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Mastering Enterprise Development Using Microsoft Visual Basic 6

Introduction

This course will teach Microsoft® Visual Basic® programmers, who currently build desktop applications and access corporate databases, the basics of how to build three-tier client/server solutions.

At Course Completion

At the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Compare traditional client/server development with Internet development and describe Microsoft's enterprise development strategy,
  • Use the Application Architecture Model from the Microsoft Solutions Framework to organize applications into user, business, and data services.
  • Use the Microsoft Visual Basic programming system to build component object model (COM) dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) and implement them in a multiuser environment using Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS).
  • Use MTS to address application infrastructure issues associated with building server-side COM objects that are used by many clients.
  • Create COM objects that use MTS services to participate in transactions and that use security.
  • Use programming techniques to increase the scalability of COM objects.
  • Use ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) from the middle tier to access data and invoke business and data services implemented in SQL.
  • Implement business and data services in a Microsoft SQL Server™ database through the use of stored procedures.
  • Apply basic debugging, error handling, and security techniques in a three-tier application.



Microsoft Certified Professional Exams

This course will help the student prepare for the following Microsoft Certified Professional exam(s):

  • To be determined



Prerequisites

This course assumes that the student has intermediate programming competency with the Microsoft Visual Basic programming system. Before attending this course, students must be able to demonstrate the following skills:

  • Build and debug a simple Visual Basic-based application
  • Invoke and control an Automation server, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word, from a Visual Basic-based application
  • Create COM components using Visual Basic and invoke them from a client application
  • Use ActiveX Data Objects to open a database and work with record sets
  • Understand and use basic syntax for SQL

Completing either of the following courses satisfies the prerequisite skills listed above:

  • Course 1013, Mastering Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Development
  • Course 1017, ™Mastering Web Site Development Using Microsoft Visual InterDev 6

Course Outline

Day 1

Chapter 1: Microsoft's Enterprise Development Strategy

Topics:

Introduction to enterprise development
Island Hopper News sample application
Microsoft Visual Studio™ 98 development system, Enterprise Edition

Lab:

Exploring Island Hopper, the lab case study

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Explain the general terms related to client/server architecture.
  • Describe the high-level architecture of an enterprise solution using Microsoft's enterprise development strategy.
  • Describe the component object model and its advantages.
  • Describe the main features of the Process and Application Models in the Microsoft Solutions Framework.
  • Describe the Island Hopper News sample used as the business problem in this course.
  • List the Microsoft development tools, products, and technologies that will be used to build the technical solutions to the course labs.

Chapter 2: Building COM DLLs with Visual Basic

Topics:

Implementing business services using Microsoft Visual Basic
Creating COM DLLs in Visual Basic
Working with COM DLL projects
COM DLL registration

Lab:

Building a component

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • List the ways that you can implement business services in an enterprise solution that you develop in Visual Basic.
  • Use class modules to define an object in a Visual Basic project.
  • Create a COM DLL that exposes methods.
  • Set compile properties for a COM DLL.
  • Test a COM DLL.
  • Register a COM DLL.


Day 2

Chapter 3: Introduction to Microsoft Transaction Server

Topics:

Overview of MTS
MTS architecture
Using MTS Explorer
Deploying an MTS component

Lab:

Adding a component to MTS

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • List the issues related to developing multiuser, three-tier applications.
  • Explain how MTS addresses three-tier issues.
  • Describe the MTS architecture.
  • Create a package with MTS Explorer.
  • Add an existing component to the MTS package.
  • Configure a client computer to use MTS components.


Chapter 4: Using MTS Transaction Services

Topics:

Overview
Building MTS components
Managing object state
Debugging and error handling
MTS programming best practices

Labs:

Creating an MTS component
Using Shared Property Manager

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Describe what a transaction is and how it conforms to the ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) properties.
  • Describe how MTS manages context for objects.
  • Participate in transactions by calling the SetComplete, SetAbort, EnableCommit, and DisableCommit methods of the MTS ObjectContext object.
  • Describe four ways to manage state for an MTS object.
  • Use the Shared Property Manager to store shared state for MTS objects.
  • Debug an MTS object at runtime.


Day 3

Chapter 5: Accessing Data from the Middle Tier

Topics:

Universal data access overview
Retrieving and modifying records using ActiveX Data Objects
Using ADO from the middle tier
Executing stored procedures from the command object
Advanced topics

Lab:

Using ADO to implement business services

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Compare and contrast the Microsoft universal data access architecture and data access technologies available in enterprise development.
  • List and describe the objects in the ADO object hierarchy.
  • Write an MTS component in Visual Basic that retrieves and updates records in a Microsoft SQL Server database.
  • Use ADO to call a stored procedure.
  • Through the use of ADO, utilize advanced, SQL Server-specific features from an MTS component, such as prepared statements, cursors, and disconnected record sets.
  • Write MTS components that are optimized for data access in an enterprise solution.


Chapter 6: Building Stored Procedures with SQL

Topics:

Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server
Implementing business and data services with SQL Server
Programming with Transact-SQL
Creating stored procedures

Lab:

Creating and debugging stored procedures

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Choose when to implement services in database or MTS objects.
  • Implement business and data services by using stored procedures.
  • Explain the role of data integrity when implementing data services in an enterprise solution.
  • Write a stored procedure that uses SQL programming constructs, such as conditional branching and looping structures, and error checking.
  • Describe the characteristics of SQL transactions and explain how they work with MTS transactions.
  • Write a stored procedure that generates return.
  • Debug a stored procedure.


Day 4

Chapter 7: Implementing Security

Topics:

Introduction to security
Implementing security in MTS applications
Overview of SQL Server security
Using SQL Server integrated security
Security best practices

Labs:

Implementing security in MTS
Implementing security in SQL Server

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • List the advantages of three-tier security over two-tier security in enterprise solutions.
  • Implement declarative security for MTS packages by using MTS roles and Windows NT user and group accounts.
  • Describe the three security modes available in SQL Server.
  • Assign permissions to a login using SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
  • Implement integrated security by using Windows NT user accounts and SQL Security Manager.
  • List best practices associated with implementing security in enterprise solutions.


Chapter 8: Implementing COM with Visual Basic

Topics:

Interfaces
Clients and interfaces

Lab:

Interfaces

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Define, create, and implement an interface.
  • Create multiple classes that use the same interface and multiple interfaces per class using Visual Basic.
  • Describe the purpose of Interface Definition Language (IDL) files and use OLEVIEW to view the contents of an IDL file.
  • Describe how IDispatch is used to implement Automation servers to expose services to objects and how dual interfaces make the process more efficient.
  • Describe the types of binding that Visual Basic uses with objects, and choose the correct type of binding based on performance and flexibility requirements.


Day 5

Chapter 9: Advanced Client/Server Technologies

Topics:

Overview of advanced client/server technologies
Message queuing
Server clustering
Accessing mainframe data

Lab:

Using a message queue

Skills:

Students will be able to:

  • Describe a scenario where an asynchronous message queuing model is used.
  • Using Microsoft Message Queue Explorer, create a new message queue and set properties for the queue, such as size and security.
  • Write a Visual Basic-based application that sends messages to or receives messages from a message queue.
  • Describe how Microsoft Cluster Server can be used to enhance the availability of server applications.
  • List the Microsoft technologies that enable access to data in legacy database systems.

For more information or to give feedback, send e-mail to info@OneApex.com or call 949-597-2100