Early Adopter HailStorm (.NET My Services) 

Due for release in the second half of 2002, .NET My Services represents 
the first major release into Microsoft's .NET initiative since the .NET 
Framework was released into beta in September 2000. Until recently known 
by the project name HailStorm, it is the first publicly available web 
services application platform to be released. This represents a true 
commitment by Microsoft to the ideals of developing the next generation of 
web service-based applications that are both language and operating system 
independent. 

Early Adopter HailStorm looks at the first public release of .NET My 
Services Developer Edition, or HailStorm in a Box as it was called, 
dispelling the myths that have surrounded it since it was first announced, 
and how to develop against it. In particular, we look at creating 
HailStorm compatible SOAP messages, how XML standards-compliant this 
release is, and how information is added to, updated and deleted from the 
various services that it implements. Finally, a couple of case studies 
illustrate how HailStorm may be integrated into real world scenarios. 

Who is this book for? 

Developers interested in building applications against a set of XML-based 
web services. The emphasis in this book is on development using Windows, 
but everything applies equally to development on Linux, Unix, Mac and 
other platforms. This book was written in time for the official beta 
release of HailStorm at Microsoft's PDC in October 2001, and while we 
can't guarantee the code will be correct for version 1.0's release in 
2002, the concepts and explanations should still be valid. 

What does this book cover? 

HailStorm as it will be in version 1.0 
HailStorm as it is today 
Using SOAP and XPath to talk to HailStorm 
HailStorm Data-manipulation Language (HSDL) 
Practical case studies