An Assembly is a collection of single-file or multiple files.The .NET assembly is the standard for components developed with the Microsoft.NET. Dot NET assemblies may or may not be executable, i.e., they might exist as the executable (.exe) file or dynamic link library (DLL) file. All the .NET assemblies contain the definition of types, versioning information for the type, meta-data, and manifest.The assembly manifest contains data about the versioning requirements of the assembly, author name of the assembly, the security requirements that the assembly requires to run, and the various files that form part of the assembly.

Kinds of Assembly:

·         Private

·         Shared

·         Satellite

Private Assembly

The Assembly that is local to the particular folder is called Private Assembly.

The disadvantage is that each time a copy of the Assembly is created which in turn occupies more memory and reduces the performance.

Shared Assembly

A shared assembly is one that is used by multiple applications on the machine. A shared assembly must have a name that is globally unique. The .NET Framework supports these naming requirements through a technique called strong names.

Satellite Assemblies