Author Description

Windows 95 places a powerful 32-bit client on millions of desktops, and Windows NT is fast becoming a great server platform - but NetWare's showing no signs of vanishing. As an architect of client/server systems you need to know how to write to the strengths of each platform and maximize your use of corresponding protocols and available tools. Win32 Client/Server Developer's Guide is an essential guide to client/server technologies, tools, and strategies for developing distributed Windows applications.Beginning with a grounding in what client/server is and the best uses for it, this book proceeds to discuss how the client should pass requests on to the server, how the properly designed server handles processing requests, and how to improve performance through the use of a file retrieval system like Btrieve. The text moves on to cover Win32 options to consider when the client is waiting; using SQL and ODBC to gain access to a variety of data sources; integrating legacy systems, IBM AS/400 minicomputers, or IBM mainframes; incorporating NetWare into the mix, with insight into the daunting task of creating a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM)-based server; applying Named Pipes, Windows Sockets, and RPC to client/server communications; using C/C++ tools versus development environments such as Visual Basic, Delphi, and PowerBuilder; and the steps required to encapsulate ODBC operations within a set of C++ classes.The final chapters apply client/server Win32 programming techniques to the specific tasks involved in creating a program, and discuss critical topics such as how to control the behavior of a system at runtime through use of a generic DLL that links at runtime to the appropriate network specific DLL.