COM & .NET Component Services

Web Services in COM+ 1.5

Web services support is the most exciting new feature of the .NET platform. As explained in Chapter 10, web services allow a middle-tier component in one web site to invoke methods on another middle-tier component at another web site, with the same ease as if the two components were on the same site and machine. But .NET web services come with a price—companies have to invest in learning new languages such as C# and cope with a new programming model and new class libraries. In most organizations, this cost is substantial. To preserve existing investment in COM components and development expertise, while providing a migration path to the .NET world, COM+ 1.5 can expose any COM+ component that complies with web services design guidelines as a web service. The application activation tab lets you configure SOAP activation for your application (see Figure B-7). All you need to do is specify the virtual directory of the web service associated with this application, and COM+ provides the necessary adaptors as a component service. Each component is exposed as a separate web service, identified by the component prog-ID under the virtual directory. COM+ installs the web services with IIS and generates the proper web service configuration and information files. Note that IIS and .NET must be installed on the server and client machine to enable the SOAP activation mode for your application.