I am currently getting myself up to speed with SharePoint 2010 and I am working my way through the different way SharePoint can expose silverlight applications.
As I understand it, the client object model is more restricted, and is for other applications to interact with SharePoint via WCF for example. An example would be a custom build system that retrieves reference data from SharePoint lists.
The server object model provides more functionality in SharePoint. One example is code written for a web part.
I have been told to deploy a silverlight application, you create the xap, make it accessible by SharePoint web front end, create a silverlight web part and point to it.
So, my question is, assuming what I have previously mentioned is more-or-less the case, can SharePoint access the server object model or is it the same as an external system for example, and uses the client object model?
I am learning all of this so happy to receive feedback on anything I may have not understood correctly.
You would access the client object model from Silverlight. Silverlight is a client. It runs in the user’s browser, so it is not on the server, and therefore cannot access the server’s features except via service calls. The client object model will provide you direct integration with various lists and functions, and makes it very easy to integrate.
Check out this video for more:
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/SharePoint2010Developer/ClientObjectModel/SilverlightClientObjectModel/