XML Serializiation migration to MySql

I have an ASP.NET project that uses XML Serialization for the main operation for saving data. This project was to stay small relative to size of data. However, the amount of data has ballooned as it always will and now I'm consider moving to a SQL based alternative for managing the data.

For now I have multiple objects defined that are simply storage classes for saving my data for the project to work.

public class Customer
{
     public Customer() { }
     public string Name { get; set; }
     public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
}

public class Order
{
     public Order() { }
     public int ID { get; set; }
     public Date OrderDate { get; set; }
     public string Product { get; set; }
}

Something along these lines although not so rudimentary. Migrating to SQL seems to be a no-brainer and I've landed on using MySql because of the free availability of the service. What I'm running into is that the only way I can see to do this now is to have a solution where there is a storage class, Order, and a class built to Load/Save the data, OrderIO.

The project relies heavily on using List<> to populate the data fields on the page. I'm not using any built-in .NET controls such as DataGrid to assist in displaying the data. Simple TextBox or ComboBox controls that are populated on Page_Load.

I'm aware it would make better sense to pick a way in which the data fields could bind to the SQL through a Repeater but I'm not looking at a full redesign, just a difference on the infrastructure to manage the data.

I would like to be开发者_开发问答 able to create a class that can return an object similar to what I'm dealing with now, such as List<>, from the SQL statements I'm executing. I'm having some trouble getting started on the best method of approach.

Any suggestions on how best to Load/Save this data using SQL or some tutorials on ideas using the .NET framework would be helpful. This is quite a generalized question but I'm open to most ideas. Thanks.

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What you need is a Data Access Layer (DAL) that takes care of running the SQL code and returning the required data in the List<> format that you require. I would definitely recommend you read the two series of articles by Imar Spaanjar on Building a N-Layer Application. Note that there are two sets of series, but I linked to the second set, because it contains links to the first one.

Also, it might be beneficial to know that Sql Server 2008 R2 express edition is free to use, but has a limit of 10 GB per database. I am not saying that you shouldn't use MySQL, but just wanted to inform you in case you didn't know that there is a free edition of Sql Server available.