Architecture

ASP.NET Role Based Security: The Basics

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:31:40 GMT

Authentication and authorization is the two basic part of the user-end security in asp.net web applications. After to successful authentication of a user, authorization takes the place according to which the authenticated user are allowed to access to the corresponding resources in the web application.

Role based security is very basic requirements in the current trend of web applications. Mostly there are two roles involved, which are registered user and the admin users. However in a web application a user can have multiple roles which can be authorized on page and page control level. Today we'll check a basic sample which includes page based authorizations for specific roles.

To implement the basic role based security, there are three points to be considered. In this example we are considering two different roles "member" and "admin". There are two separate folders named "member", which can be accessed by any logged in user, including admin users and "admin", where only the user who contains the "admin" role can access the child resources (page, images etc).

1. Defining the authorization regions in web.config

The following xml tags are required to be added under the "configuration" node of the web.config.

Defining security authorization for "member" users

  <location path="member">
    <system.web>
      <authorization>
        <deny users="?"/>
      </authorization>
    </system.web>
  </location>

Defining security authorization for "admin" users

  <location path="admin">
    <system.web>
      <authorization>
        <allow roles="admin"/>
        <deny users="*"/>
      </authorization>
    </system.web>
  </location>

2. Authenticating the user

After the successful authentication, the following codes are required to establish the form based authentication for the corresponding user.

//Authenticating the user Identity.

System.Web.Security.FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage

("member1", this.CheckBox1.Checked);

3. Implementing the role based security

The "Application_AuthenticateRequest" event which was defined in the "Global.asax" file, will include the appropriate codes regarding the role info of the logged in user, which will be accesses each time for any web request in this web application. This can be done in either "cache" or "cookie" mechanism.

Cache based mechanism

protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User != null)

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.AuthenticationType != "Forms")

throw new Exception("Only forms authentication is supported, not " +

HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.AuthenticationType);

System.Security.Principal.IIdentity userId = HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;

//if role info is already NOT loaded into cache, put the role info in cache

if (System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Cache[userId.Name] == null)

{

string[] roles;

if (userId.Name == "admin1")

roles = new string[1] { "admin" };//this info will be generally collected from database

else if (userId.Name == "member1")

roles = new string[1] { "member" };//this info will be generally collected from database

else

roles = new string[1] { "public" };//this info will be generally collected from database

//1 hour sliding expiring time. Adding the roles in chache. This will be used in Application_AuthenticateRequest event located in Global.ascx.cs file to attach user Principal object.

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Cache.Add(userId.Name, roles, null, DateTime.MaxValue, TimeSpan.FromHours(1), System.Web.Caching.CacheItemPriority.BelowNormal, null);

}

//now assign the user role in the current security context

HttpContext.Current.User = new System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(userId, (string[])System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Cache[userId.Name]);

}

Cookie based mechanism

protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User != null)

{

if (Request.IsAuthenticated == true)

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.AuthenticationType != "Forms")

throw new Exception("Only forms authentication is supported, not " +

HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.AuthenticationType);

//Create/Retrieve cookie and initizalyze the role info in the current security context

string userInformation = String.Empty;//where the cookie info will be placed

string[] roles;//where the user role will be placed

// Create the roles cookie if it doesn't exist yet for this session.

if ((Request.Cookies["cnstUserRole"] == null) || (Request.Cookies["cnstUserRole"].Value == ""))

{

if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name == "admin1")

roles = new string[1] { "admin" };//this info will be generally collected from database

else if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name == "member1")

roles = new string[1] { "member" };//this info will be generally collected from database

else

roles = new string[1] { "public" };//this info will be generally collected from database

// Create a string to persist the role and user id

userInformation = roles[0] + ";" + Context.User.Identity.Name;

// Create a cookie authentication ticket.

FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket(

1, // version

User.Identity.Name, // user name

DateTime.Now, // issue time

DateTime.Now.AddHours(1), // expires every hour

false, // don't persist cookie

userInformation

);

// Encrypt the ticket

String cookieStr = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(ticket);

// Send the cookie to the client

Response.Cookies["cnstUserRole"].Value = cookieStr;

Response.Cookies["cnstUserRole"].Path = "/";

Response.Cookies["cnstUserRole"].Expires = DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(1);

}//if role cookie not found in local pc

else//we are getting the role info from cookie

{

// Get roles from roles cookie

FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(Context.Request.Cookies["cnstUserRole"].Value);

userInformation = ticket.UserData;

