We are beginning to develop an asp.net web application project using Telerik. Our current system uses a custom database provider (API via a DLL, very old) that is not supported by anything. However we are putting on a web front end as phase 1. Phase 2 will be to move into SQL Server. We are considering using DataAccess to create a layer on top of this so that eventually when we port our database to SQL Server, we can miminise recoding.
Can you advise the best way to proceed with this, and a good starting point/article/help/demo/example.
Thanks, Warren.
3 Answers, 1 is accepted
Thank you for choosing our components and services!
I would suggest you to consider reordering your phases, as if you start with the new web front end based an old and limited backend and API you can easily get in troubles with what is supported and what is not. Probably you will design you UI and services around those limitations which in the next phase would impose them to your SQL server, ORM and backend code. As a result after you complete the second phase your project could be less maintainable and less extensible. I would do it the other way around if possible - first proper design the database structures, the data migration if needed, then build the DataLayer, Services and UI.
Of course due to aggressive milestones this could not be possible. In such case I would try to wrap the legacy DataLayer with an abstraction that mimics the API of the ORM to be used so that later on it could be replaced more easy.
I would like also to point you to some important documents about Telerik Data Access
Fluent (code-only) mapping
Schema migration API
CRUD operations
Low level ADO API
Handling OpenAccessContext in Web Projects
Hope this helps. Should you have any further questions do not hesitate to get back to us.
Regards,
Kaloyan Nikolov
Telerik
Rank 1
Hi Kaloyan,
Thanks for that. Yeah redesigning from the bottom up isn't feasible because the legacy product is feature rich and this is a mobile version that only implements a subset of the full application.
Thanks for those links. Would it be possible to hold my hand a bit :-). Can you provide just some code as an example may be just implementing one method etc for one object (say a Person class with Surname and Given Names)? Just to make sure I am on the right track?
Thank you
I am attaching a Web Mvc sample using Telerik Data Access. It aims to demonstrate most of the aspects of working with our ORM.
In order to set it up you should restore the Database (MvcForum.bak) located in the ZIP file and modify the connection string in the web.config to point to your server and database.
I hope this sample will give you a good overview of the product and how it could be integrated in a web project.
Regards,
Kaloyan Nikolov
Telerik