I gathered list of professional organizations offering certification programs to folks involved in their respective domains. This list excludes general well known vendor certifications offered by Microsoft, Java and Oracle, etc. I’ll talk about those certifications in another post.

IEEE Computer Society Certification Program:

IEEE Computer society is one of premier professional bodies for IT professionals. IEEE Computer society offers two certification programs for Developers and IT professionals.

• Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP)
• Certified Software Development Associate (CSDA)

CSDA program is intended for entry level software engineers seeking industry certification. CSDA is first step   towards becoming a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP).

Eligibility requirements for CSDA program:

• Recent software or computer engineering graduates
• Under-graduates who are in their final year of a bachelor’s degree program in software or computer engineering
• Non-degree professionals with more than 2 years of programming experience

CSDP program is intended for experienced software engineering professionals.

If you are a Senior Member of IEEE or a Licensed Software Engineer, no further qualifications are necessary.  All other candidates are required to meet both Education and Experience requirements to be qualified for the examination as outlined below.
Education: (need at least one)

• You have a bachelor’s degree
• You are a CSDA certificate holder
• You are an educator at the post-baccalaureate level
• You are a full member of the IEEE

Experience: (need at least one)

• You have an advanced degree in software engineering and at least two years (about 3,500 hrs) of experience in software engineering/development
• You have at least four years (about 7,000 hrs) experience in software engineering/development

For more information regarding examination fees, preparation materials and examination dates, please visit IEEE Computer Society website.

American Society of Transportation and Logistics Certification Program

American Society of Transportation and Logistics (ASTL) is a professional body offering certification programs for Transportation and Logistics domain.  If you’re involved in Transportation and Logistics management providing technology solutions/ directly involved in business of Supply Chain Management (SCM), ASTL certifications can help consolidate your knowledge and recognizable in Transportation industry.

Certification Programs you may be interested in:

• Certification in Transportation and Logistics (CTL)
• Professional Designation in  Supply Chain Management (PLS)

To qualify for CTL exam, individual must be an active member of ASTL society  and have an four year undergraduate degree or three years of professional experience. To gain certification, 4 mandatory subjects and 2 electives from a pool of 4 subjects have to be cleared.

PLS exam on the other hand, is intended for more experienced professionals.

For more details, please visit American Society of Transportation and Logistics (ASTL) website.

LOMA Certification Program:

LOMA is a professional organization offering industry standard certification programs related to Insurance, healthcare and Financial services domain. LOMA offers various educational and certification programs like

FLMI – Fellow, Life Management Institute program is a 10-course university level professional development program that provides a comprehensive business education in the context of insurance and financial services industry.

CPLHI – Certified Professional, Life and Health Insurance program is a 10-course university level professional development program that provides a comprehensive business education in the context of  Life and Health Insurance program.

There are various other certification programs offered by LOMA organization like:

CPFS : Certified Professional in Financial Services Program

PCS – Professional Customer Service Program

ALMI – Associate,Life Management Institute

FFSI – Fellow, Financial Service Institute

AFSI-Associate, Financial Service Institute

For complete details, please visit LOMA website.

PayPal Certified Developer Program

Developers proficient in ECommerce application development can standardize their PayPal integration skills by taking PayPal certification exam.  This exam can help you achieve industry recognition for your PayPal development skills.All you need to do is pass an online exam that tests your knowledge of PayPal. Benefits of being certified is instant credibility with merchants looking for integration help and listing in the PayPal Certified Developer directory which merchants use to find skilled developers.

Total cost of PayPal certification is around $300.

For more information, please visit PayPal website.

The Open Group Certification Program

The Open Group is a vendor and technology agnostic consortium consisting of 300 member organizations  with activities in 19 countries striving for integrated information flow based on open standards and interoperability.

Open Group offers two certification programs

• IT Architect Certification (ITAC)
• IT Specialist Certification (ITSC)

• Level  1: Certified IT Architect – able to perform with assistance/supervision
• Level  2: Master Certified IT Architect – able to perform independently and take responsibility
• Level  3: Distinguished Certified IT Architect – Chief/Lead Architect, Enterprise Architect

You can achieve IT Architect certification via two different routes. 1) Direct Certification 2) Accredited Certification Program (ACP’s). For ACP, you must be a employee of Accredited organization.

