ASP.NET 4 Unleashed

Using DataSource Caching

Instead of caching at the page or User Control level, you can cache at the level of a DataSource control. Three of the four standard ASP.NET DataSource controls—SqlDataSource, ObjectDataSource, and XmlDataSource—include properties that enable you to cache the data that the DataSource control represents. (The LinqDataSource control does not support caching.)

One advantage of using the DataSource controls when caching is that the DataSource controls can reload data automatically when the data is updated. For example, if you use a SqlDataSource control to both select and update a set of database records, the SqlDataSource control is smart enough to reload the cached data after an update.

The DataSource controls are also ...