Choose an UltraLite data management component for Windows Mobile

UltraLite allows you to build a small-footprint relational database solution without requiring the additional overhead of setting up a separate database server. Instead, UltraLite programming interfaces use one of two approaches—the UltraLite in-process runtime library and the UltraLite database engine. Both approaches control connection and data access requests.

Both components include a built-in bi-directional synchronization client that links UltraLite databases with the MobiLink synchronization server. For more information about the UltraLite synchronization client, see UltraLite synchronization client features.

UltraLite in-process runtime library

The UltraLite in-process runtime is recommended when only one application needs to access a database at a time.

The runtime and the application are part of the same process, which makes the database specific to the application. The runtime library manages UltraLite databases and built-in synchronization operations.

Linking to the runtime requires a different import library/DLL pair from that of the engine.

UltraLite supports both static and dynamic linkage.

Static linking Static linking requires less device memory and is more effective when only a single UltraLite application is used on the device.
Dynamic linking Dynamic linking may be more economical with device memory when multiple UltraLite applications are used on the device.

UltraLite database engine (the uleng12.exe utility)

The UltraLite engine is only available for Windows desktop and Windows Mobile platforms. The engine is a separate executable that supports concurrent access from multiple applications. Each application must use a client library to communicate with the UltraLite engine.

The UltraLite engine requires more system resources than the UltraLite runtime and may yield lower performance when large amounts of data are moved between the client and database.

Connecting to the engine requires that you specify a different import library/DLL pair than that of the runtime.

The UltraLite engine is required under the following conditions:

Multiple processes access the same database file at potentially the same time (same time means multiple processes have connections open to the same database at the same time).
Central Administration is used to manage the UltraLite application database.