IT Specialist Certification Program (ITSC):

ITSC certification program is designed for the professionals who are responsible for development, implementation and operation of IT solutions. ITSC program offers two levels of certification based on characteristics, technical focus of IT specialist experience.

• Level 1: Certified IT Specialist – able to perform as a contributing Specialist with little supervision
• Level 2: Master IT Specialist – able to perform independently and act as Lead.

You can achieve IT Specialist certification via two different routes. 1) Direct Certification 2) Accredited Certification Program (ACP’s). For ACP, you must be a employee of Accredited organization.

There are other programs like Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exams and PMP certification program.

CFA exams are offered by CFA Institute and well suited for individuals already working or those planning to choose Financial services and investments as their career. You can achieve CFA designation after passing three rigorous exams.

For more information, please visit CFA Institute website.

There’s also PMP certification program available for Software Project Managers with verifiable experience in software project management.  I don’t have much information about this program except that I know this program is expensive unless your employer sponsors you. Google “PMP”. You’ll hit the official webite of organization administering PMP exam.

I hope you liked the information I gathered!!

I gathered list of professional organizations offering certification programs to folks involved in their respective domains. This list excludes general well known vendor certifications offered by Microsoft, Java and Oracle, etc. I’ll talk about those certifications in another post.

IEEE Computer Society Certification Program:

IEEE Computer society is one of premier professional bodies for IT professionals. IEEE Computer society offers two certification programs for Developers and IT professionals.

• Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP)
• Certified Software Development Associate (CSDA)

CSDA program is intended for entry level software engineers seeking industry certification. CSDA is first step   towards becoming a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP).

Eligibility requirements for CSDA program:

• Recent software or computer engineering graduates
• Under-graduates who are in their final year of a bachelor’s degree program in software or computer engineering
• Non-degree professionals with more than 2 years of programming experience

CSDP program is intended for experienced software engineering professionals.

If you are a Senior Member of IEEE or a Licensed Software Engineer, no further qualifications are necessary.  All other candidates are required to meet both Education and Experience requirements to be qualified for the examination as outlined below.
Education: (need at least one)

• You have a bachelor’s degree
• You are a CSDA certificate holder
• You are an educator at the post-baccalaureate level
• You are a full member of the IEEE

For more information regarding examination fees, preparation materials and examination dates, please visit IEEE Computer Society website.

American Society of Transportation and Logistics Certification Program

American Society of Transportation and Logistics (ASTL) is a professional body offering certification programs for Transportation and Logistics domain.  If you’re involved in Transportation and Logistics management providing technology solutions/ directly involved in business of Supply Chain Management (SCM), ASTL certifications can help consolidate your knowledge and recognizable in Transportation industry.

Certification Programs you may be interested in:

• Certification in Transportation and Logistics (CTL)
• Professional Designation in  Supply Chain Management (PLS)

To qualify for CTL exam, individual must be an active member of ASTL society  and have an four year undergraduate degree or three years of professional experience. To gain certification, 4 mandatory subjects and 2 electives from a pool of 4 subjects have to be cleared.

PLS exam on the other hand, is intended for more experienced professionals.

For more details, please visit American Society of Transportation and Logistics (ASTL) website.

LOMA Certification Program:

LOMA is a professional organization offering industry standard certification programs related to Insurance, healthcare and Financial services domain. LOMA offers various educational and certification programs like

FLMI – Fellow, Life Management Institute program is a 10-course university level professional development program that provides a comprehensive business education in the context of insurance and financial services industry.

CPLHI – Certified Professional, Life and Health Insurance program is a 10-course university level professional development program that provides a comprehensive business education in the context of  Life and Health Insurance program.

There are various other certification programs offered by LOMA organization like:
CPFS : Certified Professional in Financial Services Program
PCS – Professional Customer Service Program
ALMI – Associate,Life Management Institute 
FFSI – Fellow, Financial Service Institute
AFSI-Associate, Financial Service Institute

For complete details, please visit LOMA website.

