Sunday, January 24, 2010

Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010



Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010 is all about connecting to external data. BCS enhances the SharePoint platform’s capabilities with out-of-box features, services and tools that streamline development of solutions with deep integration of external data and services. BCS builds upon its BDC predecessor in the key areas of presentation, connectivity, tooling and lifecycle management. For example, in SharePoint 2010 it’s easy to create an external content type with SharePoint Designer, create an external list in SharePoint’s Web user interface and take the list offline into Outlook as a set of contacts. Also, you can make updates to contacts in Outlook that will cause the data in the external system to update as well.

BCS Architecture
BDC Metadata Store – The BDC Metadata Store provides storage for a collection of external content types, each of which describes how to connect to the external store. The Metadata Store acts as part of the services layer. External content types are a fundamental building block of BCS.

BDC Server Runtime – The BDC Server Runtime understands how to reach into the back-end store and connect to data based on the external content types defined within the content type store. It’s important to note the new usage of the acronym BDC to refer to the set of services that provides connectivity that is a component of BCS.

Security – BCS provides integration with the Secure Store Service (SSS), as well as enabling your own security model.

Solution Packaging – Solutions built with BCS can be packaged as a Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) package to be delivered to a rich client, including SharePoint Workspace, Outlook and Word. BCS also exposes APIs to extend solution packaging to target additional clients.

Out of Box UI – BCS carries forward the ability to display external data through a Web Part UI and provides deeper integration through the addition of external lists.

BDC Client Runtime – A symmetrical runtime is provided for client and server, enabling you to take solutions offline with a client-side cache and to connect and push changes back to the server in a consistent manner. Use of the BDC Client Runtime enables offline operations, interacting with the external data cache.

Design Tools – SharePoint Designer provides a wealth of out-of-box functionality for creating BCS solutions, including the ability to define external content types and external lists, and to define InfoPath forms to surface the data to create simple solutions. Visual Studio provides the ability for the professional developer to extend those capabilities to create advanced solutions while leveraging the existing framework.

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