5. November Microsoft unveiled the complete Microsoft Sync Framework at Tech-Ed Developer Europe 2007 in Barcelona.

• Interview with Philip Vaughn, Group Program Manager - explains how the Microsoft Sync Framework is designed
• Interview with Francois Ajenstat, Directory of Data and Storage

The reason I’m posting this is that I held a presentation about Sync Services for ADO.NET at the MSDN Live fall 2007 event in Norway. Sync Services for ADO.NET is just a component in this framework that focus on relational data. The Sync Framework has more to offer that just syncing relational tables.

Microsoft Sync Framework is a new framework and a runtime (platform) for adding sync, roaming and offline capabilities into applications. It supports peer-to-peer and client-server scenarios. It’s agnostic of data types, stores and protocols.

The Framework also ships with components for file system sync, SSE (Simple Sharing Extension) and lots of other stuff. File system sync is interesting because it’s a realistic scenario while developing applications with offline capabilities. Let’s say you developing a smart client (win form) that consumes data via web services and documents from a file-share accessible with-in an intranet. Then you can use this feature to sync documents while the client is located inside the intranet. Then the files will be accessible while the client is outside. If the user makes some changes in the files, they will be synced as well. SSE is interesting if you add the protocol to open standard formats such as RSS. Let’s say you building an enterprise application with RSS support. If you enable SSE into the RSS feeds then your clients that use Microsoft sync Framework will get out-of-the-box sync capabilities with these sources. That’s cool!

Another cool thing is the endpoints for synchronization have been loosely coupled. You can use an exchange endpoint to sync with a relation database endpoint. Let’s say you want to sync a person’s calendar from exchange into a relation database on the client.

It’s a shame that I’m not attending Tech-Ed Developers Europe this year.

Resources

• Introduction of the Microsoft Sync Framework
• Rafik Robeal has posted about this in his blog
• Andrei Maksimenka blog
• Microsoft Sync Framework Developer Center

After my presentation about Sync Services for ADO.NET at MSDN Live in Bergen I got some questions. Since the questions are relevant for everyone that participated at MSDN live I will address them here in my blog. The questions concerned both SQL Server Compact and Sync Services for ADO.NET.

What is the max size of a Sql Server Compact database?

4 GB is the max size of a SQL Server Compact database and it supports multiple connections up to 256.

Read more here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa983341(vs.80).aspx.

How do to redistribute SQL Server Compact with my application?

There are two deployment options; traditional Microsoft Windows Installer and “xcopy” deployment.

If you choose to use the Windows Installer option you choose SQL Server Compact as a prerequisite and the installer will automatically download the bits for SQL Server Compact from somewhere in the internet cloud.

If you go for the xcopy option, you have to add the SQL Server Compact dlls as a part of your project. You find these dlls under C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\.

Read more here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa983326(VS.80).aspx.

Is Sync Services for ADO.NET shipped with the next version of .NET Compact Framework?

Sync Services for ADO.NET is not supported for .NET Compact Framework in VS2008 Beta 2. I think Microsoft will ship this feature for .NET CF in a later stage.

There are several threads on the Sync Services forum about this topic.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1475649&SiteID=1

Yesterday at MSDN Live in Bergen I got a really good question after my presentation. The question was asked by a Master class student that working on a master thesis about occasionally connected clients. He asked me how he could learn to use Sync Services for ADO.NET and Sql Server Compact. My presentation gives an overview of the technologies, but if you want to dive deeper you have to dig the web for more information. Since I’ve already dug the web for information about this technologies I will post the links If found useful here. This will give you a good starting point to learn more about these technologies. I recommend you to start with Rafik Robeals “Take data offline” article on CodeProject and then start to watch the webcast if linked to.

Articles

• http://www.codeproject.com/smartclient/takedataoffline.asp
  Rafik Robeal is a member of the Sync Services for ADO.NET team in Redmond and he has published an article on CodeProject to give developers an introduction to Sync Services for ADO.NET. This article is a very good start if you want to learn about Sync Services for ADO.NET
• Visual Studio Magazine
  Update Local Data Caches with Sync Services for ADO.NET
• Visual Studio Magazine
  Lighten Up Your Local Databases
• http://www.syncguru.com/Projects.aspx
  A Sync Services for ADO.NET demo series written by Rafik Robeal
  

Blogs

• http://blogs.msdn.com/stevelasker/
  Steve Lasker is the program manager of the UI Frameworks Client team
• http://blogs.msdn.com/synchronizer/default.aspx / http://www.syncguru.com
  Rafik Robeals developer in the SQL Server Replication & Synchronization team. He is currently working on Sql Server merge functionality and Sync Services for ADO.NET
• http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlservercompact/
  SQL Server Compact team blog

Webcasts

• http://shrinkster.com/sel
  Offline Data Synchronization and Caching for Smart Clients part 1
• http://shrinkster.com/sem
  Offline Data Synchronization and Caching for Smart Clients part 2
• http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=293600
  Steve Lasker demonstrates the Sync Designer in VS2008. He show you how to cache data locally on the client using SQL Server Compact and Sync Services for ADO.NET
• http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=294031
  Steve Lasker demonstrates how to use Sync Services for ADO.NET with Windows Communication Foundation
  

Others

• http://del.icio.us/goeran.hansen/sync-services
  My delicious bookmarks on “Sync Services for ADO.NET and Sql Server Compact” resources
• http://shrinkster.com/seq
  Sync Services for ADO.NET forum
• http://shrinkster.com/sep
  SQL Server Compact forum
• http://shrinkster.com/seo
  Smart Client Architecture and Design Guide
• Q&A on OCS and Sync Services for ADO.NET
  QA for Ocasionally Connected Clients and Sync Services for ADO.NET

Happy coding! If you have some additional resources, feel free to drop me a comment.