New Framework Links Developers and Data

Published: December 12, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft last week announced another beta release of its ADO.NET Entity Framework, a new tool designed to make it easy for Visual Studio developers to tap practically any relational database with their applications, including MySQL, IBM's DB2 and Informix, Sybase, and others.

The ADO.NET Entity Framework, which is now in beta 3, extends the capabilities of the Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) technology in Visual Studio to allow developers to use LINQ against many back-end databases. According to Microsoft, this allows developers to work at a conceptual level and focus on business logic, rather than concentrate on the problems of data access.

With this release, the ADO.NET Entity Framework supports a wide range of data stores. In addition to the relational databases mentioned above, beta 3 brings support for data stores and data providers from: Core Lab, DataDirect Technologies, Firebird Foundation, Npgsql, which provides links to the PostgreSQL database, OpenLink Software, Phoenix Software International, and VistaDB Software.

D. Britton Johnston, product unit manager for data programmability at Microsoft, says the ADO.NET Entity Framework represents "a giant leap forward" for developer productivity. "We've reached out to all the leading database vendors . . . to encourage them to enable the ADO.NET Entity Framework," he says. "The response has been overwhelmingly favorable."

The ADO.NET Entity Framework is slated to ship during the first half of 2008. It will also be included with SQL Server 2008, which is due sometime during the second quarter.

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