//info[0] contains the single role and info[1] contains the user name

string[] cookieInfo = userInformation.Split(new char[] { ';' });

roles = new string[1] { cookieInfo[0] };

}

//now assign the user role in the current security context

Context.User = new System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(Context.User.Identity, roles);

}//if (Request.IsAuthenticated == true)

}

Download source code:

Technorati Tags: asp.net,security,programming,coding,C#,.net

Software Design Tradeoff Factors

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:01:47 GMT

In perfect world you can get all of the best things in one place. But in real world it’s not. In software development there are some basic trade-offs when you consider a specific design feature. Exploring these considerations will help you to create the architecture that matches best with the given context.

Performance

Security (code level, encryption etc) VS Performance (code level)

Caching: Memory VS Performance

Object Oriented/Layered Code VS Performance

Scalability VS Deployment (n-tier)

User Experience

Usability

Security (user level) VS Usability (user level)

Usability (user level) VS Functionality (user level)

Robustness (user level) VS Usability (user level)

Rich User Experience

AJAX VS Browser Compatibly Issue

Rich Function (FAT Client) VS Poor Function (Thin Client)

Developer Experience

Development Time

Analysis and Design Time VS Development Time

Object Oriented Programming VS Development Time

Quality Assurance and Control VS Time

Well Engineering VS Modification/Change/Reuse (Understandability) Time

System Data Reliability (back up) VS Maintenance Time

Development Structure

Readability (code level) VS Writability (code level)

Reliability (code level) VS Flexibility (code level)

Developer Improvement

Own Study VS External Resources

Latest/New Practices VS Learning Time (PHP VS .NET etc)

Technorati Tags: architecture,design,coding,software development,concepts

The .NET Framework 3.5 At a Glance

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:46:54 GMT

All .NETTERS! Download the pdf poster here by which you can see .net 3.5 at a glance!

Check Paul's blog for a quick note!

Creating a Performance Benchmark Framework for Your .NET Codes

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:32:48 GMT

Performance is a one of the basic requirements in the most of the current trend of web applications. While designing software architecture, there are several technologies kept available for the designers. Among these available options, some of techniques may includes multiple solutions, combining of those can create a case, where the basic performance output can't be determined based on the common sense and/or in depth knowledge on the corresponding topics. In short, based upon different options the software architect needs to determine the appropriate object model which fits best with the current application requirement.

The Object Model

There are three layers of our test framework object model, as follows:

The Program Class: This is the starter class, which creates the requires instances to start the test operation. The corresponding caller method initializes the Runner class along with the number of iterations to be performed for each test case.

The Runner Class: The runner class includes one or multiple methods, which calls a bunch of methods of executor class, each of which contains required functionalities to call the test cases appropriately.

The Runner Base Class: One important issue with respect to the runner class is, we need to have a way to keep track to execution time for each run and finally we need to determine the average execution time. For this purpose, to perform required initialization and support common reporting feature of test cases, we considered a base class, which includes all tracking data to isolate individual test cases and reporting functionalities. We have used C# delegate to have a very structured and reusable object model regarding this common functionalities. The methods of the inherited class uses this features accordingly.

The Executor Class: The executor class contains the very basic codes with respect to a particular test case.

The Sample Codes

The Program Class

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Output.WriteLine("Test starts: " + DateTime.Now.ToString());
            //----------------------------------------
            SampleRunner s1 = new SampleRunner(10);
            s1.RunBenchmarks();
            //----------------------------------------
            Output.WriteLine("Test ends: " + DateTime.Now.ToString());
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

The Runner Base Class

public class SampleRunnerBase
    {
        protected delegate void DoWork(string text);
 
        long _Start;
        long _Stop;
        double _Total = 0;
        double _TotalSecs;
        double _TotalAvgSecs;
        int _Repeats;
        protected int _RepeatsToDo; 
 
        public SampleRunnerBase(int repeats)
        {
            _RepeatsToDo = repeats;
        }
 
        private void Init()
        {
            _Total = 0;
            _TotalSecs = 0;
            _TotalAvgSecs = 0;
            _Repeats = _RepeatsToDo;
        }
 
        private void ReportResults()
        {
            _TotalSecs = _Total / 10000000;
            _TotalAvgSecs = _Total / 10000000 / _RepeatsToDo;
 
