Developing Data Access Solutions with MVS 2010

In this course, experienced developers who know the basics of data access (CRUD) in Windows client and Web application environments will learn to optimize their designs and develop better performing data access code by using the ADO.NET Entity Framework, LINQ, WCF Data Services, the Sync Framework, and ADO.NET.

Audience Profile
This course is intended for professional .NET software developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio in a team-based, medium-sized to large development environment. They will have experience implementing data access and data binding within their Web and/or Windows client applications and are interested in learning to optimize data access code in their applications by using the Entity Framework, LINQ, and ADO.NET. Members of the audience are experienced users of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or newer releases of the Visual Studio product. The audience has some experience using Visual Studio 2010 for either Windows client or Web application development.

Typically, this audience has the following knowledge/experience:
•Experience developing n-tier applications that access various data sources
•Experience implementing data binding within their applications
•Some experience using LINQ and ADO.NET
•A conceptual understanding of the Entity Framework

At Course Completion
After completing this course, students will be able to:
•Evaluate a variety of business cases, and then select an appropriate combination of data access technologies and tools most appropriate to each case. Describe the roles of Entity Framework, WCF Data Services, and ADO.NET for building and maintaining applications. Use LINQ on top of these technologies to improve productivity and the quality of their applications.
•Use the tools provided with the Entity Framework to map the conceptual model used by the business logic of an application to the logical data model provided by a database.
•Query an Entity Data Model (EDM) by using common methods such as LINQ to Entities, Entity SQL, and the classes in the EntityClient namespace.
•Perform data modification tasks on data in an EDM.
•Explain the function of the Object Services model implemented by the Entity Framework and the support provided by the Object Services API for addressing the issues faced by enterprise applications that have to handle multiple concurrent users simultaneously accessing the same data .
•Describe best practices for designing and building a scalable, optimized data access layer by using Object Services.
•Customize and extend entities with their own business logic and use advanced mappings to shape the data model to their business and application requirements.
•Reuse existing business classes in a data access layer built by using the Entity Framework.
•Address the architectural issues that can arise when building an n-tier enterprise application by using the Entity Framework.
•Build extensible solutions that can update data in an n-tier enterprise application by using the Entity Framework.
•Access offline data or data that that has limited availability in client applications.
•Design, develop, and consume a simple WCF Data Service.
•Use WCF Data Services to update and delete data and to handle multi-user concerns.
•Develop high performance, scalable ADO.NET applications that can query and update data.
•Explain how LINQ to SQL enables development against a logical model which abstracts the low-level details of querying ADO.NET tables and result sets.

Prerequisites
Before attending this course, students must have:

An understanding of the problem-solving techniques that apply to software development, including the following principles of software development:

• Modern software development models
• Typical phases of a software development lifecycle
• Concepts of event-driven programming
• Concepts of object-oriented programming
• Creating use-case diagrams
• Designing and building a user interface
• Developing a structured application

A basic understanding of the following scripting techniques and some hands-on experience writing scripts:

• Web scripting techniques
• Macro scripting techniques
• Windows scripting techniques

A general understanding of the purpose, function, and features of following .NET Framework topics:

• Common Language Runtime
• .NET Framework class library
• Common Type System
• Component interoperation
• Cross-language interoperability
• Assemblies in the Common Language Runtime
• Application domains
• Runtime hosts supported by the .NET Framework

Experience using Visual Studio 2008 in the following task areas:

• Declaring and initializing typed variables using the Camel case naming convention
• Using arithmetic, relational, and logical operators in code statements
• Using branching statements to control code execution
• Using looping statements to iterate through collections or repeat steps until a specified condition is met
• Creating classes and methods to establish the basic structure of an application
• Using methods and events to implement the programming logic of an application
• Identifying syntax and logic errors
• Accessing and managing data from a data source

Experience in object oriented design and development as follows:

• Creating and accessing classes and class properties
• Creating and accessing methods and overloaded methods
• Implementing inheritance, base classes, and abstract classes
• Declaring, raising, and handling events
• Responding to and throwing exceptions
• Implementing interfaces and polymorphism
• Implementing shared and static members
• Implementing generics
• Creating components and class libraries

Experience in N-Tier application design and development as follows:

• Managing a software development process
• Controlling input at the user interface level in Windows client and Web applications
• Debugging, tracing, and profiling .NET applications
• Monitoring and logging .NET applications
• Implementing basic testing best practices
• Performing basic data access tasks with LINQ
• Basics of LINQ to XML
• Basics of LINQ to Entities
• Basics of LINQ to SQL
• Implementing basic security best practices in .NET Applications
• Basics of Code Access Security
• Basics of Role-Based Security
• Basics of Cryptography Services
• Implementing basic service calls
• Basics of creating and consuming XML Web Services
• Basics of creating and consuming WCF Services
• Using .NET Configuration Files
• Deploying .NET Framework Applications using ClickOnce and the MS Installer

Data access experience in Windows client application development as follows:

• Connect to a data source
• Implement data binding
• Implement data validation at the UI layer

Data access experience in Web application development as follows:

• Connect to a data source
• Implement dynamic data
• Implement data validation at the UI layer