For a new project, I proposed a rather new (at-least for myself) architecture that leads to think me of a limitation in my understanding of Dot Net Nuke design itself. Hope to hear from the community for suggestions?

My design required to create multiple modules, each with a separate view of the same data (as fetched from the DB). Say such four modules are placed on the same page, and thus will require four calls to DB during normal page load.

Just to clarify,

1-    For each view, separate module is to be built

2-    All modules will be placed on a single page

Question 1: I certainly won’t like four DB calls (to read same data) to be made from each module while all modules are placed on single page. What I want is that, there be a shared controller, called from the page level and would fetch data for all four views (i.e. modules) which they can use. But the basic architecture of Dot Net Nuke demands that each module will load its own data. So what’s the solution to this?

Question 2: Data Caching is out of question for now. However, I am looking into the capabilities of InterModule Communication. But my basic understanding about InterModule Communication suggests that load order of modules can’t be controlled and upon debugging it seemed that due to dependency some module may be loaded twice?

Question 3: Do I need to look into altering the core of Dot Net Nuke to achieve this deisgn? If so, Any suggestions?

 I really doubt you need 4 seperate modules to display similar data based on roles. You might want to look at http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/825/EntryId/1052/Custom-Module-Permissions-Enhance-your-modules.aspx about setting your own permissions, which should fill your need and shrink your need down to 1 module.

I haven't used it, but the repository might do what you want... I think it's pretty flexible. There is also XMod (purchasable) which seems to be flexible and could also cover your needs. Depending on your developer skills and price range.  I haven't used either of those modules, but they seem to be pretty good at doing things. ;)

I think I can understand your use case for the four separate modules all on the same page offering different views of the same data as you are probably thinking of placing them in different panes. Otherwise, one module displaying the four views would be the way to go.

You mentioned that data caching is out of the question at the moment. Why? Other than hitting the database 4 separate times for the same data, I think that caching the data is your only solution. I would follow this pattern:

1. When any of the four modules load, it first checks the cache using a key known to all for modules.
2. If the data is not available in the cache, this (first) loading module loads the data from the database and also adds it to the cache.
3. As the remaining modules load, they too will first check the cache using the same key. The data should be there, but if not, the database is hit again and the data added to the cache.
4. If the data to be displayed in all four modules depends on user interaction, the module which requeries the database based upon user interaction will recache the fresh data and most likely will need to redirect to the same page to refresh the other modules data.

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Bill, WESNet Designs
Team Lead - DotNetNuke Gallery Module Project (Not Actively Being Developed)
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