Learning ASP.NET Providers

These days, I’m preparing examples in ASP.NET 2.0, to show the new features of this platform and technology, and begin to use that features on my own projects. One of these new features is the existence of providers. Now, you can interact with defined providers for membership, roles, and profiles. The ASP.NET 2.0 platform has out-of-the-box providers, based on storing the information at MS SQL Server. If you want to know how to use these providers, what are they doing, and ways to extend or replace their functionality, then, you can review the following resources:

You must begin with

Provider Toolkit
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336558.aspx

with resources about the Provider pattern, now used at ASP.NET 2.0. You’ll found that you can use the providers in ASP.NET 1.x, too.

Implementing a Membership Provider
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f1kyba5e(VS.80).aspx

How to: Implement a Custom Membership User
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms366730(vs.80).aspx

A PowerPoint presentation about Building Secure Applications using Membership and Role Management …
http://www.xmlpitstop.com/ArticleManagement/ResourceFileDownload.aspx?ID=42

Brennan’s Blog » Blog Archive » Free Controls for User and Role Management in ASP_NET 2_0
http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/2006/09/15/free-controls-for-user-and-roles-management/

Brennan wrote controls to use in your web application, that mimic the ASP.NET Administration site
http://brennan.offwhite.net/downloads/ManagedWebsite.zip

Understanding and Extending the Site Navigation System in ASP_NET 2_0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/extndsitenv.asp

ScottGu’s Blog : Always set the “applicationName” property when configuring ASP.NET 2.0 Membership and other Providers
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/04/22/Always-set-the-_2200_applicationName_2200_-property-when-configuring-ASP.NET-2.0-Membership-and-other-Providers.aspx

ScottGu’s Blog  ASP_NET 2_0 Membership, Roles, Forms Authentication, and Security Resources
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/02/24/438953.aspx

ScottGu’s Blog  Source Code for the Built-in ASP_NET 2_0 Providers Now Available for Download
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/04/13/442772.aspx
You can download the source code from http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/b/3/ab3c284b-dc9a-473d-b7e3-33bacfcc8e98/ProviderToolkitSamples.msi

Role-based Security with Forms Authentication – The Code Project – ASP_NET
http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/formsroleauth.asp

How To: Use ADAM for Roles in ASP.NET 2.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/paght000018.asp

Role Providers
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/asp2prvdr03.asp

Membership and Role Providers in ASP.NET 2.0 Part II
http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/428.aspx

How To: Create GenericPrincipal Objects with Forms Authentication in ASP.NET 1.1
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/SecNetHT04.asp

ASP.NET Login Controls Overview
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178329.aspx

ADAM as a membership provider
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/bucupro.asp

Using ADAM for Roles and Membership in ASP_NET 2_0
http://www.oftedal.no/~erlend/?blogid=8
and
http://www.oftedal.no/~erlend/?blogid=6

Jeff Prosise wrote whitepapers about the providers:

Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Providers: Introduction
Membership Providers
Role Providers
Site Map Providers
Session State Providers
Profile Providers
Web Event Providers
Web Parts Personalization Providers

Some additional links (added december):

The .NET 2.0 Framework Provider Pattern
Provider Model Design Pattern and Specification, Part 1
Provider Design Pattern, Part 2

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com/

Microsoft and Software as a Service

Some news from the Redmond giant. A new program from Microsoft was launched initially in Europe the last week. A cite:

The software maker is partnering with managed hosting companies to set up “incubation centers” that will offer services to software vendors to help them adapt their applications and business models to the software-as-a-service (SAAS) model of online applications.

The first incubation centers are opening in Europe this week, by NTT Europe Online in the U.K. and France, and by 7global in the U.K. Other incubation centers will follow in Asia and North America in the coming months, Microsoft representatives say.

More info:

Microsoft Steps Up Software Services
Microsoft Ramps up Software-as-a-Service
Microsoft pushes software as a service in Europe
Microsoft targets software-as-a-service developers

 Directly from Microsoft, we now have

Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting for Applications

Angel “Java” Lopez

http://www.ajlopez.com/

Hosting Software as a Service

I was googleing on SaaS, when I found an advertisement from company

http://www.servepath.com

 They clame to have a SAAS hosting plan. You can learn more on this at:

http://www.servepath.com/hosted/saas_hosting.htm

 According to that page, they are using a product from JamCracker, PivotPath. Based on J2EE (Java), it can run on Windows, Linux and other platforms. It’s an administration platform, that manages:

There are more information on this product at

http://www.jamcracker.com/PivotPath_for_ServiceProviders_TechBrief.pdf
http://www.jamcracker.com/PivotPath_for_ISVs_TechBrief.pdf

http://www.jamcracker.com
http://www.jamcracker.com/serviceprovider/serviceproviders.html

 For me, it’s interesting to study some features as:

Role-based Access Control – control and automate subscription/management processes according to roles (administrator, end user, reseller/partner).

