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.
Target Audience:
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.
Pre-requisites:
Before attending this course, students must have:
An understanding of the problem-solving techniques that apply to software development, including the principles of software development
A basic understanding of scripting techniques and some hands-on experience writing scripts
A general understanding of the purpose, function, and features of the .NET Framework
Experience using Visual Studio 2008 in a variety of task areas
Experience in object oriented design and development
Experience in N-Tier application design and development
Data access experience in Windows client application development
Data access experience in Web application development
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.
Module 1: Architecture and Data Access Technologies
This module describes the commonly used data access technologies and scenarios in which you are likely to use them.
Lessons
Data Access Technologies
Data Access Scenarios
Lab : Analyzing Data Access Scenarios
Identifying Data Access Technologies
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe the key data access technologies available to .NET Framework developers.
Assign appropriate data access technologies to common data access scenarios.
Module 2: Building Entity Data Models
This module introduces the concepts of data modeling, and in particular, Entity Data Models (EDMs). It explains how you can use EDMs to decouple the conceptual data structure in your applications from the logical data structure in the data store.
Lessons
Introduction to Entity Data Models
Modifying the Entity Data Model
Customizing the Entity Data Model
Lab : Using Entity Data Models
Generating an EDM from the AdventureWorks Database
Adding Entities and Associations
Using the Generate Database Wizard
Mapping Entities to Multiple Tables
Implementing an Inheritance Hierarchy
Using Stored Procedures
Creating a Complex Type
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe and create an Entity Data Model.
Modify an Entity Data Model by using the Entity Designer.
Customize a model to meet their business requirements.
Module 3: Querying Entity Data
This module explains how to query an entity data model by using common methods such as LINQ to Entities, Entity SQL, and the classes in the EntityClient namespace.
Lessons
Retrieving Data by Using LINQ to Entities
Retrieving Data by Using Entity SQL
Retrieving Data by Using EntityClient Provider
Retrieving Data by Using Stored Procedures
Unit Testing Your Data Access Code
Lab : Querying Entity Data
Retrieving All Contact Entities
Retrieving Contact Entities by Using a Filter
Retrieving RewardsClaimed Entities
Querying the Rewards Family of Entities
Executing a Stored Procedure
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Retrieve data by using LINQ to Entities.
Retrieve data by using the Entity SQL language.
Retrieve data by using the EntityClient Provider.
Retrieve data by using stored procedures in the entity model.
Create unit tests for their data access code.
Module 4: Creating, Updating, and Deleting Entity Data
This module introduces you to the ways that the Entity Framework enables you to modify the data in your database. You apply changes to the entities managed by the ObjectContext class. The ObjectContext class is responsible for tracking all changes to entities and then persisting these changes to the database on request.
Lessons
Understanding Change Tracking in the Entity Framework
Modifying Data in an Entity Data Model
Lab : Creating, Updating, and Deleting Entity Data
Maintaining Contact and Reward Data
Maintaining RewardsClaim Data
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe how the Entity Framework implements change tracking.
Describe how to modify data in the entity model, and persist the changes to the database.
Module 5: Handling Multi-User Scenarios by Using Object Services
This module introduces the concurrency model that the Entity Framework uses to address the issues faced by applications that must support multiple users who access the same data simultaneously. It also describes how the Entity Framework can make use of transactions to ensure data integrity.
Lessons
Handling Concurrency in the Entity Framework
Transactional Support in the Entity Framework
Lab : Handling Multi-User Scenarios by Using Object Services
Handling Concurrency of Rewards Claimed Data
Updating the RewardsClaimed and ArchivedRewardsClaimed Information by Using a Transaction
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe the optimistic concurrency model that the Entity Framework uses.
Manage transactions in applications that use the Entity Framework.
Module 6: Building Optimized Solutions by Using Object Services
This module explains best practices for designing and building a scalable, optimized data access layer by using Object Services. The module introduces several techniques that can be used to optimize the performance of queries that execute against the conceptual model.
Lessons
The Stages of Query Execution
Change Tracking and Object Materialization
Using Compiled Queries
Using Design-Time Generated Entity Framework Views
Monitoring Performance
Performing Asynchronous Data Modifications
Lab : Building Optimized Solutions by Using Object Services
Improving the Performance of Query Operations
Improving the Performance of Update Operations
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Explain how the Entity Framework executes queries.
Understand the impact of tracking and object materialization on query performance.
Describe how to use compiled queries.
Describe how to use design-time generated views.
Describe how to monitor query performance.
Describe how to perform asynchronous data modifications.
Module 7: Customizing Entities and Building Custom Entity Classes
This module describes how to customize and extend entities with your own business logic.
Lessons
Overriding Generated Classes
Using Templates to Customize Entities
Creating and Using Custom Entity Classes
Lab : Customizing Entities and Building Custom Entity Classes
Using a Template to Add Custom Functionality to Entity Classes
Creating Custom Entity Classes
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Use partial classes and methods to add business logic to generated code.
Create and use templates to customize code generation.
Modify existing business classes to take advantage of entity functionality.
Module 8: Using POCO Classes with the Entity Framework
This module introduces the ways in which you can define custom entity classes in your Entity Framework application. By default, Microsoft Visual Studio generates a set of entity classes for you from the Entity Data Model (EDM). Instead of these generated classes, you may want to use an existing set of "plain old" CLR objects (POCO) business classes in your application You can also extend the generated entity classes to add custom business functionality to your entity objects.
Lessons
Requirements for POCO Classes
POCO Classes and Lazy Loading
POCO Classes and Change Tracking
Extending Entity Types
Lab : Using POCO Classes with the Entity Framework
Using POCO Classes
Extending Your POCO Classes
After completing this module, students will be able to:
List the requirements that their POCO classes must meet.
