbox.com/en-us/live) site, the Windows Live Beta (https://www.live.com) site, the Live Gadgets (https://microsoftgadgets.com) site, and the Microsoft Office Online (https://www.microsoft.com/office/officelive) site.

Much of the power of Windows Vista will be derived by the seamless integration of products and services delivered by Microsoft and the independent software vendors (ISVs).

See Also

Top 10 Ways to Light Up Your Windows Vista Apps