Transferring Data Between Server and Client (Mobile)

Question

Scenario:

• Client (Mobile) - .Net CF 2.0, SQL CE 3.0
• Server - .Net 2.0, SQL Server 2005, Web Service
• Client and Server database schemas differ. From server - only certain columns from certain tables need to be synced. From client - everything will need to be synced once client has made changes.

Client will continually poll a web service to download and upload data. A framework will be developed to package and unpackage data, used by both client and server.

How would you develop the packaging and unpackaging? Use datasets, serialise strongly typed objects? All suggestions welcome.

Thanks

Answer 1

Is SQL Merge Replication an option? You can configure the publications on the server to filter out the columns (and rows) you need on the client.

If this not an option, the answer really depends on the data. How often does it change? How does it change? Do you get mostly inserts from the server? Or mostly updates? Are there ever deletes?

Answer 2

Hessian is great and it exists not only for c#