As Jeff Teper mentioned in the Sharepoint conference 2009 Keynote presentation: “Sharepoint 2010 BCS might be the biggest – ‘Wow, how did you do that?’ feature in 2010”. So What exactly are the 2010 BCS new features bring to us? Here is a high level overview on Sharepoint 2010 BCS (Business Connectivity Service).
– More Connectivity Options: The external systems can be Databases, Web/WCF services, .NET assemblies, and Custom data sources. A company can build their RESTful data services around their EDM(enterprise data model) and BCS can be one of many other ways to consume this service. RESTful service can be in the cloud as well, which brings tons of information avaiable to BCS.
– A standard Sharpoint Foundation 2010 feature — now BCS is a Windows Sharepoint Services 4.0 feature, it is “free”, not bound with Sharepoint server any more.
– Offline Access to External Data: BCS provides cache and offline work features, it supports cache-based operations. With Outlook 2010 and Workspace 2010, you can manipulate external data offline or if the server connectivity is slow, intermittent, or unavailable, which makes BCS works in a more Stable condition. When the system is back online, you can synch the data back into the external system.
– Richer Functions: Write-Back to External Systems: This is big! Now you can Create, Read, Update, Delete, and Query (CRUDQ) the external system from an Office application or a SharePoint site if the external system support those functions. Your 2010 BDC list(external list) looks/behaves like a regular sharepoint list on Sharepoint UI.
— Familiar UIs on External Data: External content types provide SharePoint lists, Web Parts, profile pages, and Office Types like Outlook Contacts, Tasks, Calendars, Word, and SharePoint Workspace 2010 lists, with searching and working offline capabilities to external data and services. Ecerything looks as it was, while the data is not stored inside the Sharepoint or office tools.
— Support Batch and Bulk Operation: In SharePoint 2007, BDC supported only single item operations, such as search. BDC now provides batch and bulk operation support reading multiple items in a single call, thus reducing round trips to the backend dramatically. So multiple actions can be integrated into one call back in Business logic programming with external data at UI level.
— Symmetrical Server and Client Runtimes: In Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, BDC is included in both client and server to provide symmetrical client/server scenarios, which enables external data integration scenarios on Office client applications, such as Outlook 2010 and Workspace 2010. BDC supports two data paths from client to external system: one is that Client connects directly to external system (online connection mode); another is that BDC client fetches data from the local cache (cached connection mode).
– Read Blobs: BDC now supports reading binary large object (BLOB) data. This is useful for streaming BLOBs of data from the external system, you now can work with movie/video files using BCS.
— Read and Write-Back of Complex Types: BDC now supports dot notation in field names and therefore enables you to read and write complex types. This helps working with relational external DB from internal Sharepoint codes/BDC modles.
— Life Cycle Management: You can use SPD 2010 to create composite solutions that meet external unit needs, without writing code. You can use Visual Studio to create or extend solutions with workflows and data that spans structured line-of-external (LOB) systems, unstructured SharePoint applications or Office applications, and Web 2.0 services. And packing and deployment are much easier than ever.
— Enhanced API Set and Extensibility: Developers can use the BDC Runtime object model to write generic applications by using APIs as building blocks. With the .NET Assembly Connector, Custom Connector, and pluggable Secure Store Provider, it provides a rich extensibility mechanism for software developers.
In general, with much richer features BCS provides to users, you can combine BCS with Enterprise Content type, user profiles, workflow, infopath forms and search services to enhance Sharpoint capabilities working with your LOB.
MSDN posted a very nice article to touch base of the BCS new features with some very useful samples. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee819133.aspx
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