Microsoft Enterprise Library - Using Design Patterns and Best Practices with Sharepoint 2007 development

Patterns and Practices Group within Microsoft has provided developers with useful code libraries in form of Enterprise Library which solve the common programming tasks and provide the developers with best practices.

The patterns & practices Enterprise Library is a library 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 to use on enterprise development projects.

Note: The purpose of this article is introduction of Microsoft Enterprise library. I would cover each specific application block in subsequent blog articles and demonstrate how they can be effectively used in Sharepoint 2007 development environment.

The seven application blocks are:

• Caching Application Block - allows developers to incorporate a local cache in their applications.
• Configuration Application Block - allows developers to read and write configuration information.
• Data Access Application Block - allows developers to incorporate standard database functionality in their applications
• Cryptography Application Block - allows developers to include encryption and hashing functionality in their applications.
• Exception Handling Application Block - allows developers and policy makers to create a consistent strategy for processing exceptions that occur throughout the architectural layers of enterprise applications.
• Logging and Instrumentation Application Block - allows developers to incorporate standard logging and instrumentation functionality in their applications.
• Security Application Block - allows developers to incorporate security functionality in their applications.
  

Each of the application blocks uses similar design patterns and share similar deployment and configuration requirements.

Getting Started with Enterprise Library

In order to get rolling with the Enterprise Library you'll first need to download the library from Microsoft's site. The download is a near 9 MB file, which includes the complete Enterprise Library application block source code, Quick Start examples, off-line documentation, and the GUI tool.

During this installation process you can specify what application blocks to install, if you only want to install a subset of the seven. Upon completion of the installation, the files should be in the \Program Files\Microsoft Enterprise Library folder.