            Output.WriteLine("Avg: " + _TotalAvgSecs + " s");
        }
 
        protected void RunBenchmark(DoWork func, string text)
        {
            if (null != func)
            {
                Init();
                while (_Repeats-- > 0)
                {
                    _Start = DateTime.Now.Ticks;
                    func(text);
                    _Stop = DateTime.Now.Ticks;
                    _Total += _Stop - _Start;
                }
                ReportResults();
            }
        }
    }

The Runner Class

public sealed class SampleRunner : SampleRunnerBase
    {
        public SampleRunner(int repeats)
            : base(repeats)
        {
        }
 
        public void RunBenchmarks()
        {
 
            Output.WriteLine("Running Simple Sample Benchmark");
            Output.WriteLine("--------------------------------");
            RunSample1();
            RunSample2();
        }
 
        private void RunSample1()
        {
            Output.WriteLine("Running Sample 1");
            SampleExecutor runner = new SampleExecutor();
            RunBenchmark(new DoWork (runner.DoSample1), "");
        }
 
        private void RunSample2()
        {
            Output.WriteLine("Running Sample 2");
            SampleExecutor runner = new SampleExecutor();
            RunBenchmark(new DoWork(runner.DoSample2), "");
        }
 
    }

The Executor Class

public class SampleExecutor
    {
        public void DoSample1(string text)
        {
            //do something
        }
 
        public void DoSample2(string text)
        {
            //do something
        }
    }

Download source code:

Technorati Tags: Performance,.net,C#,Testing,Framework,Benchmark

Object Oriented Tagging : Adding Power to Web 2.0 Tags!

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 18:22:00 GMT

One of the basic consideration in web 2.0 concept is 'tagging' where any contents in the web can be associated with one or more tags, which can be shared among social community network. It lets others to find any content according to their chosen tag. Tag is nothing, but a way to categorize any web content. In real world, any visitor can quickly reach to a content thru it's associated tags, can thus get a basic idea about whether s/he will consider it to read/download etc. "Search" is older concept to help users to find any desired content, but "Tags" provides users to have an open track to find his own choice which has not been discovered yet!

I am really a tag lover. All of the Web 2.0 sites I am using, I am associating web contents with tags, which helps me to properly organize and structure those. Well, the real world is not bed of roses, so I started to get confused, as soon as my contents get larger. For example, http://del.icio.us is one of my very favorite site, which is a award winning web 2.0 site, dedicated for bookmarking urls. Using browser buttons of http://del.icio.us, I can quickly bookmark any web page that I was just visiting into my http://del.icio.us account, with the URL, title, comment, as well as associate appropriate tags, which I have been defined previously in my account settings. From the beginning it really helped me to keep track of my web studies. So life got easier, it's matter of few seconds for me to find any site of a specific category, that I have been visited and found useful.

The Real World

Unfortunately, I am really a nerd reader :P So with in few months, number of my bookmarks crossed couple of hundreds. It turns to a bit problem to me, to find any URL through tag/category, as some of tags already have over hundreds of urls. More over, there are few tags, with similar or nearer meaning (for example: software-development, .NET, C#), and while searching, I didn't get sure that, in which tag, I have been associated the content, that I am just searching for!

So I started to feel that, I need to organize my tags in more intelligent way, so that for a long term period, all of my contents can be grouped together and found in much quicker time.

In the coming days, tags are getting more important place over the web, so we need to have some good concept and convention while tagging! Well, the popularity of tags lies due to its simplicity, so it will be used by the web users in very quick but un-structured way in the maximum time. That's great tho, you are free to choose your tags, but for important contents, "Intelligent" tags will really save lots of our time and effort!

Intelligent? Huh! Tags will be intelligent?

Well, tags can't be intelligent, it's true, but the fact is it can be designed and considered in intelligent way!

Object Oriented Tagging

Object Oriented concept has achieved a great deal of popularity among software developers in previous 2 decades. According to this concept, all real world entities, regarding a given context (or software requirements) are classified into separate areas and utilize each other as needed. One of the basic principal of Object Oriented technology is "Inheritance", where new classes can be inherited from super or base classes, that includes properties of it's parent class. This design idea facilitates the management of software architecture and codes very effectively, specially for large scale software.

When we have large number of contents (for example: URL, image etc), the associated tags can utilized in according to the concept of "Inheritance" to manage all contents properly. Here tags should be structured like the "Tree" data structure (root node, parent node, child node, siblings node etc)! For example, we have a base tag "Software Development", clicking on which will result all the contents related to software development. Now consider another tag, named ".NET", which is a sub tag or sub category of "Software Development" tag. Clicking on the tag ".NET" should list the result related to ".NET", which will include a sub portion of "Software Development" tag. Clicking on the tag "Software Development" will considers the contents all the sub tags of "Software Development", including ".NET" tag contents.