PayPal Certified Developer Program

Developers proficient in ECommerce application development can standardize their PayPal integration skills by taking PayPal certification exam.  This exam can help you achieve industry recognition for your PayPal development skills.All you need to do is pass an online exam that tests your knowledge of PayPal. Benefits of being certified is instant credibility with merchants looking for integration help and listing in the PayPal Certified Developer directory which merchants use to find skilled developers.

Total cost of PayPal certification is around $300.

For more information, please visit PayPal website.

The Open Group Certification Program

The Open Group is a vendor and technology agnostic consortium consisting of 300 member organizations  with activities in 19 countries striving for integrated information flow based on open standards and interoperability.

Open Group offers two certification programs

• IT Architect Certification (ITAC)
• IT Specialist Certification (ITSC)

IT Architect certification is first independent, comprehensive IT Certification program. The program defines global standards for measuring the skills and experience of IT architects, and for the operation of IT architecture practices with in enterprises. ITAC offers three levels of Certification depending on the length and characteristics of IT architect’s experience.

• Level  1: Certified IT Architect – able to perform with assistance/supervision
• Level  2: Master Certified IT Architect – able to perform independently and take responsibility
• Level  3: Distinguished Certified IT Architect – Chief/Lead Architect, Enterprise Architect

You can achieve IT Architect certification via two different routes. 1) Direct Certification 2) Accredited Certification Program (ACP’s). For ACP, you must be a employee of Accredited organization.

IT Specialist Certification Program (ITSC):


ITSC certification program is designed for the professionals who are responsible for development, implementation and operation of IT solutions. ITSC program offers two levels of certification based on characteristics, technical focus of IT specialist experience.

• Level 1: Certified IT Specialist – able to perform as a contributing Specialist with little supervision
• Level 2: Master IT Specialist – able to perform independently and act as Lead.

For more information, please visit The Open Group website.

There are other programs like Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exams and PMP certification program.

CFA exams are offered by CFA Institute and well suited for individuals already working or those planning to choose Financial services and investments as their career. You can achieve CFA designation after passing three rigorous exams.

For more information, please visit CFA Institute website.

There’s also PMP certification program available for Software Project Managers with verifiable experience in software project management.  I don’t have much information about this program except that I know this program is expensive unless your employer sponsors you. Google “PMP”. You’ll hit the official webite of organization administering PMP exam.

I hope you liked the information I gathered!!

Following are .Net Framework/ASP.Net/SQL Server questions which tests your mettle in these technologies. I quickly gathered these questions from different sources. Probably, i guess I should provide answers to these questions. I’ll do that in my next post.

Where are the value types contained inside a reference type stored? Say for example if there is a class Employee and a member ‘int roll no’, where will the roll number be stored?

• In the stack
• In the heap
• In the harddisk

What is faster?

1. Accessing the heap
2. Accessing the stack
3. Accessing the hard disk

If you declare String a = “Minecode” and ‘a’ points to an address 1000, executing a = “MINECODE01″ will not change the address. Is this true?

• True
• False

Which of the following datatypes cannot be set to null?

1. string
2. custom classes
3. DateTime

What are the interfaces related to USING block in C#?

1. IComparer
2. IDisposable
3. ISerializable

Which of the following is true?

1. A static method can access all private properties of a class.
2. A static method can access only the public properties of a class.
3. None of the above

Which of the following is true?

1. A delegate uses an event
2. An event uses a delegate
3. None of the above

If we have a try block and three catch blocks, the first catch block catches Exception, the second one catches ArgumentException and the third one catches ArgumentNullException, Which block will catch an ArgumentNullException thrown from the try block?

1. Catch Exception
2. Catch ArgumentException
3. Catch ArgumentNullException

LogIn is bad on?

1. A write intensive table
2. A read intensive table
3. None

You can use an insert statement on a view.

• True
• False

You can insert into a table without providing values for all the non null columns.

• True
• False

Group by takes precedency over Order by.

• True
• False

Which of the following can not be rolled back?

1. Truncate
2. Delete
3. Update
4. None of the above

Referential integrity is related to.

1. Views
2. Foriegn keys
3. LogIn

Which of the following is true.

