Choose between ASP MVC, Silverlight, or both?

Question

Hi All

I am about to make a web application that should contain grids with huge portions of data, where speed is of the essence (filtering, sorting, editing...), and the client wants it made with Silverlight controls;

So, my question is, which path should I choose:

• make it in Silverlight from scratch, or
• combine ASP.NET MVC project with Silverlight

What benefit will the integration of MVC with Silverlight give me, if any?! Will it be fast still?

I suppose that all the data transfer from the Model->Controller->View->SilverlightControl would take loads of time...

I'll be grateful for any advice Thanks

Answer 1

Biggest thing you can do to speed up your silverlight app that I know of is to enable data compression on the WCF portal. It will be a small hit on the server, but I've seen 90%+ compression rates for my WCF responses which makes a big deal on transmission time.

Here's a good SO on how to do just that:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10006/what-is-the-easiest-way-to-add-compression-to-wcf

Answer 2

One of the main differences between Silverlight and ASP.Net MVC is that Silverlight will use the computing power on the client.

If you have many users, a slow server, but each user has a reasonably powered PC, then Silverlight should give you better performance.