It would be great, if users can define the tree structure of the "Tag Inheritance" tree structure through the web application and thus create the life easy while putting the tags for a content, as well as searching contents through tags will work in much meaningful and faster way. If we have a built-in support for defining tag tree structure, it would take only one "Tag" defining a content in .NET, along with relating the content with "Software Development" tag category. Otherwise both tags "Software Development" and ".NET" needs to be considered with independent (and meaningless) relation among these two tags.

A Sample Structure

To understand the problem in deeper sense, lets go with more complicated example. Consider the following tag structure.

{Software Development} {Microsoft}

________________| |__________________________ ____________| |_________

| | | |

{...} {.NET} {...}

| |

__________________________ ____________________

| |

{ASP.NET} {C#}

In the given example, all ASP.NET and C# contents are in sub tag of .NET. But an ASP.NET content might not related to C#, can be VB.NET or other stuffs and vice versa. So they lies in the same layer. In this context, considering ".NET" tag, it includes all tags related to "ASP.NET" and "C#" tag, but "ASP.NET" tag contents don't include "C#" tag contents.

Also, .NET can be a sub category of "Software Development", as this is a software development framework. But "Software Development" tag might have other issues, which are not related to .NET. As well as, .NET can be a sub category of "Microsoft", as this is a development framework by Microsoft. But "Microsoft" tag might have other issues, which are not related to .NET. So considering the tag "Software Development" or "Microsoft" guarantees to get the content of ALL of their sub category contents (.NET, ASP.NET, C#) but not vice versa.

Solution

Besides the built-in support in web application, we can solve this issues by maintaining our own policy while define and implement our tags. After some brain storming, I found two ways, where this object oriented approach can be fitted!

1. Root level

While bookmarking, consider the lowest level, and DON'T consider the corresponding upper parents. For example, "ASP.NET". We will define the tree structure by creating a special bookmark for each parent node. In this case, in the web application, we need to have a support to merge the contents of tags, which can be used by any other users in later time though a labeled name for that merged list. For example: For the merged list of "Microsoft", we can define it as follows:

Microsoft = ".NET" + "ASP.NET" + "C#" + {unclassifield "Microsoft" list}

2. Node level

While bookmarking any contents, starting from the lowest level, all parents corresponding to that level should be marked.

For example: a content related to "ASP.NET" should be bookmarked as follows:

ASP.NET content = "ASP.NET" + ".NET" + "Microsoft" + "Software Development"

Technically this is the most easiest way, as we don't need any type of support in the web application. All we need, is just to have a flat set of tags, which relations will be maintained while tagging. The problem is, the user always needs to remind the hierarchy of tags. As this is relatively tough for the users to remind the hierarchy, this idea can be used only in special or important content, where we don't have any tree or merge support in the web application.

Some Basic Differences Between ASP.NET 2.0 ObjectDataSource and SqlDataSource

Mohammad Ashraful Alam [MVP] — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:59:00 GMT

* Type Name
For ObjectDataSource, the property TypeName includes the class name, that will responsible to manage data, this may NOT be the data object collection. The select, insert etc methods will use the mentioned methods to access or retrieve data. For SqlDataSource, a built-in data collection is used, which can be bound to data data controls.

* Connection String
For ObjectDataSource, there is NO connection string needed, as it is used middle tier. For SqlDataSource, connection string is needed.

* CRUD Method
For ObjectDataSource, there is NO method (select, insert etc) type, as the methods are being used from a class of middle tier. For SqlDataSource, there are two types of methods StoredProcedure and Text. note, in SqlDataSource, for parameters, in the execution time the system automatically includes a '@' before the name as specified in the name property.

CodeSmith Tips: Part 2

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:50:00 GMT

* Template and out-put view:

Use F5 and F7 so run & see out put and to switch to the code view.

* Reusing templates:

In the master page, register as:

<%@ Register Name="SubTemplate" Template="SubTemplate.cst" %>

and render the sub-template content in the master template as

<% new SubTemplate().Render(this.Response); %>

* Code behind page:

In the template page, use the following line to consider the code-behind page

<%@ CodeTemplate Src="CodeBehind.cst.cs" Inherits="SampleCodeBehindClass" Language="C#" TargetLanguage="C#" Description="Demonstrates the most basic template." %>

In the code behind page, consider the code behind class, as follows:

using System.ComponentModel;
using CodeSmith.Engine;

public class SampleCodeBehindClass : CodeTemplate
{
...

