Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Unleashed

Build Occasionally Connected Applications

Many applications written these days require access to data both on- and offline. For example, you might need report data or customer service records when traveling or at a customer site. You cannot always rely on being connected. Developers have been dealing with this issue in various ways. Visual Studio provides data synchronization services to provide a common, easy solution to this difficult problem.

Data synchronization allows you to sync and cache data between a central database and a user’s client system. The cache is a version of SQL Server Compact Edition (CE). Microsoft takes advantage of these services in Windows 7, Vista, Office, and even its Zune software. You, too, can take advantage of ...