Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010 Explained

Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010 can be defined as the big brother of Business Data Catalog in SharePoint 2007. BCS is actually the upgraded version of Business Data Catalog in SharePoint 2007. The weaknesses of BDC in SharePoint 2007 are, BDC was mainly used to access the external data. Updating the extenal data was extremely difficult with BDC and what most people say is it is near to impossible.

But with BCS in SharePoint 2010, what Microsoft has does is it let you connect to any external data source which can be either external SQL Server, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Service or basically all other external data sources which supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) Service. What ODBC is, ODBC refers to a software API method to use with Database Management Systems. Main feature of ODBC is, it is independent of programming language and operational system and so it can be used to access different database systems. To connect to a other database, ODBC defines a connection. Connection is created to define a connection between a computer and a database stored on another system. The ODBC connection contains information needed to allow a computer user to access the information stored in a database that is not local to that computer.

The main key feature of BCS is, with SharePoint 2010 every SharePoint site can access and manipulate external data within SharePoint. When you retrieved data from external data source and the moment that you make changes to those data and update them, the changes will be reflected in the external data source.

Now I will describe the Business Connectivity Services Architecture in SharePoint 2010. Take a good look at the following image. I will explain what every component does in this architecture.

Things to Note

Please note that in SharePoint 2010, BDC refers to Business Data Connectivity and not Business Data Catalog in SharePoint 2007.

• BDC Metadata Store

The BDC Metadata Store provides storage for a collection of external content types, each of which describes how to connect to the external store. The Metadata Store acts as part of the services layer. External content types are a fundamental building block of BCS.

• BDC Runtime

The BDC Server Runtime understands how to reach into the back-end store and connect to data based on the external content types defined within the content type store. It’s important to note the new usage of the acronym BDC to refer to the set of services that provides connectivity that is a component of BCS.

• Security

BCS provides integration with the Secure Store Service (SSS), as well as enabling your own security model. The Secure Store Service stores credentials in database(User Name and the Password) to authorize access to shared resources. SharePoint 2010 using the Secure Store Service to store and retrieve credentials to access external data sources.

• Solution Packaging

Solutions built with BCS can be packaged as a Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) package to be delivered to a rich client, including SharePoint Workspace, Outlook and Word. BCS also exposes APIs to extend solution packaging to target additional clients.

• Out of Box UI

BCS carries forward the ability to display external data through a Web Part UI and provides deeper integration through the addition of external lists.

• BDC Client Runtime

A symmetrical runtime is provided for client and server, enabling you to take solutions offline with a client-side cache and to connect and push changes back to the server in a consistent manner. Use of the BDC Client Runtime enables offline operations, interacting with the external data cache.

• Design Tools

SharePoint Designer provides a wealth of out-of-box functionality for creating BCS solutions, including the ability to define external content types and external lists, and to define InfoPath forms to surface the data to create simple solutions. Visual Studio provides the ability for the professional developer to extend those capabilities to create advanced solutions while leveraging the existing framework. 

• Cache

client-side cache provides the ability to sync changes to and from the client-side application with the external data source.

I hope you all got a some idea about how BCS in SharePoint 2010 works. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong with anything.

Appreciate your feedback.

Happy Coding.

Regards,
Jaliya