Welcome to the third installment of my SharePoint BCS overview series.
If you wish to see part 2 of the series please click here.
Today I would like to discuss the different methods of authentication with Business Connectivity Services (BCS). There are actually many ways to perform the authentication. You can use methods such as connection strings and OData Authentication Providers. However, if you want to go with a total no-code solution (as discussed in this series) SharePoint Secure Store Service is the way to go. You can use a non-code solution that doesn’t make use of the Secure Store as well, and I intend to discuss, but you will soon learn why you don’t want to use this in a production environment unless your system is setup a particular way. This post will cover those different methods of authentication as well as discuss how you can use the SharePoint Secure Store Service to help you make your BCS connections.