What is MCAD?

MCAD candidates are required to pass two core exams and one elective exam in an area of specialization:

Core Exams (two required): Choose a language to leverage your existing skills through the .NET Framework. It can be either VB or C#. One exam focused on either Web Application Development or Windows Application Development, and another one for Web Services and Server Components.

Click here for official MCAD info page

There has been massive confusion for newbie's on exactly what .NET is. We at Examnotes are here to try to demystify this for you. I hope that the document that we have compiled can explain it, if not, there are plenty of links within to find further information. Quite simply, .NET is Microsoft's platform for XML Web services. XML Web services allow applications to communicate and share data over the Internet, regardless of operating system or programming language. The Microsoft .NET Platform includes a comprehensive family of products, built on XML and Internet industry standards, that provide for each aspect of developing, managing, using, and experiencing XML Web services. XML Web services will become part of the Microsoft applications, tools, and servers you already use today - and will be built into new products to meet all of your business needs. More specifically, there are five areas where Microsoft is building the .NET platform today, namely: Tools, Servers, XML Web services, Clients, and .NET experiences. XML is the newest language of the web where many dissimilar technologies can interoperate and exchange data seamlessly and transparently over the Internet via XML with all the .NET enterprise severs. Even Office XP will allow you to save data as an XML attachment so it can act as a client to some of the .NET servers. Remember that the focus here is on the web

The Products that involve the Microsoft .NET Platform are:
Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, including the Microsoft Windows 2000 server family, make up the Microsoft .NET server infrastructure for deploying, managing, and orchestrating XML Web services. Designed with mission-critical performance in mind, they provide enterprises with the agility they need to integrate their systems, applications, and partners through XML Web services, and the flexibility to adapt to changing business requirements. The .NET Enterprise Servers are:

• Microsoft Application Center 2000 to deploy and manage highly available and scalable Web applications
• Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000 to build XML-based business processes across applications and organizations
• Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 for quickly building scalable e-commerce solutions
• Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 to manage content for dynamic e-business Web sites
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 to enable messaging and collaboration anytime, anywhere
• Microsoft Host Integration Server 2000 for bridging to data and applications on legacy systems
• Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 for secure, fast Internet connectivity
• Microsoft Mobile Information 2001 Server to enable application support by mobile devices like cell phones
• Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 to find, share, and publish business information
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to store, retrieve, and analyze structured XML data

.NET White Papers are available to aid your Studies:

The Simplest Way to Define .NET
Sanjay Parthasarathy, Vice President of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, lays out Microsoft's overall .NET strategy in this one-page white paper.

Tools
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Case Studies
Learn how companies like Continental Airlines and SAS have built and deployed XML Web services using Visual Studio .NET.

A Snapshot of Visual Basic .NET
With Visual Basic .NET, Visual Basic becomes a first class object-oriented programming language, with full support for features like implementation inheritance and structured exception handling. Find out more in this short white paper.

A Snapshot of Microsoft's .NET-related Standards
The key standards for .NET include XML, SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, C#, and the CLI, each of which will be described briefly in this white paper.

Services
What are XML Web Services?
Heard about "XML" and "Web services" but not sure what they are or what they mean to you? This paper explains them in just one page

The Microsoft Shared Development Process
Learn how Microsoft is working with a group of companies toward the development of a .NET My Services (formerly code-named "Hailstorm") extended Web service. The working group is responsible for the development and testing of .NET My Services and its conformance with key .NET My Services principles such as privacy and security, scalability and reliability.

A Snapshot of .NET My Services' Web Services
.NET My Services is the first set of XML Web services that Microsoft will ship. Get the scoop about .NET My Services in this short snapshot.

Building User-Centric Experiences; An Introduction to Microsoft .NET My Services
.NET My Services are oriented around people, instead of around a specific device, application, service, or network. They put users in control of their own data and information, protecting personal information and providing a new level of ease of use and personalization. This white paper outlines .NET My Services and the XML Web services it will provide.

XML Web services Case Studies
Learn how companies like Zagat, Expedia, and MSNBC have built and deployed XML Web services quickly and easily.

Clients and Devices
Windows XP and .NET: An Overview
Learn how Windows XP enables a new set of services on the PC and gets your computer ready to take advantage of the .NET Framework and the upcoming Windows .NET Server, the successor to Windows 2000 Server.

A Snapshot of .NET's Client Software
Client software will power smart devices on the .NET platform. Learn how in this brief snapshot

A Snapshot of .NET's Smart Devices
Need a simpler way to unify all of the PCs, laptops, phones, and handheld computers in your life? Find out how to make your devices "smart" in this snapshot.

