Book excerpt: The Sync Framework is Microsoft’s innovation to address the dilemma of occasionally connected systems. It is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services, and devices. In particular, it features technologies and tools that enable device roaming, sharing, and the ability to take networked data offline before synchronizing it back to the networked application at a later time. Pro Sync Framework concludes with a working example that shows how the techniques you’ve learned can be used to create a versatile application, adaptable to a wide variety of connectivity and synchronization challenges. What you’ll learn Explore the subject through text written in a tight, code–centric style that focuses on the issues you need to know. Learn through a hands–on approach that demonstrates the techniques practically rather than talking about them theoretically. See how it works through a step–by–step guide to mastering the framework. Understand the coding best–practices that are developing for the Sync Framework. Explore a fully worked sample application that shows all the concepts in action. Who this book is for This book is aimed at Microsoft .NET developers who want to use the Sync Framework to enable their applications to switch seamlessly between online and offline data access modes. Because the authors concentrate on Sync and do not cover the basics of the .NET Framework, this book is suitable for intermediate developers and upward.