Common Sharable Content: A Missing Feature of Web 2.0

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:06:00 GMT

Lets consider the situation: I have 6 categories of resumes and portfolios which are used for different purposes (i.e. for professional job, contract, personal, marriage, research proposal, university admission purposes etc). I have to provide those with recent information when needed. Also I am a developer, who has blogs, profiles among several online community, forum, sites, for instance in 20 sites.

Among those, of course there are some information which are being changed very frequently (i.e. projects, technology expertise and my skill level etc), some are being changed occasionally (i.e. home address, cell number etc).

It turns to a hazardous problem when my personal and professional data are getting changed. In that case I need to change ALL of my online profiles in 20 sites! Each time when I need to submit my resume, I have to go through the whole document to check the info that has been updated! Really silly!

Information technology is growing very fast, lots of exiting, interesting and intelligent techniques are taking places. But I am not sure why we have not get any consistent, easy way (really easy) to solve this issue and thus to save lots of our time and efforts for hazardous tasks and of course to get an efficient way to make information consistent, accurate among all documents and web places.

A Sample Solution:

Lets say there is a developer who uses the following text in 20 sites as his profile content:

Mohammad Ashraful Alam is a Software Engineer. This Bangladeshi national is involved with project management and development of several US based software projects from his country. Already he has managed and developed 15 software projects, which are being used by several users of different countries, such as USA, Canada, Australia, and Bangladesh. Currently he is engaged as Project Manager at ABC Inc, USA.

Using the "Common Sharable Content" concept the user can put his data into a specific space in the web, using a simple web or desktop application. After then can put the following content for his profile, where the web server will parse the tags, so will be able to render the appropriate content to its client end UI.

<# dataSource1.GetOfficialName> is a Software Engineer. This Bangladeshi national is involved with project management and development of several US based software projects from his country. Already he has managed and developed <# dataSource2.GetTotalProjects> software projects, which are being used by several users of different countries, such as <# dataSource2.GetProjectCountryList>. Currently he is engaged as <# dataSource2.GetDesignationCurrentCompany> at <# dataSource2.GetCurrentCompany>.

Design Issues:

While designing any solution for the above case, there are few issues that can be considered as follows:

1. Data Security Level:

Some data can be shared or referred by any of the external users or sites. For example, "Ashraf has completed <# dataSource2.GetTotalProjects> projects." In this case corresponding reference tags can be shared to all so that anybody can use that in relevant places as needed.

On the other hand, the content author might not want to let anybody to share his/her info using "Common Sharable Content" technology, but might want to use the content only to specific or private places (for instance personal phone number). Special security mechanism (for instance user name/password) should be used to publish private info.

2. Service Provider and Data Model:

Exactly what are the information the user needs to share in the documents, can be defined through the user interface (desktop or web) of the Information Service Provider. The Service Provider should provide enough opportunity to the user to customize content and tag definitions, as much as needed.

Data should be stored into the web space provided by the Service Provider, with normalized model. Using build-in templates or defining custom data model, the user should utilize his own data in various way. For instance if a content author has an entity named "My Projects", which lists all the projects, using a "Row Count" method provided by the service provider, the author can easily refer his number of projects to documents, without requiring to put "Number of Projects" into a separate entity.

3. Platforms and Standards:

As tags are being parsed and rendered form the web server, so the server side scripting software might have it's own syntax and semantics regarding this particular issue. Besides to make it widely usable, a common standard for the syntax and semantics can be defined so that ALL server side scripting languages can follow this standard to render appropriate text.

As text is being rendered from server side, there are little or no concern in client side support.The only concern that can be considered for the client side is, if, for instance server side script doesn't parse the tags and thus the content will not be rendered in the desired format. The browser (and/or the tag) can have the default value to show it becomes not possible to show the rendered data. So while designing the tag (and it's syntax-semantic) we can consider traditional html/XML mark-up languages for wide range compatibility to show default values in unconsidered cases.

4. Application Add-in:

Web application or desktop application that has support to the concept "Common Sharable Content", can contain Add-in where all the available tags or methods can be inserted into the document. For instance in the "DataSource1" sidebar (which has been initialized by connecting to a specific datasource) might contain an element "GetOfficialName" clicking on which inserts the <# dataSource1.GetOfficialName> tag into the document.

