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This document applies to Sitecore 5.1 and later releases.
Sitecore is architected to make integration with external data sources easy. In fact, it is very straight-forward to connect external data sources so that the data they hold can be included in a Sitecore web site using Sitecore standard’s rendering technologies, such as XSLT and .NET web controls. Furthermore, data integrated data sources can be viewed and modified in the Sitecore clients exactly as if it were stored in a Sitecore database.
How much an integrated data source acts like a Sitecore database depends on the level of integration chosen. For instance, a simple read-only data provider acts like a Sitecore database only in very limited ways, supporting viewing functions only, while a fully implemented data provider supports both reading and writing of data in the external source via the Sitecore client, as well as more advanced features, such as workflows, publishing, and the Sitecore Query engine.
This document describes the Sitecore data integration architecture and provides examples that show how to provide different levels of integration to external data sources.
This chapter describes the Sitecore data access architecture.
This section describes the web.config This section describes the methods that must be overridden to support a given level of data source integration. This section provides a number of example data providers that show a range of potential integration levels. This section provides reference information for the various components used when integrating external data sources with Sitecore. Prev Next