Windows Azure platform AppFabric helps developers connect applications and services in the cloud or on-premises. This includes applications running on Windows Azure, Windows Server and a number of other platforms including Java, Ruby, PHP and others. It provides a Service Bus for connectivity across network and organizational boundaries, and Access Control for federated authorization as a service.
Windows Azure platform AppFabric and Windows Server AppFabric enable IT professionals to build and manage applications more easily both on-premises and in the cloud. To learn more about Windows Server AppFabric for applications that run on-premises, . Windows Server AppFabric provides caching capabilities, formerly codenamed “Velocity”, as well as workflow and service hosting capabilities, formerly codenamed “Dublin”. Windows Server AppFabric is available in beta now.
What are the Access Control and Service Bus?
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AppFabric Service Bus Overview
Service Bus helps to provide secure connectivity between loosely-coupled services and applications, enabling them to navigate firewalls or network boundaries and to use a variety of communication patterns. Services that register on Service Bus can easily be discovered and accessed, across any network topology.
Use Service Bus to:
- Connect Windows Azure applications and SQL Azure databases with existing applications and databases
- Bridge on and off-premises applications
- Create composite applications
Service Bus Benefits
- Expose apps and services through firewalls, NAT gateways, and other problematic network boundaries
- Lower barriers to building composite applications by exposing endpoints easily, supporting multiple connection options and publish and subscribe for multicasting.
- Lightweight developer friendly programming model that supports standard protocols and extends similar standard bindings for Windows® Communication Foundation programmers
- Helps blocks malicious traffic and shields your services from intrusions and denial-of-service attacks
Service Bus Features
- Services discovered through a stable, internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location
- One-way messaging between sender and listener supports unicast and multicast datagram distribution
- Full-duplex connection-oriented sessions between sender and listener support bi-directional communication
- Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer sessions with network-boundary traversal create direct end-to-end connectivity through NAT
- Multiple publishers and multiple subscribers can simultaneously use the service’s topic management and event distribution system
- Support of REST and HTTP Access from non-.NET platforms
- Global hierarchical namespaces that are DNS- and transport- independent
- Anonymous access to services is supported only if you permit it
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AppFabric Access Control Overview
Access Control helps you build federated authorization into your applications and services, without the complicated programming that is normally required to secure applications that extend beyond organizational boundaries. With its support for a simple declarative model of rules and claims, Access Control rules can easily and flexibly be configured to cover a variety of security needs and different identity-management infrastructures.
Use Access Control to:
- Create user accounts that federate a customer's existing identity management system that uses Active Directory® service, other directory systems, or any standards-based infrastructure
- Exercise complete, customizable control over the level of access that each user and group has within your application.
- Apply the same level of security and control to Service Bus connections
Access Control Benefits
- Federated identity and access control through rule based authorization enables applications to respond as if the user accounts were managed locally
- Flexible standards-based service that supports multiple credentials and relying parties
- Lightweight developer-friendly programming model based on the Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Communication Foundation
Access Control Features
- Setup Issuer trust with a simple Web interface or programmatically through APIs
- Supports Active Directory and other identity infrastructures, with minimal coding
- Support for multiple credentials, including X.509 certificates
- Support for standard protocols including REST
- Applications that run inside and outside the organizational boundary can rely on the service
- Validate application and user request from data and connectivity services
AppFabric LABS
AppFabric LABS is a new environment which the AppFabric team is using to showcase some early bits and get feedback from the community. Usage for this environment will not be billed. AppFabric LABS are a way for customers to test out and play with experimental AppFabric technologies. These are upcoming capabilities that excite us very much and we want to get your feedback on them as soon as possible. As a result, there is no support or SLA associated with the LABS environment, but in return you will be able to preview the future of AppFabric while helping us shape it. Though similar to a Community Technology Preview, LABS technologies may occasionally be even farther away from commercial availability.
In this release of the LABS environment, we’re shipping two features:
1. Silverlight support: we’ve added the ability for Silverlight clients to make cross-domain calls to the Service Bus and Access Control Services.
2. Multicast with Message Buffers: we’ve added the ability for Message Buffers to attach to a multicast group. A message send to the multicast group is delivered to every Message Buffer that is attached to it.
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