Question

I’m about to start a pretty large project, so I’m gathering informations about some problems that I predicted while reading project documentation and client requests. One of those problems is this:

My client is a company that has multiple subdivisions, and each of those subdivisions uses its own database. Now, I’ve my task is to make an administration application that all of those subdivisions will be using (they all perform the same tasks, they are just divided because of their geographical locations and some legal regulations that are not important for my question). So, my problem is how to make an application that will be able to switch between databases. Usually, I could do it by creating a WinForm that would contain fields for input (e.g textBoxes or comboBoxes) where user could choose which connection to use, but I have a problem with this approach because of reports that these applications have to generate. Up until now I’ve been working with .rdlc reports that use datasets created by TableAdapters. So if I create a dataset programmaticaly, I don’t know how to generate a report. But, if I create report based on a TableAdapters dataset, I don’t know how to change TableAdapters connection string (except for duplicating TableAdapters so each one uses another connection string but that is not efficient at all). I’m using C# to create WinForms and SQL to work with databases. Please help me with this problem.
Thanks

Answer 1

Try using a combination of multiple webservices and a servicebus like the right hand tree in the following image:

Please note that this is advanced C# but very maintainable and its low coupled!