I am going to make an web application where a lot of users are going to input data into a SQL Server with ASP.NET 3.5. There will be no heavy load of data sent to the client as data will be set to pagesized from the database. Stored procedures are used.
I am asking you guys with experience in web 2.0 aka AJAX, jQuery and other client technologies ( no postbacks ) about performance and responsive matter. I have also looked into ASP.NET MVC, but most examples shows either in LINQ to SQL or with the Entity Framework. LINQ to SQL seems to perform slower than the ordinary ADO.NET. I prefer to load data to objects.
Insert and edit forms are to be opened on the same page with javascript, either through modal pop-up or in an area reserved for it.
Preferably a solution with minimal coding.
What do you suggest?
Reading your post I see the following requirements/desires...
System will be under decent to heavy load, minimal coding, Stored Procedures, load data to objects.
Sounds like an ORM will be a great solution. It may perform slower than raw ADO.net calls BUT you will greatly minimize coding and you can use Stored Procedures in L2S and Entity Framework and they both can work well under stress. For example, this site uses L2S. :)
The use of the ORM should also reduce your development time since you won't have to write all of the database access code.
You can still load data to objects by keeping the L2S or Entity Framework as a layer in your application that just does the raw DB access. You then create another layer that calls this to populate your objects with the data but you can control how to design those objects and how they work. In fact this is a recommended approach. Here's a link that shows how you can create a tiered approach. :)
http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin/archive/2008/02/28/building-an-n-layer-asp-net-application-with-linq-lambdas-and-stored-procedures.aspx
As for your client technology with MVC, AJAX, jQuery, etc.... they are fine choices and with MVC you have complete control over the HTML and no viewstate to worry about as compared to Web Forms.
There's a lot here to answer and not everything has a definitive you should do XXX and not XXX. Let me try to break it down.
ASP.MVC vs WebForms (standard ASP.NET)
You can make a decent data entry application using either platform. Webforms has been around longer and definitely has more coverage through tutorials, but ASP.NET MVC is just as capable. MVC is going to be leaner and meaner, which is good if you are going for pure responsiveness, but it's possible to do that with Webforms too, it just takes more work (turning off ViewState, SessionState, Minimizing postbacks etc) and removes some of the benefits of Webforms.
Data Access
If you have already decided on using stored procedures as your primary data access method, you aren't going to get much of anything from any ORM (Linq2Sql, Linq2Entities, NHibernate, Subsonic, etc). If you really want to leverage the benefits of ORM you will have to give up stored procedures for your primary data interface.
However, Linq2Sql is considered plenty fast. Linq2Entities is a bit slower, but that will probably improve. NHibernate and Subsonic are slower still. It's not very useful to compare any of them to ADO.NET since they do very different things (that happen to revolve around talking to a database). But all of that is pretty meaningless as the slowest part of any system is going to be sending data across the internet back and forth to the user.
Have you checked out Asp.net Dynamic Data Project that makes it rather quick from start to a working app. You would then tweak those things that you need to change. But you will maybe have to get to know some new technologies to get it done. Maybe Sps won't be in your end solution.
Definitely minimal coding involved.
Related
I have ASP.NET project and I want to know what is better to use.
ODBC connection and with Server Explorer (drag and drop make DataSet and modify it) or do some DBconnect class with connection to database, queries and use it for GridView?
When I use server explorer, I don't have good feeling because all logic is on aspx page and I do not separate from the application layer logic layer.
It will be a lagre application, databese(PostreSQL) have 18 tables and difficult constraints and application have to generate some documents etc. .
"Better" depends entirely on your situation. Is the purpose to get something done as quickly as possible for internal users at your company, or is this going to be a commercial site that will need to be highly extensible and needs to be as easy as possible to maintain? Will you need to integrate with other platforms possibly built using other languages at some point? The answers to all of these questions should affect your decision.
If you're looking to separate your project into distinct layers, then I would recommend an ORM such as NHibernate or Entity Framework (there are other commercially available ORM products out there, but these are the ones I'm familiar with and which you can easily get help with on this site).
Create a DataSource with LINQ to Entity. It let you the liberty of LINQ with the peace of mind of when you change something il will break your build so you will be able to debug more efficiently.
