Microsoft Business Connectivity Service provides Collaboration Platform between SharePoint and External Systems.And beautiful feature for External Data and
Applications in Side the SharePoint 2010.
By Using BCS In SharePoint 2010 you can Create External Content Type for External Data Source and which allows you interaction in SharePoint list and Other out of the box Features. Collaboration External data with Microsoft Office Business Application like Microsoft excel, outlook, Word, Workspace Clients. Take a great advantage of Office user experience in your external business data Like Sap and other System. BCS is a Solution for business data to give standard interface for users and single development Platform for Developer to Manage Multiple Data Source and Collaboration ADO.net,Web Service,Wcf to Create New rich SharePoint Application with integrated existing external Data .
By Using BCS In SharePoint 2010 you can Create External Content Type for External Data Source and which allows you interaction in SharePoint list and Other out of the box Features. Collaboration External data with Microsoft Office Business Application like Microsoft excel, outlook, Word, Workspace Clients. Take a great advantage of Office user experience in your external business data Like Sap and other System. BCS is a Solution for business data to give standard interface for users and single development Platform for Developer to Manage Multiple Data Source and Collaboration ADO.net,Web Service,Wcf to Create New rich SharePoint Application with integrated existing external Data .
By using Business Connectivity Service you can consolidate
communications with back end data Sources like Databases and Business Application like dynamic, Oracle,
SAP, SQL Server. its very Easy Collaborate Data between
SharePoint and Office 2010 with Others System with leverage of SharePoint 2010
Features Like Workflow ,InfoPath form and Clients Microsoft Office Application.
By using InfoPath you can design very fast CRUD Form with external content
type and list. Normally in enterprises data is
coming from various data sources and business Application. It’s really difficult for Developers to mange them for business User.Allow them to Collaborate. And also user has to experience
so many deferent User Interfaces and UX . So as developer you should bring them one single uniform user interface for there all Multiple Data source and external System for easy user experience.
If Drilling into the BCS Architecture
Reference http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee661740.aspx
If we see BCS Arch web have two type of BCS Runtime.
1 BCS Server Side Runtime
Which Deal list by using External Content Type with SSS.
2 BCS Client Runtime
Microsoft Office with Custom Plugin and out of the box functionality for List. cache for external data source which allow offline customization.
Major Component for BCS Solutions
External List
contain external data upon external content type
External Content Type
basic Matadata and scheme for to Manage CURD operation with external data-source. and Provide Object Model and map data Type with external system(Web Service,Db,LOB,Rest) and SharePoint.
Data Types Supported by External List InfoPath Forms
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621597.aspx
External Data
(Data form source like contacts from dynamic in outlook )
API Consumer
Use Secure Store Service.
To connect BCS with deferent external Systems. you need to different credentials for current user with Multiple accounts. To store all credentials for use of BCS we use SSS.
Reference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554863.aspx
Customize External List Forms Using Microsoft InfoPath
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554886.aspx
BCS Support for Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 designer
Visual Studio 2010
Example : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/gg621216(how to Create External Content type)
Visual Studio BDC Model
Model is the major Component of BCS. Model is entity(ECT) which contain data structures. abstract Methods .
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb447533.aspx
Modelling with Web Service
model will depend on the behaviours of Wcf & web service Methods with programmed on web service Side.
Every ECT should have uniquely identify an instance of that type. because without unique identifier bcs can not fine instance of entity.
External System Connectivity
You can use . Web Service and ADO as well but bcs provides out of the box connectors with biztalk and Custom Connectors API.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464398.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Designer
ECT Designer in SPD 2010 allow you to create ECTs by connecting Web Servies and and Xml, Dd with xml and code
Example : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556431.aspx
Reference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556789.aspx
Business Connectivities Service with XML
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee559369.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556805.aspx
Types of Solution