1. There can be only one unique column in a table
2. There can be only one primary key in a table
3. There can be only one foriegn key in a table

Which SQL statement is used to return only different values?

1. select distinct
2. select unique
3. select different

If there are two tables Employees and Orders an inner join between employees and orders would fetch employee rows?

1. Even if there is no order for the employee.
2. only if there is an order for the employee

If there are two tables Employees and Orders an left join between employees and orders would fetch employee rows

1. Even if there is no order for the employee.
2. only if there is an order for the employee.

I have a table called products that has the list of all products. I have a table called stores which has all the stores in the market. If I want to track the sales for a store and product combination, what kind of join will I use?

1. Inner Join
2. Right Outer Join
3. Cross Join
4. Left Outer Join

Can you explicitly update an Identity column?

• Yes
• No

In Asp.Net, interceptions like authentication and session information are handled using

1. Pages
2. handlers
3. Modules

The page class implements

1. IHttpModule
2. IHttpHandler
3. IHttpContext

Managing Session state in memory

1. Decreases scalability
2. Has no effect on scalability
3. Increases scalability

Page remembers the state of the various controls across postbacks because of

1. Application state
2. Session state
3. Cache
4. View State

In which file do we handle the application start and end event?

1. the aspx file
2. Web.config
3. application.asax
4. global.asax

Which of the following is not a stage of page – Load Life cycle?

1. Load()
2. Init()
3. PreRender()
4. Render(),PostRender()
5. Unload()

Interface does not come with an implementation. If there are multiple classes that want to implement the same interface and want to implement the same way, they are helpless. What is the correct way to work around this problem?

1. Inheritance
2. Composition
3. Encapsulation
4. Polymorphism

A contract that could possibly come with a default implementation

1. Abstract Base class
2. Interface
3. Sealed class
4. Partial class

What is the scope of connection pooling?

1. Appdomain
2. Process
3. Machine

Which of the following prevent SQL injection?

1. Use of Stored Procedures
2. Use of dynamic queries by using SqlParameter objects.
3. Use of dynamic Queries by concatinating strings.

I have a million rows in a database and I want to read the records and show them in the UI. What is the prefered way to read the data?

1. DataReader
2. DataSet
3. RecordSet

When a web service receives an invalid input it should throw

1. SoapFault with Fault code set to Client
2. InvalidArgumentException
3. SoapFault with Fault code set to Server
4. Argument Exception

ASP.NET uses _________ to generate a WSDL out of your class

1. Polymorphism and Serialization
2. Reflection and serialization
3. Encapsulation and serialization
4. ISDASM and Serialization

WSDL is a

1. contract in xml form
2. contract in binary form
3. Protocol to access a web service
4. Directory to discover a web service

Where would you store the connection strings that are used in the ASP.NET application?

1. Web.config
2. Machine.config
3. In your page class
4. in global.asax

Which config file takes precedence?

1. Web.Config
2. Machine config

What is the extension used for ASP.NET HTTP Handlers?

1. ASHX
2. ASCX

Response.Redirect redirects to a new URL

1. With the knowledge of the browser
2. without the knowledge of the Browser

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

XXXX

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the

first four sharpening the axe – Abraham Lincoln

This quote has always been inspiring in my life. I believe learning is not confined to childhood or the class room but takes places through out life and in range of situations. As such, Education not only enhances social inclusion, personal development, but also competitiveness and employability. I began my relationship to Computer science and Engineering in XXX when I enrolled for 3 years Full time Diploma course in Computer Engineering at XXX, a premier institution in the state. As a part of my diploma course curriculum, I had been exposed to study of courses like ‘C’, ‘C++’, Data Structures, Computer Organization, Microprocessors, Computer Networks and Computer Graphics. These courses provided me with the stimulating academic background and motivation to pursue Bachelor’s degree in COMPUTER SCIENCE. In consonance with my interest, I obtained admission at XXX, one of premier Institutions for Higher learning.

