What is Enterprise Framework?

Here is the definition according to the Microsoft internal Glossary Service we have:

A Microsoft collection of tools, including code and templates, used to develop enterprise line of business applications and services.

Enterprise Framework was build over a year ago now and has now evolved into a powerful framework. This framework is built on top of Enterprise Library and a number of other application blocks, and implements the Microsoft Application Architecture for .NET pattern.

At present we are collaborating with the patterns & practises group and looking at using it, or something like it, as the basis for the up coming Line of Business Application Toolkit (LOBAT). By providing automated guidance for building components on the framework, we can create a package that you can use to build enterprise level services and applications easily without having to hand code everything. Tom Hollander describes this new project in his blog article What's next in the LOB Program?

A lot of non-technical people ask what is it, and so I usually give them the marketing spiel. This is the elevator pitch I created after a demand for some way to describe this 'thing' to someone (non-technical) in less than a minute.

Enterprise Framework is giving our customers and partners the guidance and structure for developing Enterprise Line of Business applications and services today.
Most development projects today overrun on budget and schedule by a factor of two due to weak, inappropriate and inflexible designs and poor construction techniques.

Enterprise application development today is very challenging and it requires specialised skills and experience to architect and construct successful designs that come in on budget. This experience is rare and expensive in the marketplace today, and quite often undervalued to save on budget in the planning phases.

Enterprise Framework delivers the architecture, knowledge and patterns that are required to create distributed service-oriented line of business applications and services today.

It's not just a bunch of guidance documents or books either, its actual code, guidance templates and building blocks in a single package. The best bit is that you don't have to understand all the inner workings of the framework, in Visual Studio you have all the guidance templates and wizards to build the right components, so you can just focus on implementing the business requirements in the solution domain.

Microsoft has long provided solid guidance and building blocks for creating enterprise applications and services on their platform, now there is finally a toolkit for actually doing it. Our team has created Enterprise Framework from real pain and experience 'in the trenches' of enterprise engagements. It has evolved in-sync with where Microsoft is taking the technology and platform, and it embodies Microsoft's development patterns & practises, leveraging Enterprise Library and the other Application Blocks, all condensed into a single toolkit.

Using the framework and the toolkit will reduce the risk of re-designing and implementing your own framework, and will save on the initial construction planning, and later maintenance overheads.

With this toolkit, you can now allow the development team to focus its efforts on implementing the powerful business functionality that is expected from today's increasingly complex requirements.