LinqConnect for Silverlight

LinqConnect for Silverlight: High-Performance Data Access for Rich Internet Applications

Devart LinqConnect is a fast, lightweight Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) solution designed to overcome the severe data-access restrictions inherent to the legacy Microsoft Silverlight platform. Originally, Silverlight applications ran inside a sandboxed web-browser environment, meaning they lacked direct access to database servers and forced developers to rely on complex web services (like WCF or ASMX) to move data.

The LinqConnect Silverlight Edition changed this paradigm by embedding high-performance database engines and providers directly into the Silverlight client runtime. This enabled developers to build robust, occasionally connected applications with full LINQ to SQL compatibility. The Silverlight Data Access Dilemma

Standard Silverlight applications operate on a strictly reduced subset of .NET assemblies to ensure quick browser loading times. This architecture results in major data limitations:

No Native ADO.NET: Silverlight does not provide built-in ADO.NET data access classes.

Iniefficient Local Storage: Storing client-side data is typically restricted to isolated storage using XML files, which is highly inefficient for large data sets.

No Direct Server Connections: Apps cannot communicate straight with enterprise database servers without an intermediary service tier. Key Features of LinqConnect for Silverlight

The LinqConnect for Silverlight Marketplace Extension bypasses these roadblocks by offering desktop-grade ORM capabilities directly to the web client plugin. 1. True Direct Database Connectivity

Unlike the standard framework, LinqConnect comes bundled with optimized database providers. This allows Silverlight applications to establish direct TCP/IP connections to major database servers—including Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL—without needing a middle-tier application server. 2. Embedded Database Client Engine

For applications operating in an out-of-browser or occasionally connected environment, LinqConnect supports local data storage. Instead of slow XML structures, developers can utilize an embedded database engine on the client side, allowing complex relational data management locally on the user’s machine. 3. Seamless LINQ to SQL Compatibility

Developers already familiar with Microsoft’s LINQ to SQL can transition instantly. LinqConnect replicates the exact LINQ to SQL interface, using identical class structures and execution logic. It brings compile-time query checking, type safety, and IntelliSense directly into the Silverlight environment. 4. Advanced Visual Modeling

Through Devart’s bundled Entity Developer tool, teams can avoid tedious manual XML mapping. The tool supports three distinct development workflows:

Database-First: Reverse-engineer an existing database schema into clean C# or VB.NET classes.

Model-First: Design your visual entity graph from scratch and automatically generate the database schema.

Code-First: Write standard POCO classes and let the ORM handle database synchronization seamlessly.

+————————————————————-+ | Entity Developer GUI | +————————————————————-+ | _____________________|_____________________ | | | [Code-First] [Model-First] [Database-First] Write POCOs Draw Diagrams Reverse-Engineer | | | +————————+————————+ | v [LinqConnect Runtime Engine] | _____________________|_____________________ | | | [Local Cache] [Direct Network] [Performance Tools] Embedded DB Engine Oracle/MySQL/Postgres dbMonitor Logging Performance and Optimization Tools

Managing data efficiently over a web plugin requires massive performance considerations. LinqConnect incorporates enterprise-grade optimizations to reduce overhead:

Batch Updates: It groups multiple INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE commands into a single SQL block, drastically minimizing round-trips over the network.

Recursive Eager Loading: Developers can fine-tune lazy and eager data fetching across multiple relational levels, stopping the common “N+1 query problem” before it impacts the UI.

dbMonitor Integration: It supports real-time query logging via the Devart dbMonitor tool, which lets you monitor, trace, and optimize every SQL statement sent by the Silverlight runtime. Summary of Platform Advantages