The assiduously prepared curriculum at XXX, with its time tested courses has enabled me to consolidate the knowledge I gained in diploma and learn advanced subjects like Theory of Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithm Design and Analysis, File Structures and UNIX Network programming. All the software skills I have acquired through my under graduation days have finally culminated in final year project developed for a local public utility company. As a part of my college curriculum I presented a technical paper at a National Symposium ‘xxx’ which was widely appreciated and was also exposed to various social activities such as conducting Blood donation camps and health awareness programs.

After finishing my Bachelors in Computer science in XX, I took up a job as an entry level software engineer at XXX., a leading strategic IT services company in XX. It is at XXX, I was formally introduced to challenging task of software design and development. An intensive three months of initial training at XXX provided me with a solid foundation in vendor technologies like Microsoft .Net, Oracle and Crystal Reports, software engineering principles (SDLC), business process management and software development methodologies like waterfall model, scrum and agile process. I regarded each topic in the broad range of material covered in training as intrinsically interesting as well as essential to my work in software development. As a way to refine my technical skills, I continued to pursue certifications in Microsoft.Net Technologies like MCAD, MCTS, and MCPD relating to my work in .Net application development till today.

Working at XXX has given me a chance to apply my academic skills to apply them to solve real world problems. I developed mentor skills and frequently assisted co-workers who had little or no background in computers. I also volunteered in conducting trainings for juniors and colleagues in web technologies and programming languages. I invested myself in learning advanced concepts like software design patterns, architectural patterns, programming languages like C#.Net, Java and advanced technologies like SOA based Web services, XML programming and Component object Model (COM) development. I was awarded XXX award for exceptional work at XXX. I successfully completed challenging assignments and provided immense business value by providing well designed solutions.

At one time, I was given opportunity to work on systems dealing with digital asset management and content management. These systems allow document collaboration, managed access, workflow capabilities and versioning. I participated in the customization and integration of Documentum EDMS solution with our .Net based Enterprise web system. This solution provided client significant savings. Working on this project had undoubtedly spiked up my interest levels in EDMS systems.

To fulfill my passion for EDMS technology, I sought work as a XXX DEVELOPER. I took a position with XXX INC., an IT services company specializing in providing custom tailored EDMS solutions. I worked as a developer on one of their product offerings called XXX a unified content management solution. It provides efficient information collaboration and offers unified interface for information exchange between disparate CMS & CRM applications. I was involved in design, development and maintenance of XXX solution. As I became fluent in the details of operations, I was able to free much of my time to work on large projects requiring careful planning and design. I had considerable freedom to pursue different kinds of projects ranging from web content management, content classification and product customizations. While my position at XXX presented me with many technical opportunities and intellectual challenges, I understood that there was an absolute ceiling on the complexity of available work; the mission of the company was not technical and could not support an intensely technical program. As I exhausted interesting, technical opportunities within the company, I decided to find a position in an engineering, scientific or academic computing environment, an environment where technology would be central to the mission of the organization.

I accepted a position as a PROGRAMMER ANALYST at XXX where my duties included executing enterprise projects for clients in an object-oriented development environment. I rose to the level of Team Lead for the XXX, a .Net implementation of a mortgage processing tool to be used by Mortgage Advisors for fulfilling mortgage loans. Since the goal of the project was the construction of a software system intended for use with in Mortgage community and anticipated to be large and complex, methodical development was absolutely essential to the successful completion of the project; the project demanded attention issues of knowledge capture and the development process itself, so development for the project differed from all development that I had done before. In response to these new concerns about organization, I began to study software engineering and techniques for managing and controlling complexity in the development of large systems.

By necessity as my professional responsibilities have changed or for personal interest, I have turned my attention to the study of various areas of computer science. I have discovered academic interests in areas ranging from database systems, software engineering, compilers, distributed systems and advanced computing. Formal training in computer science at under graduate level equipped me with some of the sensibilities and sensitivities necessary to independent, academic inquiry into computer science: an appreciation of rigor, a sense of organization, and an inclination to methodically approach problems. Self-study was adequate to the task of preparing to effectively treat the problems that I encountered in the past, but I have reached the point in my professional development and individual study where a master degree in computer science is required for my continued growth in the field. I hope to continue to mature academically in computer science so that I can approach new problems in a capable manner and as part of my continued development; I look forward to the opportunity to study computer science at XXX.

