The Magic Of TransactionScope

May 27, 2015
systemsSystem.Transactions was introduced in .Net 2.0.  According to Jim Johnson, who was the architect on the team that created this model, one of the design goals of System.Transactions was to extend the reach of transactions beyond DBMS (Database Management Systems) by allowing creation of transactional resources. Another goal was to simplify the programming model and the interface to use transactions.

System.Transactions.TransactionScope provides an implicit programming model in which the transactions are automatically managed by the infrastructure. It provides a simple mechanism for you to specify a code block to participate in a transaction. TransactionScope reduces the complexity of code that need to use transactions and it allows existing transaction providers to be retrofitted to participate in this programming model. Nested transaction work transparently. Disparate transaction providers can participate in a transaction without increasing the complexity of your code. No wonder TransactionScope is so popular! Read More…

Azure Cafe: Azure Service Fabric – Next Generation of PaaS Platform

May 20, 2015

At the recently concluded Microsoft BUILD conference, Azure team announced their vision for the next generation of PaaS platform – Azure Service Fabric.

Azure Service Fabric provides a high control platform that enables developers and ISVs to build cloud services with a high degree of scalability and customization. Service Fabric was born from Microsoft’s years of experience delivering mission-critical cloud services and has been in production for more than five years. It provides the foundational technology upon which Azure’s core infrastructure is ran and also powers services like Skype for Business, InTune, Event Hubs, DocumentDB, Azure SQL Database (across more than 1.4 million customer databases) and Bing Cortana – which can scale to process more than 500 million evaluations per second.

Join AIS for a webinar session where we will discuss key concepts and motivations behind Azure Service Fabric. Read More…

A Primer on Pattern Libraries

May 5, 2015
chimp(1)For many, developing and delivering the front-end of a website or application is often centered on the development of pages within the project. But with that approach, it doesn’t take very long for your CSS file(s) to become overgrown and difficult to maintain. Before you know it rules are duplicated, important tags are cluttering declarations and regression issues are flooding the bug list. It can go from bad to frustrating pretty quickly.

So what’s a Front-End Dev to do? Instead of focusing on the development of elements for each page, shift your focus and consider the entire project, building components that can easily be reused throughout the site or application. And that’s where Pattern Libraries step in: They provide a structured visual reference that presents and organizes the components of the project, streamlines development and helps deliver a cohesive, maintainable product.

Read More…