A solid design always starts with a solid architecture. The architecture used for this app (series) is the KISS Architecture, and it builds on the collective knowledge in the developer community. It's a classical three tiered architecture on both the server and on the device:

Hopefully, this picture is not revolutionary to anyone, and it makes the best use of the latest technologies on the Microsoft platform:

• .NET Framework - the treasure chest
• C# - my language of choice
• Visual Studio - the worlds greatest development tool
• SQL Server - my database of choice (on both server and device)
• ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to Entities - the way forward on ORMs (for the ADO.NET team)
• ADO.NET Data Services - how to make (REST) data access loosely coupled
• WCF - on discussion, this is the RPC of our time
• .NET Compact Framework – the mobile treasure chest
• Windows Phone – the premier platform for .NET

With this architecture in place, our app is ready for multiple deployment scenarios, and it's especially suited to be deployed in "the cloud".

In the next part, let's get started in implementing this architecture.