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State of Data Access in Silverlight 4

July 8, 2010
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Url: http://wildermuth.com/2010/02/21/The_State_of_D…

Back in February I wrote an article stating my opinion about the current State of Data Access in Silverlight (then Silverlight 3 and betas of WCF RIA Services and WCF Data Services). Things have improved in some ways since then but they haven’t been fixed.  Here’s my thoughts on the current state:

The three options for data access are still the same “Web Services, WCF Data Services and WCF RIA Services”. My major issue with data access today in Silverlight persists: there is no perfect answer. There is give and take with each approach and giving good advice about the right one is difficult.  Instead of talking about the right way to do it, let’s look at a chart i’ve been coming up with to simplify it:

Silverlight Data Access Chart

(Click to enlarge)

This chart should represent the pros and cons I see with all the technologies.  Hopefully this helps you make the decision for your projects.