Enterprise applications provide data to users, and most collect input from users, too. Although accessing data is a common task, designing data access is a complex topic. If you make poor choices during the design phase, the application still can work, but development or maintenance might be more costly, performance or scalability might suffer, or users might not have access to data when they need it.

This objective domain provides an overview of how to design the data access layer, including choosing the best data access technology, designing your data object model, planning data caching and synchronization, designing multiuser data access, and optimizing data access performance. Like all objectives for the 70-518 exam, this objective domain is design-oriented. Therefore, the content focuses on making high-level decisions rather than writing code. Before you attempt to understand the design-level concepts, you should already understand how to implement the technologies and you should have passed the 70-516 exam, “Accessing Data with Microsoft .NET Framework 4.”