manual

22 www.microsoft.com/sharepoint
• Adding the Business Data Connectivity service application by using the New
button on the Manage Service Applications Web page ribbon in the Central
Administration site as illustrated earlier.
• Using Windows PowerShell.
After the application has been created, the administrator will associate the application
with a database and a service account. The application can also be partitioned for multi-
tenancy if necessary. The external data source instance specifies particular connection
and authentication information for an external data system. Essentially, an application
model describes an external data source. The model is a collection of metadata that
provides a framework for converting operations requested by SharePoint Server or a
client application into requests that are specific to a given external data source. More
specifically, the application model contains the XML descriptions of one or more
external content types.
External Content Types
An external content type represents a reusable description of an object that can be used
in a composite application, such as “Customer,” “Order,” or “Contact” (recall that these
were formerly called BDC entities). The external content type also includes the object’s
data fields; the methods to create, read, update, or delete that object; actions that users
can take on the object; and information that supports connecting to the external data
source where the object is stored. Notice that both read and write capability is included,
which is an improvement over the BDC capability in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Also,
batch and bulk operation support is available. External content types represent data that
is stored in an external data source, such as Microsoft SQL Server™ and other relational
databases, SharePoint Server, and Web services. External content types are created by
using SharePoint Designer 2010, Visual Studio® 2010, and by importing an application
model that contains one or more external content types into a BCS service application.
SharePoint Server and Office Integration
BCS data can be accessed by using a Web browser and displayed inside SharePoint sites
by using Web Parts and external lists. Business data can be exposed as Office Word
document properties and inserted into documents. Users can interact with business data
by using the familiar Microsoft Office Outlook® interface, and take the data offline by
using the new SharePoint Workspace (the new Groove application). External content
types can also be consumed natively by Microsoft InfoPath® 2010, Microsoft Access™