Well if you have total flexibility, I would recommend using C# ASP.NET 4 with MVC3 razor for the UI and application code. Use Entity Framework 4.1 code first for the data access layer.
This way you will always work with real objects that you create, and with List<realtype> instead of the total mess that exists with datasets.
I have been asking my self this question from the time i started workin in the software development field,
What is the best way to access data?
Which gives the best performance?
Which is the best for maintainability?
There are lots of solutions to deal with database in the Asp.Net web app,
Entity framework 4.0
Classes generator using ADO.Net such as Code Author ( i liked the way it works and the way it accesses the database using the data access block in Microsoft Enterprise Library).
i will start a new project tomorrow,and i don't know which approach is better??Any idea?
I'm using Castle Active Record for data access in our new ASP.NET project. It's a great and easy tool that is built upon NHibernate. NHibernate itself is a great ORM for .Net.
There is no "best". There is only preference. Some like MVC, some like WebForms, some like Dynamic Data. Entity Framework works nicely, as does LINQ to SQL(although I hear that one is being deprecated, but I'm fuzzy on that.) All work well.
Personally, I like WebForms, but if I want a quick and dirty CRUD app, I always opt for Dynamic Data, and if I need additional functionality mixed in, I can throw in some standard WebForm aspx pages.
Performance wise, I don't know that there's inherently a big difference. All use the same code under the hood. All are based on ADO.NET. Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL seem to have additional overhead compared to the old-fashioned WebForms, but proper DB design and planning is probably of greater importance.
Can anyone tell me what the future is for asp.net dynamic data? It seems like it is being put aside in favor of MVC. Is it worth investing time in dynamic data applications?
Without branding, Dynamic Data applications can be created in minutes. It for your RAD webform developer who doesn't care about the UI layer. This would work well for just about intranet scenario. However, the MVC lineage is geared toward very different scenarios.
The Asp.net dynamic data entities web application compounds several layers into one. I know that Object Relational Mapping (ORM) is supposedly the future but when layers are not exposed, it can cause serious optimisation issues as well as making testing almost impossible. This is the case with both the ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF) model and the LINQ to SQL model. These are the only out of the box model providers availabe to Asp.net dynamic data entities web application. These do not work well, if at all with Microsoft Access.
However, when there is little time to architect a proper solution, Microsoft are ingenious when it comes to dirty ways to write applications. The dynamic data entities web is one such technology to add to their bow. You might be prepared to architect a Sql Server database roughly because you anticipate having to make changes to it later. If you want a quick know around website that you want to rip out later when you have more time Asp.net dynamic data entities web applications are for you? EF goes as far as foreign keys to definite relationships.
Looks like it will die on the vine to me.
Reference to my work before, asp.net dynamic data help me build a "quick + easy" data edit grid to user. I can customize the grid, configure to display what data to users.
But actually, aims of asp.net dynamic data is not purpose to do this.
On ASP.NET MVC 3.0, webgrid can generate by strong-type model with List or EF4.0 edmx ,it can do similar with asp.net dynamic data, so in my opinion, asp.net dynamic data has no future.
I am in the early stages of planning a conversion of a large classic ASP database application to ASP.Net and I'm having trouble picking out which data access method to use. I have played around with Linq To SQL, Dynamic Data, strongly typed datasets, Enterprise Library (Data Access Application Blocks), and a tiny bit with Entity Framework, but none of them have jumped out to me as "the one". There are just too many choices - my head is swimming, help me choose!
Perhaps it would help to give some background on the application that I am converting along with the priorities...
The back end is Microsoft SQL Server (2005 or later) and we are committed to that, so I don't need to worry about ever supporting a different database platform.
The database is very mature and contains a great deal of the business logic. It is highly normalized and makes extensive use of stored procedures, triggers, and views. I would rather not reinvent two wheels at the same time, so I'd like to make as few changes to the database as possible. So, I need to choose a data access method that is flexible enough to let me work around any quirks in the database.
The application has many data entry forms and extensive searching and reporting capabilities (reports are another beast which I will tackle later).