Conclusion:

Web 2.0 is taking a very important place among the current trend of web, where rather considering "human to machine communication", "machine to machine communication" and "human to human communication" is regarding more. It has various new approaches which are making the web space better. From my point of view, "Common Sharable Content" concept is EXACTLY what is missing here. Of course this concept encourages the "machine to machine" communication and thus make personal info management over web better.

The concept might seem a similar concept of using XML based Web Service in ASP.NET or Java technology. But, as we discussed, to make Web 2.0 really useful and popular, "Common Sharable Content" concept should be designed so that can be integrated by a non-technical or poor technical people in very flexible and easy way.

I am interested to work towards this target. If anyone of you, the readers, are interested please let me know thru mail: here .

.NET 3.0 — A Sea In Paradise !!!

Mohammad Ashraful Alam — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 03:31:00 GMT

Microsoft is changing it’s development technology very frequently. By the early of this year I started to learn .net 2.0 and VS.NET 2005 seriously, and with in few months I was just able to capture few new features of this, although I was also engaged with project management, UML, Ajax and other software engineering issues, as I need to be on the track with other development tracks. Well, not only Microsoft, but also other technologies, relevant to software development is changing very frequently. The concept of web 2.0 had taken a great issue here, targeting a large range of user, usability, communication etc. According to the current development trend in web space, Microsoft is also growing it very faster, and it really seems tremendous speed to me to match.

.net is a core technology, on which Microsoft has a big investment, to capture huge range to users on web, to provide them a really great, exiting, useful web space. Well as a dot net developer, always I enjoy this technology and feel great when I discover a new thing here. But, as well as, I feel me a bit tired to be on the same speed as it’s .net platform is growing. .net 2.0 is in the market, developers from .net 1.0, .net 1.1 has been started to learn this new version. But by this time, I see Microsoft has been reached a mentionable path on it’s next version .net 3.0, targeting it’s next awesome operating system Windows Vista. There are few names, which are relevant to .net 3.0 are getting the care of the developers, some of those has been listed here:

PLATFORM

Windows XP/Server 2003: Well the current beta and CTP (Community Technology Preview) versions of WinFX and ite's relavent software can run in Windows XP SP1 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 environment.

Windows Vista: code name “Longhorn”, this is the operating system, which is in the center of curiosity among the computer users of the whole world. Having extremely exclusive set of user interface, easy capability to communicate with other pc etc makes Vista a wildcard of Microsoft to have a big beat to it’s competitors.

Windows Vienna: code name “Blackcomb“, is the next version of Windows Vista, definitely which will be a platform for .net 3.0.

DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

.NET Framework 3.0: formerly it is “WinFX”. This is the core framework that includes WPF, WCF, WWF, WCS pillars to serve different software requirements.

Windows Presentation Foundation: code name “Avalon”, a pillar of WinFX, that deals with UI in Vista mainly. Unlike previous development frameworks, this frameworks enables developers to develop applications in both browser and non-browser client platform with the same object model. Using XAML designers will be able to easily design UI here by XML and coders can concentrate more on programming logic,

Windows Communication Foundation: code name “Indigo”, a set of .net technologies for building and running connected system.

Windows Workflow Foundation (Workflow): a programming model and set of tools to develop workflow enabled windows application.

Windows CardSpace: formarly “Infocard“, a framework to protect end user’s digital identity and maintain end-user control.

XAML: This is a markup language, pronounced “Zammel”, based on XML, used to define the rich client application interfaces (fat client) for the Windows Longhorn applications. This is one of the core feature of .net 3.0 based Windows Presentation Foundation API. This markup language make the graphics designers easy to design UI without concerning code level implementation. Where as it’s frees the programmers NOT to be concerned about UI, but to concentrate on programming and business logic. Great! As developers are rarely good designers and vice-versa ;)

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

Windows SDK: This is the development resource that includes tools, documentation, samples to develop applications using .net 3.0 and operating system API (mainly Vista).

Visual Studio 2005 IDE: code name “Whidbey”, the current version of Visual Studio, based on .net 2.0. However with some additional software, it’s also possible to use some .net 3.0 features here.

Visual Studio 2007 IDE: “Orcas”, this is the next version of Visual Studio 2005 IDE

Next version IDE of Orcas: May be, by 2010 we are going to get “Hawaii”, which is the next version of “Orcas”. Developers are expecting to have a paradise regarding their development experience.