Case Scenario Answers

Chapter 1: Selecting a Data Access Strategy

 

You are a database developer for a large bank that is currently upgrading several classic ASP applications to the .NET Framework. The new applications will access a SQL Server that was recently upgraded from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. This is the only data source that the application needs to access. The original applications used Visual Basic script to access business logic stored in DLLs built with Visual Basic 6.0.

The development manager has asked you to review the first application to be upgraded and make recommendations for what technologies the new application will utilize. The application is a Web application used by customers to access account information. He tells you that the first upgrade will be a test run for the remaining upgrades, and he would like to see it done as quickly as possible. What recommendations do you make to the manager regarding data access?

Answers

 

Because the new application will only need to access data from a SQL Server database and you are targeting the .NET Framework, you can use the ADO.NET data provider. It is unlikely you will need to take advantage of the newer features available with SQL Server, given the application is being converted from an older application and given your time constraints. For that reason, it is not necessary to consider SNAC as a data provider. You can also use TCP/IP as the network protocol to provide the fastest access to the data across the Internet.

You can also suggest that they use Visual Basic .NET as the language because the development team is already accustomed to using prior versions of Visual Basic. This should help to speed the conversion time.