Dynamic Layers allow the execution of various ArcGIS Server requests from a client application. An in-depth discussion about Dynamic Layers is in the ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer Class documentation. The client side requests that can be issued to ArcGIS Server include the ability to:

• Change the rendering of an existing ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer. See the code examples for the ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer.LayerDrawingOptions Property, the ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer.CreateDynamicLayerInfosFromLayerInfos Method, and the LayerDrawingOptionsCollection Class.
• Create a layer on-the-fly for the Workspace Types of: Database, Shapefile, FileGDB, and Raster. See the code examples in the ArcGISDynamicMapServiceLayer.DynamicLayerInfos Property (for a Database Workspace Type) and the DynamicLayerInfoCollection Class (for a Shapefile Workspace Type).
• Perform table joins.
• Query for specific records. See the code example for the QueryDataSource Class.
• Identify features. See the code example for the Tasks.IdentifyParameters.DynamicLayerInfos Property.
• Return raster images.

Dynamic Layers are new in ArcGIS Server v10.1 and require the ESRI runtime platforms of Silverlight, WPF, or Windows Phone v 3.0 and higher.

Use one of the two inherited LayerSource Classes to utilize a Dynamic Layer:

• LayerDataSource
• LayerMapSource

The following Properties accept the LayerSource object:

• DynamicLayerInfo.Source
• FeatureLayer.Source
• Tasks.Query.Source

The following image is simplified Object Model Diagram demonstrating the relationship between the LayerSource and DataSource objects in constructing a Dynamic Layer.

System.Object
   ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.LayerSource
      ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.LayerDataSource
      ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.LayerMapSource

Target Platforms: Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 family, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 family

Reference