With the advent of the Channel Definition Format (CDF) specification, an open standard has emerged for Web content developers to provide users with focused and organized information about related available resources on a network or web site. Using the CDF empowers end users with a simple and highly specific system to organize and automatically retrieve the resources on a network that they find interesting or essential. The CDF specification empowers the Web content developer by allowing the presentation of sets of related resource data to the end client in a natural, intuitive, and effective way. However, Web developers using push technology face the arduous task of routinely organizing new content for inclusion in channels. At its worst, this means routinely updating the CDF information about new content by hand.
Enter Active Channel Server.
The Microsoft® Active Channel™ Server is a fully customizable and extensible system for automatically managing and updating the content of channels. Web content developers using the server can concentrate on creating and organizing the new content itself, leaving the rest to the Active Channel Server.
What makes the Active Channel Server the best solution?
It is…
Easy to script
The Active Channel Server takes advantage of the power of the Microsoft® Component Object Model (COM) and Automation to make its classes available to scripting languages such as Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript) and Microsoft® Jscript™. Developers can write generic Active Channel Server Agents in these languages to provide custom refreshing of channel content.
Delivery-independent
The Active Channel Server system does not rely on any particular delivery mechanism for the CDF data. It simply provides the automatic refreshing mechanism and CDF generation on demand, leaving the method of delivery up to the content developer.
Integrated fully with Site Server 3.0
The Active Channel Server feature integrates with the other features of Site Server 3.0 seamlessly. Used in conjunction with the Personalization and Membership feature, it can generate personalized channel content on demand for users. It can also take advantage of the Site Server Search feature, automatically performing searches of constructed catalogs for items to include in a channel.