Create POCO entities that support automatic lazy loading.
Create POCO entities that support automatic change tracking.
Describe the options for using interfaces and inheritance to create custom entity objects.
Module 9: Building an N-Tier Solution by Using the Entity Framework
This module explains how to address the architectural issues that can arise when building an N-Tier enterprise application by using the Entity Framework.
Lessons
Designing an N-Tier Solution
Defining Operations and Implementing Data Transport Structures
Protecting Data and Operations
Lab : Building an N-Tier Solution by Using the Entity Framework
Creating the Contacts and Orders Data Access Tier
Protecting Data Access Operations
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe the issues and strategies that are relevant to building n-tier applications.
Understand the key components that they must create in order to implement an n-tier application.
Describe how to protect operations and data in an n-tier application.
Module 10: Handling Updates in an N-Tier Solution by Using the Entity Framework
This module describes how you can handle data modifications in an n-tier solution. The module describes the different strategies for handling modifications that you should use for the different alternative formats for transporting data between tiers: data transfer objects (DTOs), self-tracking entities (STEs), and simple entities (SEs). The module also describes how to manage the exceptions that can occur during the data modification process.
Lessons
Tracking Entities and Persisting Changes
Managing Exceptions in an N-Tier Solution
Lab : Handling Updates in an N-Tier Solution by Using the Entity Framework
Handling Updates in the Data Access Tier
Detecting and Handling Order Conflicts
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe strategies that they can adopt for tracking changes in the client application, and persisting those changes in the database.
Describe how to trap and handle update and concurrency exceptions in the an n-tier solution.
Module 11: Building Occasionally Connected Solutions
This module describes how to access offline or occasionally connected data in client applications.
Lessons
Offline Data Caching by Using XML
Using the Sync Framework
Lab : Building Occasionally Connected Solutions
Modifying the Orders Application to Use Offline XML Data
Modifying the Orders Application to Synchronize Locally Cached Data
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Cache data in local XML files by using LINQ to XML.
Implement an occasionally connected application by using the Microsoft Sync Framework.
Module 12: Querying Data by Using WCF Data Services
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Data Services enable you to create highly flexible data services that can be used to provide access to data across the Internet or a corporate network. You can access these services by using REST-style URIs, and they can be easily consumed by a wide variety of applications. As WCF Data Services are build on top of standard Internet protocols such as HTTP and the Atom Publishing Protocol, they are an ideal choice for delivering data to AJAX applications and Rich Interactive Applications built using technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight.
Lessons
Introduction to WCF Data Services
Creating a WCF Data Service
Consuming a WCF Data Service
Protecting Data and Operations in a WCF Data Service
Lab : Creating and Using WCF Data Services
Exposing Order Data as a WCF Data Service
Consuming a WCF Data Service
Restricting Access to Data Exposed by a WCF Data Service
Implementing a Business Operation in a WCF Data Service
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Describe the purpose and features of WCF Data Services.
Expose data by using a WCF Data Service.
Implement a client application that can consume a WCF Data Service.
Grant and restrict access to resources exposed by a WCF Data Service.
Module 13: Updating Data by Using WCF Data Services
This module describes how to use WCF Data Services to create, update, and delete data. WCF Data Services use standard internet protocols such as HTTP and the Atom Publishing Protocol to enable update access to data across the Internet or a corporate network.
Lessons
Creating, Updating, and Deleting Data in a WCF Data Service
Preventing Unauthorized Updates and Improving Performance
Using WCF Data Services with Nonrelational Data
Lab : Updating Data by Using WCF Data Services
Updating Entities by Using a WCF Data Service
Creating and Deleting Entities by Using a WCF Data Service
Restricting Create, Update, and Delete Requests
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Create, update, and delete entities by using a WCF Data Service.
Control access to data modification functionality, and improve performance by batching commands together.
Use WCF Data Services to access and modify nonrelational data.
Module 14: Using ADO.NET
ADO.NET is a highly flexible framework for building applications that require access to data held in a data source. This module introduces ADO.NET and explains how you can use it to develop scalable, high-performance, data-driven applications.
Lessons
Retrieving and Modifying Data by Using ADO.NET Commands
Retrieving and Modifying Data by Using DataSets
Managing Transactions and Concurrency in Multiuser Scenarios
Lab : Using ADO.NET
Using ADO.NET to Retrieve Read-Only Information Quickly and Perform Simple Data Modifications
Developing the Product List Web Application
Enabling Data Modifications
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Retrieve and update data by using ADO.NET commands and stored procedures.
Retrieve and update data by using DataSet objects.
Implement transactions and handle concurrency exceptions.
Module 15: Using LINQ to SQL
ADO.NET provides a mechanism that enables you to build applications that can query and maintain data that is held in a variety of sources in a database-agnostic manner. However, building applications by using ADO.NET requires that you are familiar with the Structured Query Language (SQL) language and features of the database management system that you are connecting to. Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) to SQL provides a higher-level abstraction for managing data that is held in a Microsoft SQL Server database, and is an ideal stepping stone for migrating ADO.NET applications toward the ADO.NET Entity Framework. This module introduces LINQ to SQL and explains how you can use it to abstract the low-level details of ADO.NET queries by developing against a logical data model.
Lessons
Implementing a Logical Data Model by Using LINQ to SQL
Managing Performance and Handling Concurrency
Lab : Using LINQ to SQL
Using LINQ to SQL to Build a Data Access Layer
Updating a Database by Using a Stored Procedure
Building a Custom Entity Class
After completing this module, students will be able to:
Design a logical data model by using LINQ to SQL.
Manage performance by using LINQ to SQL, and handle concurrency.
