DevExpress aspxgridview with LinqServerModeDataSource or alternative for fast filtering and sorting

Question

DevExpress aspxgridview with LinqServerModeDataSource or alternative for fast filtering and sorting

We are trying to produce a read-only grid of results where speed is the prioirity. Currently using a gridview control with some customization for select row on click and fixed header / footers. Data access is from either objectdatasource or code binding from our business layer, database is SQL Server 2008.

The plan is to buy 3rd party controls for the gridview and have been looking at DevExpress aspxgridview. We would like to be able to add attributes to the gridview data, filter and very quickly bind the grid and have looked at the LinqServerModeDataSource, This would probably mean having another data access technology in the solution but would be happy with this for any read-only queries where we can easily do joins and sorts quickly at the database but use the n-tier BLL / DAL / DTOs for any insert / update / deletes.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this plan. Would the LinqServerModeDataSource and the aspxgridview be quick to display data and give the options to pile on filters (joins / exists queries) to the table we are binding to or is there a better way of doing this. (I assume we would need to edit the linq query in LinqServerModeDataSource OnSelecting) Would prefer not to write any custom ajax or html and let a custom control do this.

Answer 1

When ASPxGridView is bound to a LinqServerModeDataSource all data related operations are performed on the DB server. In this situation, the dataSource sends many requests to the DB server but all these requests are light, i.e. they should be executed fast and do not result in large data passed to the web server. Also, I would like to warn you that the grid working in server mode has some limitations and they are described in our help:

Server-side Data Management

Finally, I think that ASPxGridView working in server mode is very fast and you eventually should give it a try. However, a server mode should be used only when an underlying DataSource returns a lot of data. Otherwise, it is better to use the "classic" binding mode when all is managed on the web server.

Update

I will try to explain at which point a server mode is needed. By default, all grid controls (standard, our ...) fetch all data to the web server from the DB server and than manage it. For example, sort. If a data size is small and a connection between DB and web servers is fast, this operation is done fairly fast and a server mode is not needed. From my point of view, 5k records is not large data and thus the ASPxGridView's code should work with it effectively and fast. However, if there are a lot of records which should be processed on the web server, for example, 100k the picture is different. Obviously, fetching 100k to the web server and transferring them via net can be slow. Also, the DB server is optimized to work with such data much more better and it should manage this data, for example, sort them faster. In this case, it is more profitable to propagate this work to the DB server and gain the performance.

So, the main criteria which must be used to decide whether or not to use a server mode is the following: the number of records passed from the DB server to the web server and the time needed to manage it.

Hope, this helps.