Open Web Interface for .NET
{{Short description|Web server interface standard}}{{Infobox software
| name = OWIN
| author = Community-owned
| developer = OWIN Community
| programming_language = C#
| operating_system = Cross-platform
| platform = .NET Framework, .NET Core
| genre = Web server interface
| license = Open-source
| website = [http://owin.org owin.org]
}}
OWIN (Open Web Interface for .NET) is a standard for an interface between .NET Web applications and Web servers.{{Cite web |last=Chonkar |first=Swapnal |title=Open Web Interface For .NET (OWIN) |url=https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/swapnal/open-web-interface-owin-for-net/ |access-date=2024-12-04 |website=www.c-sharpcorner.com |language=en}} It is a community-owned open-source project. Prior to OWIN, Microsoft's ASP.NET{{Cite web |last=ardalis |date=2024-12-02 |title=Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) with ASP.NET Core |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/owin?view=aspnetcore-9.0 |access-date=2024-12-04 |website=learn.microsoft.com |language=en-us}} technology was designed on top of IIS, and Web applications could not easily be run on another Web server (although note that despite this the Mono community developed several ASP.NET compatible Web servers, such as XSP).{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}}
OWIN aims to decouple the relationship between ASP.NET applications and IIS by defining a standard interface. Developers of Web servers can be sure that, if they implement OWIN correctly, ASP.NET applications will run on their server. Similarly, new Web frameworks could be developed as an alternative to ASP.NET. As long as they target OWIN, they will run on any OWIN compatible Web server, including IIS.{{Cite book |last=Freeman |first=Adam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVMnCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Open+Web+Interface+for+.NET%22+-wikipedia&newbks=0&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22Open%20Web%20Interface%20for%20.NET%22%20-wikipedia&f=false |title=Expert ASP.NET Web API 2 for MVC Developers |date=2014-09-16 |publisher=Apress |isbn=978-1-4842-0085-8 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Zamora |first=Jodi |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3051942 |title=OWIN for IT Students |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |isbn=978-1-5330-4532-4 |location=North Charleston, SC, USA |doi=}}
In this regard, OWIN aims to do for .NET what Java Servlet and Servlet containers do for the JVM. Project Katana is a set of OWIN components for ASP.NET (.NET Framework) built by Microsoft.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} ASP.NET Core (.NET) has its own middleware system that is similar to OWIN.
OWIN as middleware
In addition to decoupling Web frameworks and Web servers, OWIN allows chaining together middleware into a pipeline. A Web framework can interact with OWIN without knowing whether it is interacting directly with the underlying web server, or with one or more layers of middleware (each implementing OWIN) on top of the Web server.{{Cite web |last=Praburaj |date=2022-09-30 |title=OWIN Middleware in the IIS integrated pipeline |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/aspnet/overview/owin-and-katana/owin-middleware-in-the-iis-integrated-pipeline |access-date=2024-12-04 |website=learn.microsoft.com |language=en-us}}
This allows infrastructure concerns, such as authentication, to be split out into separate modules. This is desirable as it decouples them from the application's own code, and makes them reusable across applications. In Project Katana, Microsoft has made into OWIN modules several ASP.NET features that were previously part of the core ASP.NET framework.{{Cite web |last=howarddierking |date=2023-06-15 |title=An Overview of Project Katana |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/aspnet/overview/owin-and-katana/an-overview-of-project-katana |access-date=2024-12-04 |website=learn.microsoft.com |language=en-us}} This allows them to be reused in other Web frameworks, and also ensures a cleaner separation from the application using them.
See also
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- [http://owin.org/ Official OWIN website]
- [https://github.com/aspnet/AspNetKatana/ Katana Project] at GitHub
- [http://www.asp.net/aspnet/overview/owin-and-katana/an-overview-of-project-katana Microsoft's overview of Project Katana]
{{Web interfaces}}