.NET Interview 3

What is an application domain?
Previously “PROCESS” where used as security boundaries. One process has its own virtual memory and  does not over lap the other process virtual memory; due to this one process can not crash the other process. So any problem or error in one process does not affect the other process. In .NET they went one step  ahead introducing application domains. In application domains multiple applications can run in same process with out influencing each other. If one of the application domains throws error it does not affect the other application domains. To invoke method in a object running in different application domain .NET remoting is used.

What is .NET Remoting ?
.NET remoting is replacement of DCOM. Using .NET remoting you can make remote object calls which lie in different Application Domains. As the remote objects run in different process client calling the remote  object can not call it directly. So the client uses a proxy which looks like a real object.
When client wants to make method call on the remote object it uses proxy for it. These method calls are called as “Messages”. Messages are serialized using “formatter” class and sent to client “channel”. Client Channel communicates with Server Channel. Server Channel uses as formatter to deserialize the message and sends to the remote object.

Which class does the remote object has to inherit ?
All remote objects should inherit from System.MarshalbyRefObject.

What are two different types of remote object creation mode in .NET ?
There are two different ways in which object can be created using Remoting:
  • SAO (Server Activated Objects) also called as Well-Known call mode.
  • CAO (Client Activated Objects)
SAO has two modes “Single Call” and “Singleton”. 
With Single Call object the object is created with every method call thus making the object stateless. 
With Singleton the object is created only once and the object is shared with all clients.
CAO are stateful as compared to SAO. In CAO the creation request is sent from client side. Client holds a proxy to the server object created on server.

What are the situations you will use singleton architecture in remoting ?
If all remoting clients have to share the same data singleton architecture will be used.

What is fundamental of published or precreated objects in Remoting ?
In scenarios of singleton or single call the objects are created dynamically. But in situations where you want to precreate object and publish it you will use published object scenarios.
Dim obj as new objRemote
obj.Initvalue = 100
RemotingServices.Marshal(obj,”RemoteObject”)
As shown in above sample following changes will be needed on server side. RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType is replaced by RemotingServices.Marshal(obj,”RemoteObject”) where “obj” is the precreated objected on the server whose value is initialized to 100.

What are the ways in which client can create object on server in CAO model ?
There are two ways by which you can create Client objects on remoting server:
  • Activator.CreateInstance().
  • By Keyword “New”.
Are CAO stateful in nature ?
Yes. In CAO remoting model client creates a instance on server and instance variable set by client on server can be retrieved again with correct value.

What are LeaseTime, SponsorshipTime, RenewonCallTime and LeaseManagerPollTime?
In normal .NET environment objects lifetime is managed by garbage collector. But in remoting environment remote clients can access objects which are out of control of garbage collector. Garbage collector boundary is limited to a single PC on which framework is running; any remote client across physical PC is out of  control of GC (Garbage Collector).
This constraint of garbage collector leads to a new way of handling lifetime for remoting objects, by using concept called as “LeaseTime”. Every server side object is assigned by default a “LeaseTime” of five  minutes. This leasetime is decreased at certain intervals. Again for every method call a default of two minutes is assigned. When i say method call means every call made from client. This is called as  "RenewalOnCallTime”.
Let’s put the whole thing in equation to make the concept more clear.

Total Remoting object life time = LeaseTime + (Number of method calls) X (RenewalTime).
If we take NumberOfMethodCalls as one.

Then default Remote Object Life Time = 5 + (1) X 2 = 10 minutes (Everything is in minutes)

When total object lifetime is reduced to zero, it queries the sponsor that should the object be destroyed. Sponsor is an object which decides should object Lifetime be renewed. So it queries any registered sponsors with the object, if does not find any then the object is marked for garbage collection. After this garbage collection has whole control on the object lifetime. If we do not foresee how long a object will be needed specify the “SponsorShipTimeOut” value. SponsorShipTimeOut is time unit a call to a sponsor is timed out. “LeaseManagerPollTime” defines the time the sponsor has to return a lease time extension.

Which config file has all the supported channels/protocol ?
Machine.config file has all the supported channels and formatter supported by .NET remoting.Machine.config file can be found at
“C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vXXXXX\CONFIG” path. Find <system.runtime.remoting> element in the Machine.config file which has the channels and the formatters.

