Synchronizing two Lightswitch applications

Question

As my title says, I need to figure out how to sinchronize two of my Microsoft Lightswitch applications between eachother. Also, what is important is that one app is on web and other one is created for desktop.

So, what I need is to pull down database entries from web server and place it into database which is used by desktop PC.

Let me know if you need some more informations.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 05 '13 at 11:44

As Yann said, it's not a built in feature out-of-the-box, but it should be possible to do it in Lightswitch in code.

You would need to manually write the code to do the actual syncing (by connecting to your database on the web server and syncing the data using SQL queries) but as this can't be done in the client (Silverlight doesn't allow SQL classes to be used) you can use the 'Command Table' pattern (http://blog.pragmaswitch.com/?p=332).

Basically, you create a new table (for example, SyncRequests) and add a record to it from the client, then you can use server code (via the SyncRequests_Inserted event) to execute your sync code.

The actual code for syncing the databases will depend on what exactly you want to do (overwrite all data in local DB from web DB, merge records, only add new, etc.) and on your DB structure in general.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 21 '13 at 12:41

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You could just point your desktop application to the database on the web server during the Publish Wizard. Or are they totally different databases, with totally different tables?

answered Feb 21 '13 at 12:41

Yann Duran

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They have same tables, same name also. – Hoh Feb 22 '13 at 09:29
Then, as I suggested, change the connection string during the Publish Wizard to point to the database on the web server. I haven't tried this myself, but it *should* work. – Yann Duran Feb 22 '13 at 13:08
Thank for that advice, BUT. I want to have local database on master PC, and shareble database on web server. And what my client want is to sync two databases once or twice per month to get all info from web server into their local database. – Hoh Feb 22 '13 at 13:35
Syncing databases is not able to be done out-of-the-box with LightSwitch. You'll have to use some other technology to do the actual syncing of the databases. – Yann Duran Feb 24 '13 at 13:08

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 08 '14 at 02:59

There are two ways:

First way - replication

You can change the database to use MSSQL.
Enable replication on the database. The database will synchronise between two databases.

Second way - manual synchronisation

Both databases are independent from each other.
Every now and then, you take a backup from the server or backup from Desktop.
Run a Database comparison App on both databases.
Create a script to synchronise the client database's data.
Create a script to synchronise the server's database metadata.
Run the update script to update the sever's metadata.
Run the update script to update the client's data.

Synchronizing two Lightswitch applications

3 Answers3