A Snapshot of Windows XP and .NET
Microsoft Windows XP is the new Windows desktop operating system for home and business computing. It will deliver an intelligent, connected and dependable engine to power experiences on the .NET platform.

Glossary of Terms:
Microsoft .NET is Microsoft's XML Web services platform. This glossary will help you understand the technologies, products, and concepts associated with .NET.

.NET experiences: .NET experiences are dramatically more personal, integrated end-user computing interactions using connected XML Web services delivered through a new breed of smart devices.
On a technical level, .NET experiences are a combination of XML Web services and, when appropriate, local application code.

.NET Framework: The .NET Framework is an environment for building, deploying, and running XML Web services and other applications. It consists of three main parts: the Common Language Runtime, the Framework classes, and ASP.NET. A companion infrastructure, the .NET Compact Framework, is a set of programming interfaces that enable developers to target mobile devices like smart phones and PDAs.

.NET platform: The .NET platform is a set of development tools and operational systems to build, expose, and consume XML Web services, enabling a personal, integrated Web delivered through smart devices. It has four components:

• .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET,
• server infrastructure,
• building block services, and
• software for smart devices.

distributed computing: Distributed computing is a programming model in which processing occurs in many different places (or nodes) around a network. Processing can occur wherever it makes the most sense, whether that is on a server, Web site, personal computer, handheld device, or other smart device.
In contrast to the two-node system--the client and the centralized server--prevalent today, Microsoft .NET uses distributed computing.

peer-to-peer: Peer-to-peer is a communication model in which computing devices--desktops, servers, and other smart devices--link directly to each other. This can include smart client to smart client, smart client to smart server, and smart server to smart server connections. Microsoft .NET supports peer-to-peer as one of the manifestations of distributed computing.
Peer-to-peer is the opposite of server-centric computing, in which all of your communication runs through a server. In the server-centric model, if an application wants to send data to another application, it would have to first contact a central server, which takes that data, reads the address of the recipient, and passes it along.
.NET supports many forms of distributed computing, including peer-to-peer, in order to allow users to take advantage of the computing power that exists on their PCs and smart devices. This is often a more efficient application model and reduces bottlenecks associated with server-centric computing.

server infrastructure: The server infrastructure for .NET, including Microsoft Windows and the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, is a suite of infrastructure applications for building, deploying, and operating XML Web services. Key technologies include support for XML, scale-out solutions, and business process orchestration across applications and services. These servers include:

• Microsoft Application Center 2000 to enable scale-out solutions;
• Microsoft BizTalk™ Server 2000 to create and manage XML-based business process orchestration across applications and services;
• Microsoft Host Integration Server 2000 for accessing data and applications on mainframes;
• Microsoft Mobile Information 2001 Server to enable use of applications by mobile devices like cell phones; and
• Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 to store and retrieve structured XML data.

• Smart about you-uses your .NET identity, profile, and data to simplify your experience and is smart about your presence, allowing tailoring of notifications in response to your presence or absence.
• Smart about the network-responsive to bandwidth constraints; provides support for both online and offline use of applications; and understands which services are available.
• Smart about information-allows you to access, analyze, and act on data anywhere anytime.
• Smart about other devices-discovers and announces PCs, smart devices, servers, and the Internet; knows how to provide services to other devices; smart about accessing information from the PC.
• Smart about software and services-presents applications and data optimally for form factor; enables input methods and connectivity appropriate for great end-user interaction; consumes Web services using XML, SOAP, and UDDI; and programmable and extensible by developers.

Visual Studio .NET: Microsoft Visual Studio .NET provides a complete development environment for building on the Microsoft .NET platform. Using Visual Studio .NET, developers can create secure, scalable applications and Web services faster than ever before and in the language of their choice, leveraging existing systems and skills.

XML: XML is the acronym for eXtensible Markup Language, the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web. XML is an industry-standard protocol administered by the World Wide Web Consortium. XML is a key enabling technology for Microsoft .NET.

XML Web services: XML Web services are units of application logic providing data and services to other applications. Applications access XML Web services via standard Web protocols and data formats such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP, independent of how each XML Web service is implemented. XML Web services combine the best aspects of component-based development and the Web, and are a cornerstone of the Microsoft .NET programming model.

Whistler: Whistler was the code name for Windows XP. See Windows XP.

Windows XP: Windows XP is the new Windows desktop operating system for home and business computing. Windows XP will deliver an intelligent, connected, and dependable engine to power .NET experiences, based on a proven technical foundation.

We at Examnotes hope that this further explains .NET to you and we hope we have gathered enough resources to aid in your .NET studies