WCF RIA Services Toolkit April 2010

The WCF RIA Services was developed to be a framework that provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom.

Microsoft WCF RIA Services simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms. RIA Services provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations.
 
It also provides end-to-end support for common tasks such as data validation, authentication and roles by integrating with Silverlight components on the client and ASP.NET on the mid-tier.

The WCF RIA Services Toolkit is a collection of forward looking features made available outside the normal RIA Services release cycle. A product of the WCF RIA Services product team, the Toolkit adds new functionality quickly for developers and provides the community an efficient way to help shape product development by contributing ideas and bug reports.

The following functionality are available in this release of the Toolkit:-
1. LinqToSql DomainService
2. Soap endpoint - This enables you to expose a soap endpoint for your DomainService
3. JSON endpoint - This enables you to expose a JSON endpoint for your DomainService
4. ASP.net DomainDataSource - This control will enable you to create an ASP.net application that can talk to your DomainService