Chapter 30. Application Services
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER
Choices for implementing application services
Characteristics of one of the most common technologies for application services, namely Windows Services
How to interact with a Windows Service using Visual Studio 2010 and the management applets in the Windows Control Panel
How to create, install, and communicate with a Windows Service using Visual Basic
How to debug a Windows Service from within Visual Studio 2010
Modern, multitasking operating systems often need to run applications that operate in the background and that are independent of the user who is logged in. For example, an application that provides a service interface to obtain data needs to service external requests for data regardless of whether there is a current user.
Over time, the number of choices to implement application services has increased. Originally, the main choice was Windows Services, but other choices have been added as .NET and Windows have evolved.
USING IIS FOR APPLICATION SERVICES
Depending on the version of Windows in use and the Windows options that have been installed, there are multiple ways to host .NET programs in the background. Chapter 14 covered Web Services and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, both of which are examples of technologies that can use Internet Information Services (IIS) to load programs and run them independent of the user.
If you are using IIS 7.0 or above, you also have the option to run WCF services ...
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