A detailed study of your XXX degree catalogue and program details on your web site and other sources has assured me that your institution offers flexible schedule and at the same time a well balanced curriculum suited for the working professionals planning to pursue XXX degree. An eminent faculty, affordable program and equivalent degree as offered to full time students, all these factors I feel make the XXX the right place to embark upon a new learning path.

Thank you

XXX

]]> http://santhosh91.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/sample-statement-of-purpose-for-software-engineers-applying-for-graduate-school-admissions/feed/ 0 santhosh91 http://santhosh91.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/sample-letter-of-recommendation-for-graduate-school-from-employer/ http://santhosh91.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/sample-letter-of-recommendation-for-graduate-school-from-employer/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000 santhosh91 http://santhosh91.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/sample-letter-of-recommendation-for-graduate-school-from-employer ]]> The XXX University,
XXX, XX

September 15th 2009

It is with great pleasure that I find myself writing this letter of recommendation for Mr. XXX in the capacity of Director, YYY. Mr. XXX is a full time employee of YYY since ZZZ and he works in the position of a Programmer Analyst with us.

Mr. XXX meets our academic requirements given the fact that a reputable credentials evaluation service has determined that based on his studies abroad; he has earned the equivalent of a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering as awarded by an accredited University in the US.

In addition, Mr. XXX also brings to his employment with YYY prior experience in the field of computer applications and software and systems design, development, testing, implementation, and maintenance under various environments.

Mr. XXX is one of the key resources in our Information Technology Group.He has strong technical expertise in computer science systems and applications, analysis and programming. Mr. XXX is a Certified Microsoft professional specializing in Microsoft.Net Technologies.

In the position of Programmer Analyst for YYY, Mr. XXX has extensively involved in analyzing user requirements, procedures and problems to automate processing to improve existing computer systems and/or build new systems. Mr. XXX has provided optimal and cost-effective business solutions to our clients.

Please free to contact me for any questions you may have regarding Mr.XXX

It is a distinct pleasure to recommend to you one of the senior software engineers in my team XXX. In my capacity as Technical Lead responsible for Commercial Application Development at XXX, I have worked closely with XXX for one year (2008-09).

XXX is an outstanding consultant who continuously exceeds the expectations set for his position. XXX willingly accepts challenging assignments and offers to contribute where ever he can. XXX has demonstrated excellent programming and analytical skills which are very essential to address the constantly evolving client’s business requirements. The best thing I noticed in him is his insatiable zeal to learn latest technical skills, technology stacks and tools and offer better solutions.

This reminds me of a recent challenging time we faced recently and how XXX active contribution helped us to emerge out successfully. The client purchased a third party proprietary Content Management solution (CMS) intended to serve customers with a superior service. From solution implementation perspective, our team lacks expertise in that particular CMS solution and has few design interface limitations integrating with our proprietary application framework. I was looking for a right design pattern for a seam less integration between these two tightly coupled systems. Honestly speaking, I was thinking more heavily on traditional lines. There is nothing we can do to change vendor prepackaged software to achieve much need integration. Only option left for us is to extend our proprietary framework which is something we can do for desired compatibility with vendor software. I know this option is really expensive in terms of resources and time. But, on the other hand, XXX has a whole different approach on this critical issue. He approached me with a great idea of creating a middle-ware component acting as a broker and manages the data communication effectively negating all initial interfacing issues. He even backed up his concept with a working demo project. Frankly, his idea really saved us a lot of time and resources.
XXX has a clear standing of the software engineering principles and his ability to apply them to solve problems reflects his excellent analytical abilities. His desire to share his knowledge with his peers, clarity in communicating his ideas and ability to systematically deal with a problem at hand make him suitable for team work. He was a developer with least number of defects/coding hour in our team.

His decision to pursue part-time master degree from your esteemed university is welcoming. His persevering nature, well-balanced personality and eagerness to excel make him an apt candidate for research and advanced studies. He will undoubtedly utilize this opportunity to expand his horizons and positions himself up for better opportunities in his career.