The application needs to be flexible enough to deal with minor changes to the database structure. The application (and database) may be installed at different sites where minor custom modifications are made to the database. Ideally the application could identify the database extensions and react appropriately. In other words, if I need to store an O/R mapping in the application, I need to be able to swap that out (or refresh it easily) when installing the application and database at a new site.
Rapid application development is critical. Since the database is already done and the user interface is going to closely match the existing application, I'm hoping to find something where we can crank this out fairly quickly. I am willing to sacrifice not using the absolute latest and greatest technology if it will save time in development. In other words, if there is a steep learning curve to using something like Entity Framework, I'm fine with going something like strongly typed Datasets and a custom DAL if it will speed up the process.
I am a total newbie to ASP.Net but am intimately familiar with Classic ASP, T-SQL and the old ADO (e.g. disconnected recordsets). If any of the data access methods is better suited for someone coming from my background, I might lean in that direction.
Thanks for any advice that you can offer!
Look at all three articles in this series:
High Performance Data Access Layer Architecture Part 1
Great advice.
You may want to look at decoupling the database layer from the asp layer so that you can not only give more flexbility in making the decision, but when you have to make changes to a customer's database you can just swap in a new dll without changing anything else.
By using dependency injection you can use xml to tell the framework which concrete class to use for an interface.
The advantage to doing this is that you can then go with one database approach, and if you later decide to change to another, then you can just change the dll and go on without making any changes to other layers.
Since you are more familiar with it why not just go directly to the database at the moment by making your own connections? Then you can move the rest of your code and along the way you can decide which of the myriad of technologies to use.
For a new application I am working on I am starting with LINQ to SQL for it, mainly because development will be quicker, but, later, if I decide that won't meet my needs I will just swap it out.
nHibernate might be a good fit. You can store the mapping in external configuration files which would solve your needs. Another option might be using ActiveRecord, which is based upon nHibernate.
nHibernate has a neat feature which you might find helpful. It's called a Dynamic property which is basically a name value pair collection populated by pulling the column names from the mapping file. So when you add a column at your client site, you update the mapping file and you'd be able to access the data through a collection on the object.
Is it "acceptable" to have an ASP.Net 2.0 application without the BLL (Business Logic Layer) as the following?
SQL Server Data Storage & Stored Procedures
Data Link Layer (Strongly Typed Table Adapters) connecting to Stored Procs
Presentation Layer ASPX Pages with Code behind and ObjectDataSource for connection straight to the DLL
Is a BLL always preferable, even if business logic is entirely validatable in the presentation's code behind? What are the potential drawbacks for not using a BLL?
It's acceptable as long as you understand the consequences. The main reason you'd have a BLL is to re-use that logic elsewhere throughout your application.
If you have all that validation logic in the presentation code, you're really making it difficult to re-use elsewhere within your application.
Like everything else it is environmental and depends on the use of the system. The question you need to ask your self is:
Will this be actively developed
Is this going to be used over the course of many years and expanded on
Is the expansion of the application unknown and thus infinite
Really it comes down to laziness. How much time to do you want to spend reworking the system from the UI? Because having no business layer means duplication of rules in your UI across possibility many many pages.
Then again if this is a proof of concept or short demo or class project. Take the easy way out.
Acceptable? Depends who you ask and what your requirements are. Is this app an internal one-off used by you and a few other people? Maybe this is good enough. If it's meant to be a production ready enterprise application that will grow and be maintained over the years, then you probably want to invest more effort up-front to build a maintainable app.
Separation of Concerns is a key design technique for building maintainable apps. By mixing presentation, business, and data access logic all together, you can end up with a very fragile difficult to change application architecture.
It depends. If your business logic is in your click events and page loads, it is NOT acceptable.
It appears that your business logic is somewhere within the DAL (e.g., stored procedures and such), just as long as you are consistent, it's fine. As long as you are very, very sure that your clients will always be using SQL Server then this approach is not a problem.
I know a colleague who has all his business logic in stored procedures that his views are mostly thin clients to database backends: he has been immensely successful with the product that he sells. But that's only because he's very consistent with it.
If the application is a general one, then the business logic layer can be used in complete other applications too. Like, I normally use my CMS related BLL classes in other applications.