Component Services Administration

Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) provides a cross-platform architectural framework for
applications that enables developers to create modular applications from components provided by
different vendors. COM is the underlying technology behind OLE and other services that enable
document and data sharing, custom controls, and other cross-application features. COM+ is an extension
of COM that adds system services to support applications that need to share data and interoperate in
other ways. COM+ is primarily geared toward interapplication communication. The Component Services
Administrator in Windows Server 2003, like its Windows 2000 Server counterpart, enables you to
configure COM and manage COM+ applications.

What is it for?
The Component Services Administration console provides a common interface that you can use to
configure and administer COM components and COM+ applications. Common tasks you accomplish with
the console include:
• Configuring the system for component services—You can use the Component Services
Administration console to configure security roles for the System Application, which manages the
configuration and application deployment within Component Services. You can also use the console to
add other computers to the console tree for management and to enable or disable DCOM, which
determines whether COM components can communicate across the network with other computers.
• Installing and replicating COM+ applications—Creating a new COM+ application includes
(optionally) creating a partition for it, configuring security and application roles, and setting other
properties to define the application's behavior. You can accomplish these tasks through a wizard in
the Component Services Administration console or through scripts. You can also export COM+
applications and application proxies for installation on other computers. Microsoft provides the
Comrepl command line tool to replicate all COM+ applications between computers.
• Administering application pooling and recycling—You use the Component Services
Administration console to configure pooling and recycling for COM+ applications. Pooling enables
multiple server processes to act as a single application, which ultimately provides for scalability and
reliability. Application recycling enables a process to be replaced by a duplicate process, after which
the original process is shut down and its resources recovered. Recycling provides recoverability and
improves performance by shutting down failing processes.
• Configuring application security—COM+ applications run in the context of security roles that
enforce access control for the application. You use the Component Services Administration console to
assign users and groups to specific roles, configure access security checking, set the software
restriction policy for an application, configure authentication for COM+ applications, set application
identity and impersonation, and configure computer-wide authentication and security settings.
• Administering the COM+ SOAP Service—Through the console you can expose components
in COM+ applications as XML Web services, configure security for XML Web services, and import and
export SOAP-enabled applications between servers.
• Administering distributed transactions—COM+ relies on the Distributed Transaction
Coordinator (DTC) service to manage transactions between message queues, databases, and other
resources whether locally or across the network. You use the console to configure DTC networking,
logging, security, and related properties, as well as to monitor DTC performance, logging, and other
DTC-related tasks.
 • Configuring COM+ application debugging—Through the console you can enable or disable
process dump for each COM+ application and specify the criteria that determine how and when the
process dump takes place.
• Administering application queuing—The COM+ Queued Components Service provides a
queued transaction model for communication between client and server. With the Component
Services Administration console you can specify a COM+ application as queued, specify the queue
listener for an application, set the maximum number of listener threads, and specify the authentication
protocol for communications.

Many of the tasks that you can perform with the Component Services Administration console can also be
accomplished with scripts or programmatically. However, the console presents a consistent and easily
understood GUI for accomplishing those tasks.

Touring the Component Services Administration console

A shortcut to the Component Services Administration console is included in the Administrative Tools
folder. You can also add the Component Services snap-in to any custom console.

When you open the Component Services Administration console, you'll find that it contains a typical
console tree pane on the left and a details pane on the right (Figure A). The console tree includes not
only the Component Services branch, but also the Active Directory Users And Computers, Event Viewer,
and Services snap-ins. I'll focus here on the Component Services branch.

Figure A

The default Component Services Administration console

By default, the console tree pane includes the following four containers:
• COM+ Applications—This branch contains all of the COM+ applications installed on the
computer. You'll find several applications installed on a stock server, including the System Application,
IIS Out-of-Process Pooled Applications, and a handful of others. Each application is represented by its
own subbranch, with additional subbranches including Components, Roles, and for some applications,
 Legacy Components. You use the COM+ Applications branch to add and remove COM+ applications,
view and modify component properties, set general application properties (security, identity, etc.), add
components for an application, add subscriptions, and generally control all aspects of an application
and its components.
• DCOM Config—This folder enables you to configure settings such as authentication level and
security permissions for individual COM applications. Each application appears in the list as a
separate node.
• Distributed Transaction Coordinator—This branch includes two nodes. The Transaction List
node shows the transactions in which the computer is currently participating. The Transaction
Statistics node displays speed, response time, and other statistics for transactions in which the
computer is participating.
• Running Processes—This folder lists all of the COM+ application processes currently running
on the computer. You can also dump the application through this branch for troubleshooting and
debugging.

