Brett Lonsdale's SharePoint Blog

BCS External Lists

SharePoint 2010 has introduced a new type of List called the External List.  The External List is used for displaying content that comes from Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Enterprise content types.  Business Connectivity Services is the replacement in SharePoint 2010 for The Business Data Catalog (BDC) in SharePoint 2007.

The BDC provided a read only view of your line of business data allowing you to display the data in Web Parts, Search Line of Business data, and use it within lists and libraries via the Business Data Column.  It was possible to right back to the data source using BDC via your own custom web parts or by using BDC Meta Man.

Business Connectivity Services allows you to work with your Line of Business Data within SharePoint as though it was a SharePoint List.  External Lists provide you with full CRUD functionality meaning you can Create, Read, Update and Delete data all the way back to the data source.  If you are familiar with using SharePoint Lists, you will be at home with an External List.

Read more on EndUserSharePoint:  http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2010/02/01/sharepoint-2010-external-lists/