Sync Designer in VS2008 SP1

Rafik — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:43:00 GMT

I am sure you already know that SP1 Beta for Visual Studio 2008 is available to download. There are plenty of enhancements that I am sure the VS folks are covering all over the net with different blogs. As a sync guy, I am on the lookout for everything new in sync and SP1 has made a lot of improvement to the Sync Designer introduced for the first time with Visual Studio 2008.

The designer was revamped quite a bit and it much more developer friendly now. The biggest improvement however is the ability to tap into SQL Server 2008 Change Tracking feature. The designer gives you the ability to use Change Tracking instead of the traditional trigger based model (a.k.a. coupled tracking as tracking columns are coupled with data columns in the base table).

Under the covers, the Sync Designer uses a newer version of the SqlAdapterBuilder to generate the adapter that works against SQL Change Tracking. The new class is part of the newer beta bits of the Sync Services for ADO.NET. Developers can dynamically generate the commands be configuring the builder to run against an instance of SQL Server 2008 with Change Tracking enabled on the target table.

Guy Burstein has written a really good post on the new changes in the sync designer with nice snapshots including the one I posted here. Make sure to check it out.

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I am not actively blogging about Sync Technologies. Please see Sync Team Blog for more updated content.

Sync Designer in Orcas

Rafik — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 03:56:00 GMT

Cool stuff gets attention from everyone! This is especially true with the Sync Designer in Orcas. The Visutal Sutido team has done a great job enabling developers to put Synchronization Services API to work in their data application quickly and hassle-free. I like to think of the sync designer as my personal sync assistant. Everything that gets me started quickly is a bless. You know, we developers like to poke around and step into the code to see how things work. But before we can do that, we have to get something running first and that’s what the assistant will do for you! Nice work from the Oracs team.

You can play with the designer in the Orcas February CTP, however, there were a lot of enhancements that did not make it to public yet. Nevertheless it is a good start and the time for your feedback to start flowing in.

As usual Steve Lasker has the best demos for the sync designer. Steve posted a first part of a screencast focusing on the deisgner features and how to get started with it. I highly recommend it. I am personally waiting for his second post. In addition, he also posted several Q&A around the deisgner in his blog.

Update: Just to let you know, I left Microsoft to start a new company, Raveable Hotel Reviews. See Examples: Romantic Hotels in Myrtle Beach, Top 10 Hotels in Seattle,Kid Friendly Hotels in Miami, Best Hotels in San Francisco, Hotels with in-room jacuzzi and Best Hotels in Chicago. Your feedback is welcome on twitter.com/raveable,raveable blog.

The Synchronizer : SyncDesigner

Sync Designer in VS2008 SP1

Sync Designer in Orcas