Can anyone recommend a book for building enterprise database applications in .Net?

Question

I've just returned from a course where we covered some ways to build enterprise applications (including database applications).

In short I've realised that the way that we have been building our database applications is completely wrong (I won't go into details).

Can anyone recommend a reputable book or website that shows me the "best practice" way for building enterprise, scalable database applications in .Net?

I need this not only to refer to to help me change the way that I'm doing things, but also to show my boss to backup the reasons why I think we need to change the way that we do things.

Answer 1

This is a very good free book about .NET architecture: Application Architecture Guide 2.0

Answer 2

This book on Domain Driven Design is pretty hands-on:
.NET Domain-Driven Design with C#: Problem - Design - Solution

I think the issue with your question is not just with database: I don't think people build enterprise database applications in the sense that you don't decide to build an enterprise solution around a database.
The database is a small part of the design, not the center of it.

Enterprise applications must first answer the needs of the company as a whole and as such must include lots of different technologies: databases, user interfaces (thin-clients, thick clients, web-clients), services, reporting, security, scalability etc must all be properly addressed and are more or less equally important.

There are many ways to approach these enterprise problems and many solutions.
So enterprise database applications don't seem a right way to describe a methodology for building enterprise apps.
On the other hand, something like Domain Driven Design is a general approach to these kinds of problems.
They don't concentrate on just the database aspect but on building the application as a whole.

Answer 3

I would also recommend Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler.

Answer 4

Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET by Jimmy Nilsson.

Answer 5

There are plenty of good books on High Scalability Book store. They might not be specific to .Net but the best practices apply anywhere. This is a good MSDN article Scaling Strategies for ASP.NET Applications.