At my organization, we just finished deployment of custom application to about 200 devices. The application runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional and uses SQL Compact to hold the required offline database. The database holds about five million records in encrypted and indexed databases on a microSD card. The total size of the database is about 2.5 GB. The data was needed offline due to the very remote areas and lack of connectivity at the locations our employees would need access to the data.
The application was quite a learning experience for us and the developer. Getting that much data stored locally on a device was no small feat, and allowing it to be updated over a cellular data network also took some work. On top of that, over a quarter of a million records would be updated in two days, and had to come down to the device.
I know you may be asking, "Why Windows Mobile 6.5"? We wanted to write for only one OS to minimize costs, and with users spread throughout the state, needed an OS on all of the major cell carriers. We also wanted to be able to tether the device to the employee's agency computer, to help save some additional data connection costs. As the developer told us, at the moment, Windows Mobile 6.5 is the only OS capable of handling that much data.
So far the application is working well. We have struggled with database corruption on a few devices, but that is repairable on the device. We also went with Class 4 microSD cards on most of the phones, and those seem to have less issues than the Class 2 cards.
Now Microsoft has cut off SQL Compact on the new Phone 7, so we are examining all possibilities for extending our investment in this application. These have included stocking up on devices, moving to the new Motorola ES400, and researching if any other smartphone operating systems may be able to meet our needs.
I'll continue to post our experiences here. Please post in the comments if you have any questions.
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