On Boarding Users –Loading or “on boarding” users can be an incredibly time consuming and costly task, but Pivot Path simplifies the complex processes of getting your customers into the system. It has a flexible model for synchronizing with multiple repositories, a bulk load feature and self-registration capabilities.

Automated Move Add Change (MAC) – Ongoing Move Add Changes traditionally requires significant Service Provider resources and results in low customer satisfaction. Pivot Path automates MAC, reducing operational costs and improving customer satisfaction. The following capabilities make MAC one less thing for Service Providers to worry about (or pay for): Delegated Administration and Self Service; Profile Synchronization; Automated Provisioning; Centralized Roles and Privileges management.

Manage User Access & Security – Pivot Path handles the following User Access functions across all of the services you deliver (and will deliver in the future): Single Sign-on (SSO); Federated Access; Access Policies; Pluggable Authorization Mechanism; Password Policies.

Provision Users into Services – With Pivot Path, when your customer clicks the submit button to subscribe to a service or bundle of services, the workflow engine kicks into action and initiates a chain of predefined, automated provisioning events that instantaneously creates the customer account and activates immediate customer access.

Automated actions managed by the Pivot Path provisioning engine include:

1. Activation of applications in the appropriate order
2. Notifications of customer activation to all concerned
3. Enablement of SSO to multiple applications
4. Creation and forwarding of user ID and password to the customer
5. Instant customer access to subscribed service(s)

Bill & Audit Users – Pivot Path provides prepackaged reports tracking company and user activity and provisioning events. You can also create custom reports in conjunction with third-party reporting applications. Through both the prepackaged and customized reports, Pivot Path simplifies the extraction of relevant user and services information necessary to comply with audit requirements and to ultimately bill for the services delivered.

Some Pivot Path Core Features

Service Management – Provides capabilities to package applications and services to maximize marketing effectiveness, administrative efficiency, and the distribution and syndication of services and applications. The Service Catalog function delivers the ability to define bundles of services not only at a marketing level, but the bundle can be carried into the operational environment simplifying the normalization between the way a service bundle is marketed and the way the service bundle is actually provisioned. Services or applications can be joined into the Pivot Path infrastructure using a wizard based integration tool for web applications or can be integrated using industry standards based adapters.

User Management – Automates critical processes for managing users and their access to applications, services and other resources. Automated Provisioning events are managed via a simple rules engine. Rules can be based on a variety of user profile characteristics including role, location, organization or other specified user profile attributes. User profile attributes can be easily extended to support unique roles or attribute information required to support a specific new service. Both the profile management and automated provisioning functions can be configured to support self-service and user self-registration functionality.

Access Management – Provides authentication, authorization and access control (AAA) to applications, services and other resources and enables the tracking of user access to the same. Single sign-on (SSO) can be executed via the Pivot Path struts-based UI or via integration with another portal or web page. Pivot Path also supports the SAML standard for federated access models. All access and password policies are configurable at the company or service level.

Administrative Services – Creates distributed process support through delegated administration, centralized control, workflow and worklist, reporting and billing, and role specific dashboards. Pivot Path was built from the ground up to support not only multi-tenant applications, but also a multi-tenant, N-tiered administrative environment. Additionally, Pivot Path tracks all user and administrative events. This information is not only used for audit purposes, but also is used for output to a billing engine or financial system to enable accurate subscription based billing.

Architecture – J2EE Standards based architecture and Java API’s for easy integration with existing infrastructure components such as Portals and Directories. Pivot Path runs as an application in a 3 tiered web architecture and supports a wide range of application servers including the open source Jboss application server. Pivot Path runs on a relational database and supports Oracle, and the open source database PostGresSQL. Pivot Path runs on Linux, Windows and other popular operating systemsPivot Path Product FeaturesPivot Path delivers a unique solution of fully integrated infrastructure components designed specifically to support the needs of a service provider.

 Sounds interesting….

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com/