Microsoft Sync Services for Occasionally Connected Applications

Occasionally connected system (OCS) is not a new word for technical jargon. But with the availability of new technologies and tools, it's becoming easier to rollout OCSs than earlier.

These days I am working on a field force automation solution with Windows Mobile 6 based devices for my company, Kandysoft. When I saw Microsoft Synchronization Services introduction in a web site for the first time, I thought to dig in to it. The technology was promising, but there were lot of dead ends for me at that time.

Recently, I had another look at Microsoft Synchronization Services and found Adam Salvo(z) blog, which had a good overview about how to dig in to the technology.

To summarize my finding about the technology, I will list the sequence of articles, a beginner should follow (as I feel):

Introduction to Microsoft Synchronization Service:
Synchronization Runtime, OCS with sync services

Synchronization Services for ADO.NET - documentation
Architecture and classes, How to do common tasks for sync

Database changes to facilitate synchronization
Changes tracking, How to track changes, Setup script

Coding required for synchronization
Getting started, Design and deployment considerations

I was trying to use Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to expose server side synchronization data provider. "An Introduction to WCF for Device Developers" article helped me to get rid of several unclear areas in mobile WCF.

Trip to River Song Cottage – Knuckles

Sri Lanka is a country with wide variety in nature from the sea level to top of central mountains. There are beautiful places all around and majority of us yet to visit most of the places.

It’s nearly 10 months after our last Kandysoft office trip, to Wasgamuwa national park. Last few weeks we had several opinions for a trip. But finally with the help of Hemantha, we finally settled for one place, River Song Cottage – Knuckles. At the time of cottage reservation, we had only little clue about the place, because there were virtually no information about the place in internet. So, we all had doubts about the place and the location.

After all hard work to get people to the trip, we had 10 colleagues onboard. Plan was to go to Kandy by train and hire a van to get to the cottage. Last Friday (23rd May), early in the morning at 6.30 (yep, it’s early in the morning for me) we all came to Colombo Fort railway station and the trip got going. After getting down from Kandy we found a van and did shopping for food and beverages. It’s still good to remember the shopping we did in Kandy Cargills outlet.

The path from Kandy to the Cottage is Kandy - Wattegama - Panwila Town - Bambaralla Road - Turn right from the Water board junction (24Km post) - Arattana Road 2Km - Turn left to the gravel road - River song cottage

Wow!!! We were standing in front of a very nice cottage; river is flowing in little distance from the cottage; the view is splendid.

We all had a very good time there. Next day we went for a hiking too, to Knuckles range. But a single day is not enough to climb Knuckles. We thought to climb to the top to Knuckles range, not this time, some another day.

	River Song Cottage
	All of us, from left to right - Sumudu, me, Janaka, Hemantha, Asela, Sanjaya, Sameera, Anuradha, Amila and Buddhima
	Hulu ganga (Hulu river)
	Anuradha busy with photos

Thanks Buddhima for the photos.