A local company needs an order-entry system to be developed so that it can effectively manage the increasing growth in customer base and related orders. In a recent discussion with a consultant, the company was told about two-tier and n-tier architectures, but it is unsure what the best option for its system is. The company knows that it needs to be able to support code reusability, and it seeks to be able to eventually use the database in a data warehouse.

Guidelines

• Address the following in 3 pages:
  • Discuss the distributed system design plan that focuses on the following with regard to an n-tier system:
    • Presentation
    • Business logic
    • Data layer
  • Give 2 design solutions for the system
    • Build a case as to why you recommend one solution over the other.

Next, the company has asked you to build a prototype of an n-tier system using the Northwind database as an example. The company wants to be able to add, edit, and delete records from the customers, orders, order details, products, categories, and suppliers tables. Your instructor will provide you the online link to the SQL Server database files (MDF and LDF).

Guidelines

• Create the Data Access tier and Data tier projects:
  1. Create a class library project for the Data tier.
  2. Add a new class library project the project created in Step 1 for the data access tier.
  3. Add a typed DataSet using a new data source that connects to the Northwind sample database.
  4. Select the database objects (customers, orders, order details, products, categories, and suppliers) tables.
  5. Make sure the TableAdapters are stored in the Data Access tier and the DataSet class is added to the Data tier.
• Make sure that separate tiers are created for each layer by verifying that separate class libraries were created and the necessary references to the project were added.