Can Non-Default constructors be used with Single Call SAO?
Non-Default constructors can not be used with single call objects as object is created with every method call, there is no way to define Non-default constructors in method calls.
It’s possible to use Non-Default constructor with Client activated objects as both methods:-
“NEW” keyword and “Activator.CreateInstance” provide a way to specify Non-Default constructors.

What is Asynchronous One-Way Calls ?
One-way calls are a different from asynchronous calls from execution angle that the .NET Framework does not guarantee their execution. In addition, the methods used in this kind of call cannot have return values or out parameters. One-way calls are defined by using [OneWay()] attribute in class.

What is marshalling and what are different kinds of marshalling ?
Marshaling is used when an object is converted so that it can be sent across the network or across application domains. Unmarshaling creates an object from the marshaled data.
There are two ways to do marshalling:
1.     Marshal-by-value (MBV) - In this the object is serialized into the channel, and a copy of the object is created on the other side of the network. The object to marshal is stored into a stream, and the stream is  used to build a copy of the object on the other side with the unmarshalling sequence.
2.     Marshaling-by-reference (MBR) - Here it creates a proxy on the client that is used to communicate with the remote object. The marshaling sequence of a remote object creates an ObjRef instance that itself can be serialized across the network.
To marshal a remote object the static method RemotingServices.Marshal() is used. RemotingServices.Marshal() has following overloaded versions:-
public static ObjRef Marshal(MarshalByRefObject obj)
public static ObjRef Marshal(MarshalByRefObject obj, string objUri)
public static ObjRef Marshal(MarshalByRefObject obj, string objUri,Type requestedType)

The first argument obj specifies the object to marshal. 
The objUri is the path that is stored within the marshaled object reference; it can be used to access the remote object.
The requestedType can be used to pass a different type of the object to the object reference. This is useful if the client using the remote object shouldn't use the object class but an interface that the remote object class implements instead. In this scenario the interface is the requestedType that should be used for marshaling.

What is ObjRef object in remoting ?
All Marshal() methods return ObjRef object.The ObjRef is serializable because it implements the interface ISerializable, and can be marshaled by value. The ObjRef knows about:
  • location of the remote object
  • host name
  • port number
  • object name.
What is a Web Service ?
Web Services are business logic components which provide functionality via the Internet using standard protocols such as HTTP.
Web Services uses Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) in order to expose the business functionality.SOAP defines a standardized format in XML which can be exchanged between two entities over standard protocols such as HTTP. SOAP is platform independent so the consumer of a Web Service is therefore completely shielded from any implementation details about the platform exposing the Web Service. For the consumer it is simply a black box of send and receive XML over HTTP. So any web service hosted on windows can also be consumed by UNIX and LINUX platform.

What is UDDI ?
Full form of UDDI is Universal Description, Discovery and Integration. It is a directory that can be used to publish and discover public Web Services. If you want to see more details you can visit the http://www.UDDI.org .

What is DISCO ?
DISCO is the abbreviated form of Discovery. It is basically used to club or group common services together on a server and provides links to the schema documents of the services it describes may require.

What the different phase/steps of acquiring a proxy object in Webservice ?
Following are the different steps needed to get a proxy object of a webservice at the client side:
  • Client communicates to UDI node for WebService either through browser or UDDI's public web service.
  • UDII responds with a list of webservice.
  • Every service listed by webservice has a URI pointing to DISCO or WSDL document.
  • After parsing the DISCO document, we follow the URI for the WSDL document related to the webservice which we need.
  • Client then parses the WSDL document
What the different phase/steps of acquiring a proxy object in Webservice ?
Following are the different steps needed to get a proxy object of a webservice at the client side:
  • Client communicates to UDI node for WebService either through browser or UDDI's public web service.
  • UDII responds with a list of webservice.
  • Every service listed by webservice has a URI pointing to DISCO or WSDL document.
  • After parsing the DISCO document, we follow the URI for the WSDL document related to the webservice which we need.
  • Client then parses the WSDL document
Which attribute is used in order that the method can be used as WebService ?
WebMethod attribute has to be specified in order that the method and property can be treated as WebService.



Click below links for more .NET Interview Questions and Answers 
.NET Interview 1
.NET Interview 2
.NET Interview 4