By default, the Component Services Administration console does not display COM+ partitions, which are
the containers into which COM+ applications are installed. There is a single Base Application Partition by
default, which contains the COM+ Applications folder I described above (Figure B).

Figure B

The console can optionally show COM+ application partitions.

These partitions, in part, serve much the same purpose that Active Directory containers serve, enabling
you to organize applications into logical groups for management purposes. For example, you can use
partitions to control access to COM+ applications and components based on Active Directory
membership. Partitions also enable multiple instances of a given COM+ application to run with different
configurations on a single computer.

To turn on or off display of COM+ partitions, right-click My Computer in the console tree pane and choose
Properties, click the Options tab, and select or deselect the option Enable Partitions. If you prefer to place
all applications in the default partition, there is no real reason to enable display of partitions. However, if
the server hosts multiple applications, partitioning can help you separate them for easier administration.

What's different from Windows 2000 Server?

You'll notice several differences between the Component Services Administration console in Windows
Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server, including many significant new features. These new features
include the following:
• Application pooling—Application pooling enables you to specify multiple server processes to
act as a single application. Application pooling offers the benefit of multithreading to nonthreaded
applications. It also provides increased reliability because if one process in the pool fails, the other
processes can continue to run unaffected. You configure application pooling through the properties for
each individual COM+ application.
• Application recycling—If a process begins to fail, it can be replaced by a duplicate process
that then takes on new requests. The old process finishes processing existing requests, and when
finished, is terminated and its resources recovered. Application recycling therefore improves reliability
and recoverability from such potential problems as memory leaks or resource allocation issues. You
configure application recycling through the properties for each individual COM+ application.
• COM+ partitions—In addition to providing a means for logically grouping COM+ applications,
partitions also enable you to run multiple instances of a single application with different configurations
on the same computer. This eliminates the need to run the application on separate servers and can
help with server consolidation.
• COM+ SOAP Service—This new service enables clients to access COM components through
XML and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and make COM+ applications available across the
network as XML Web services. Support for XML and SOAP can therefore simplify client access,
speed application development and delivery, and enable you to integrate COM more fully with your
other Web services.
• Low-memory activation gates—Before starting a COM+ server or component, Component
Services now checks the percentage of available virtual memory, and if that amount falls below a set
threshold, activation of the object fails. This can help alleviate performance and reliability problems
caused by memory allocation failures. Low-memory detection applies only to COM components
installed in a COM+ application.
• Pause/resume and disabling of applications—Components Services in Windows Server
2003 allows COM+ applications to be paused to prevent further application activations without
affecting currently running processes. You can also disable an application to achieve the same result.
• Process dumping—You can dump the state of a process without first terminating the process.
This capability facilitates troubleshooting and debugging.

Administrative wizards
The Component Services Administration console provides two wizards to help you manage partitions and
applications.
COM+ Partition Install Wizard
This wizard (Figure C) helps you create a new COM+ partition or import a partition you have exported
from another computer. If you choose the option to install a previously exported partition, the wizard
prompts you for the location of the MSI file created during the export process.

Figure C

The COM+ Partition Install Wizard helps you create COM+ partitions.

If you choose to create a new partition, the wizard prompts for the following information:
• Name—This is the partition name as it appears in the Component Services Administration
console.
• Partition ID—This is a Globally Unique ID (GUID) for the partition.

To create a partition in the Active Directory, you must first create the partition using the Active Directory
Users And Computers console. Then, you link the AD partition to the partition you create with the
Component Services Administration console. To do so, you specify the same name and GUID in
Component Services as in the AD Users And Computers console, or simply click Browse in the COM+
Partition Install Wizard to browse the AD for the previously created partition.

COM+ Application Install Wizard

This wizard (Figure D) helps you add a new COM+ application or import an application you have
exported from another computer. If you choose the option to install a pre-built application, the wizard
prompts you for the location of the application's MSI file. This is also the option to choose when importing
an application.
 Figure D

Use the COM+ Application Install Wizard to add or import an application.

If you choose to create a new application, the wizard prompts for the following information:
• Name—This is the name of the application as it appears in the Component Services
Administration console.
• Activation type—Choose Library Application to have components activated in the hosting
application's process. Choose Server Application to have components activated in a dedicated server
process.
• Account—Specify the account under which the application's components will run. You can
choose Interactive User, Local Service, Network Service, or a specific user account.
• Application roles and users—The wizard enables you to add application roles and add users
to each role. You can also add roles and manage users after installing the application.

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