Microsoft .NET Services November CTP Release

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Hey, news about .NET Services November CTP are available at the team’s blog. They have outlined the launch functionality available @PDC in 2 weeks time:

Access Control Service Feature-Complete Capabilities

The Access Control Service provides an easy way to control access to REST web services and Service Bus communications while integrating with standards-based identity providers, including enterprise directories and web identity systems such as Windows Live ID. Authorization decisions can be pulled out of the application and put into a set of declarative rules hosted in Windows Azure that can transform incoming security claims into developer-defined claims that web services can consume directly.

  • Cloud-based federated authorization management service
    • Claims Transformation Engine: Transform input claims to output claims using configurable rules
    • Security Token Service: Package and transit output claims using REST tokens
  • Setup Issuer trust with a simple Web interface or programmatically through APIs
  • Supports Active Directory and other identity infrastructures, with minimal coding
  • Support for multiple credentials, including Windows Live IDs, and X.509 certificates
  • Two token-exchange endpoints addressable using standard HTTPS POST requests:
    • REST with symmetric key: Makes it easy for developers on any platform to package claims for the Access Control Service
    • REST with SAML Extension will work with tokens issued by ADFS V2
  • Support for standard protocols including REST
  • Applications that run inside and outside the organizational boundary can rely on the service

Service Bus Feature-Complete Capabilities

The Service Bus makes it easy to connect applications together over the Internet. Services that register on the Service Bus can easily be discovered and accessed, across any network topology. The Service Bus provides the familiar Enterprise Service Bus application pattern, while helping to solve some of the hard issues that arise when implementing this pattern across network, security, and organizational boundaries, at Internet-scale.

  • Services discovered through a stable, internet-accessible URL, irrespective of location
    • Enable tree hierarchical based service naming system
    • Service Naming Registry enables opt-in service public discoverability
  • One-way messaging between sender and listener supports unicast and multicast datagram distribution
    • Provide a FIFO data structure within the namespace and exist independent of any presence of active listeners
  • Full-duplex, connection-oriented session between sender and listener support bi-directional communication
  • Full-duplex, connection-oriented peer-to-peer session with network-boundary traversal create direct end-to-end connectivity through NAT
    • Service Bus endpoint is secured by Access Control Service
  • Multiple publishers and multiple subscribers can simultaneously use the services’ top management and event distribution system
  • Support for REST and HTTP Access from non-.NET platforms
  • Global hierarchical namespaces that are DNS- and transport-independent
  • Anonymous access to services is supported only if you permit it.

Latest SDK is available as download on the Azure site.