I started to think about tracking changes in complex object graph in disconnected application. I have already found several solutions but I would like to know if there is any best practice or what solution do you use and why? I passed same question to MSDN forum but I received only single answer. I would like to have more answers to learn from experience of other developers.

This question is related to .NET so for answers with implementation details I prefer answers related to .NET world but I think this is the same on other platforms.

The theoretical problem in my case is defined in multi layered architecture (not necessarily n-tier at the moment) as follows:

  • Layer of repositories using ORM to deal with persistence (ORM tool doesn't matter at the moment but it will most probably be Entity Framework 4.0 or NHibernate).
  • Set of pure classes (persistent ignorant = POCO which is equivalent of POJO in Java world) representing domain objects. Repositories persists those classes and returns them as results of queries.
  • Set of Domain services working with domain entities.
  • Facade layer defining gateway to business logic. Internally it uses repositories, domain services and domain objects. Domain objects are not exposed - each facade method uses set of specialized Data transfer objects for parameter and return value. It is responsibility of each facade method to transform domain entity to DTO and vice-versa.
  • Modern web application which uses facade layer and DTOs - I call this disconnected application. Generally design can change in future so that Facade layer will be wrapped by web service layer and web application will consume that services => transition to 3-tier (web, business logic, database).

Now suppose that one of the domain object is Order

.net architecture orm dto
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