Course number: 079 922 Maps to: Microsoft

Software version number: 1.0 Course: 1016

Course length: 5 day(s) Exam #: 70-175

A Pentium II or equivalent PC that meets the minimum hardware requirements for Windows NT 4.0 or later; at least 4 MB of available space in the Registry; either a local CD-ROM drive or access to a networked CD-ROM drive; a floppy-disk drive; a VGA or higher display adapter (the EGA display adapter is not supported); a two-button mouse or IntelliMouse. Printers are recommended but not required (for hard copies of key projects); however, each PC must have an installed printer driver in order to use Print Preview. The distributed environment assumes an operating system of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 (or later) with Visual Studio 6 Enterprise edition; Visual Basic 6.0 is on the first CD of the Visual Studio 6 suite. The Visual Studio installer will provide the most recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 for the computer’s access to the Internet.

Overview: Students will learn the skills necessary to design, create, deploy, maintain, and support distributed applications written from Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise edition.

Prerequisites: At a minimum, the student should be proficient in the fundamentals of Visual Basic, which are covered in the Element K course Introduction to Visual Basic 6.0. The course Visual Basic 5.0 Creating ActiveX Controls is recommended. The student should also be generally familiar with the Internet and with Web pages.

Delivery method: Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured hands-on activities.

Benefits: Students will learn how to develop client/server applications that use a network in multi-tier architecture to distribute their presentation services, business logic, and data services. These applications often access many different data sources. Multiple users and multiple applications can share the code contained in these applications (Component Object Model, or COM, components).

Target student: The course will improve the Web applications skills of developers learning about distributed business solutions.

What's next: Element K courses Visual Basic 6.0 Designing and Implementing Desktop Applications and Visual Studio 6.0 Distributed Design and Development.

Lesson objectives help students become comfortable with the course, and also provide a means to evaluate learning. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Describe the advantages and attributes of the layer of software between the user and a data source in a distributed application the so-called middle layer.

Specify a user interface based on Active Server Pages for the Web.

Create, debug, compile, instantiate, invoke, and test an ActiveX DLL module.

Develop and code the rules for a business application in DLL modules.

Describe how COM code transacts with data sources on different computers in the distributed environment.

Package and deploy DCOM objects using the MTS Explorer.

Describe the differences in deployment requirements for client-side applications and server-side applications.

Use the ActiveX Data Object (ADO) model for manipulating data from COM code.

Construct secure SQL queries and determine the appropriate cursor and record locking options.

Describe how to support and maintain a distributed application.

Applying the Service Model for Conceptual and Logical Design

Components in the Distributed Environment

Introducing ESWAP: a Course Application

Exploring the ESWAP Solution

Handling Messages and Errors from the Distributed Environment: Presentation Tier

Creating a COM Component

Setting Properties for the COM Project

Handling Errors from the COM Module

Compiling

Registering and Unregistering

Instantiating and Invoking COM Components

Interfacing through COM

Implementing Business Rules with COM

Specifying the ESWAP Database

Coding the Business Application

Handling Errors and Messages from the Business Tier

Exploring Transactions in the Distributed Environment

Developing MTS Components for ESWAP

Creating Packages with the MTS Explorer

Adding Components to an MTS Package

Restricting the Use of an MTS Package with Role-bBased Security

Deploying MTS Components

Queuing Messages

Examining the Basics of the ADO Model

Using Cursor Types

Using Cursor Locations

Ensuring Data Integrity with Locking Strategies

Disconnected Recordsets

Using the Execute Direct Model

Using the Prepare/Execute Model

Using the Stored Procedures Model

Creating Transactions within Stored Procedures

SQL Security

Exploring the DCOM Configuration Utility

Server Clustering

Upgrading Applications