YYY
October 1, 2009

Generated database driven object model resides in LINQ-to-SQL class file ending with a .dbml extension.All data types that implement IQueryable or its generic version IQueryable can be employed as data sources in a LINQ query.

DataContext:

Another important thing is to know in LINQ-to-SQL world is Datacontext object. Simply put, DataContext object manages the database connection and holds connection strings. It is closely associated with underlying LINQ-to-SQL domain model and provides single point entry to LINQ-to-SQL data model.

You need an instance of datacontext everytime you need to query or update database. DataContext object is light-weight and extensible in nature. Usually, what I know is to create DataContext object for every unit of work. Of course, we can also maintain a global context class for all database calls. DataContext class is also extensible using partial classes for various scenarios like returning multiple result sets.

By now, we might understand the importance of DataContext class for database operations. So, Let’s peek into few properties which’re worth looking into

ObjectTrackingEnabled:

As already told, DataContext is self-contained box which maintains identity and tracking information for all the entities it holds. But question is do we need the tracking or identity information all the times? Nopes.. If you’re dealing with read-only data or just retrieving data for display purposes then we don’t need burden of tracking information which’s quite useful for editable data. So, just switchoff tracking in DataContext object. How do we do that?
Just set ObjectTrackingEnabled property of DataContext object to false. This will avoid unnecessary identity management of entities and also makes Data Context object light weight.

using (NorthwindDataContext context = new NorthwindDataContext())
{
context.ObjectTrackingEnabled = false;
}

Optimistic Concurrency Control:

LINQ to SQL comes with out of the box Optimistic concurrency support mapping a binary type for all SQL Time stamp columns in database. In some cases like low volume environments where we don’t care much about concurrency control or we may employ our own custom concurrency control independent of LINQ-to-SQL optimistic concurrency control techniques, then it would be a gain if you turn off Optimistic Concurrency property in mapping file (.dbml file) which does the invalidation of insert/update data.

Set UpdateCheck property of DataContext object to Enumeration value of Never to turn optimistic concurrency off in LINQ to SQL.

Here is an example of turning optimistic concurrency off implemented as attribute level
mapping:

[Column(Storage=“_city”, DbType=“string”,
UpdateCheck=UpdateCheck.Never)]
public string city
{
get
{ return this._city; }
}

Persistance Ignorance:

LINQ-to-SQL(LTS) allows to generate POCO (Plain old CLR objects) with an acceptable level of persistence ignorance by setting the DataContext class’s Access property value to Internal.

Generated SQL queries:

Wanna see SQL statements generated by LTS? There is a possibility that you may not be aware of additional columns or extra data that is retrieved behind the scenes. Use Data Context’s Log property to be able to see what SQL statements are being run by the Data Context. Quite useful to analyze SQL statements generated by LINQ-to-SQL.

using (NorthwindDataContext context = new NorthwindDataContext())
{
context.Log = Console.Out;
}

Similarly, to avoid logging of SQL statements in production environments, set DataContext.Log to null.

DataContext.CommandTimeOut:

The default value of the DataContext class’s CommandTimeout is set to 30 seconds. Any database queries taking a longer time to complete than 30 seconds will throw a Timeout Exception.

One solution to this problem is to set the value of the CommandTimeout before each time a LINQ to SQL DataContext object is created and such a query is invoked. But the problem with this approach is, it will introduce code duplication. To do it efficiently, Fortunately enough, the Visual Studio 2008 auto generated DataContext subclasses provide an easy way to achieve this target using extensibility through partial methods.

Data filtering:

When we retrieve data with Load or LoadWith methods, we assume that we want to retrieve all the associated data those are bound with the primary key. But in most cases we likely need additional filtering to this. Here is where DataLoadOptions.AssociateWith generic method comes very handy. This method takes the criteria to load the data as a parameter and applies it to the query – so you get only the data that you need.

using (NorthwindDataContext context = new NorthwindDataContext())
{
DataLoadOptions options = new DataLoadOptions();
options.AssociateWith(x=> x.streets.Where(y => y.michiganave)); context.LoadOptions = options;
}

DataContext.Refresh:

To reload entity object, Data Context object provides Refresh method to invalidate the entity if it’s changed.