BCS Component Distribution

The components of Business Connectivity Services (BCS) are distributed across SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, and Office 2010.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 includes the core run-time service for BCS, known as the Business Data Connectivity Service (abbreviated BDC by Microsoft, which may cause confusion with the former Business Data Catalog); the Connector Framework, which provides plumbing to the supported connector types shown here; the External List component, which exposes external data sources as SharePoint lists; and the External Data Column component, which allows columns in a SharePoint list to expose data from an external source.

SharePoint Server 2010 includes External Data Search, which allows external data sources to be searched through SharePoint Enterprise Search; the Secure Store Service, which allows secure storage and mapping of account credentials for connecting to external systems (for example, a SharePoint user account can be mapped to an external data source account so users get appropriate access to external data through SharePoint); Business Data Web Parts, a set of reusable user interface components for read-only access to external data; and Rich Client Extensions, which allow access to external data from within Office 2010 applications via SharePoint Server.