Summary

This chapter provided several guidelines for building a flexible, easily configurable and instrumented site. First of all, we discussed the data access layer, which will be built using the provider model design pattern to support any type of data store (but we'll only be implementing a DAL for SQL Server). Next we covered a business logic layer built on the top of the DAL, which exposes the data in an object-oriented way, with the required validation logic, transaction management, event logging, and caching. Finally, we examined the User Interface presentation layer, which takes advantage of the new GridView, DetailsView, and FormView controls, and the companion ObjectDataSource, to quickly generate complex and feature-rich data-enabled UI controls. In the "Solution" section, we developed base class functionality that builds upon the built-in services of the new version of the framework. You should be very excited about all the new features and controls presented in this chapter, as they greatly reduce the time needed to build core services such as transaction management and exception handling, and enable you to focus on solving problems specific to your particular application requirements.

You now have a good foundation to start building the site upon! In the next chapter you'll discover the new ASP.NET 2.0's Membership system to manage user's account subscriptions and profiles, and will build a complete administration area for managing users, profiles, preferences, roles, and security settings.