HDNUG 29July2008

1
HDNUG 29-July-2008

• Introduction to the Microsoft ADO.Net Entity
  Framework

Rowan Miller Development Team Leader
Technology Services Group
2
Agenda

• Introduction
• What are we trying to solve?
• How are we solving it?
• Entity Framework
• Demos

3
Who Am I

• Name Rowan Miller
• Position Development Team Leader
• Company Technology Services Group
• Email mail_at_romiller.com
• Blog http//romiller.com
• Responsibilities
• Development Team Roadmap
• Application Architecture Development
• Data Warehouse Architecture Development

4
Federal Group

• Approx 2,500 Employees
• Very diverse range of businesses
• Accommodation
• Cruise Rail
• Gaming
• Pubs Clubs
• Etc.
• Distributed user base
• Rapidly changing environment

5
Agenda

• Introduction
• What are we trying to solve?
• How are we solving it?
• Entity Framework
• Demos

6
Impedance Mismatch

• Data stored are based on a Relational Model
• Applications are based on an Object Model
• Developers generally write a lot of code to
  convert between the two

7
Impedance MismatchExample An employee works in
an office

• Relational Model
• Primary Keys
• Foreign Keys
• Rows
• Columns
• Insert/Update/Delete

• Object Model
• Classes/Types
• Properties
• Objects
• Methods/Functions
• Constructors

8
Agenda

• Introduction
• What are we trying to solve?
• How are we solving it?
• Entity Framework
• Demos

9
Mapping Between Layers

• Relational Model Logical Layer
• Object Model Conceptual Layer
• Need a technology to simplify the mapping between
  the two
• This is not a new idea
• Hibernate (JAVA)
• nHibernate (.Net)

10
Entity Framework

• Developed as part of ADO.Net
• Uses standard ADO.Net data connections
• Part of the .Net Framework
• First release .Net 3.5 SP 1
• Currently in Beta 1
• Visual Studio tools VS2008 SP1
• Currently in Beta 1

11
Entity Framework

• Uses xml file formats
• Allows for 3rd party tools
• Logical Layer modelled in .ssdl file
• Conceptual Layer modelled in .csdl file
• Mappings stored in .msl file
• Tools/Designer built into Visual Studio
• Creates .edmx files

12
Entity Framework

• For This Demo Im Using
• Entity Framework Beta 3
• EF Tools for VS2008 Beta 3
• For The Latest Release
• VS2008 SP1 Beta 1 (Big Install)

13
Agenda

• Introduction
• What are we trying to solve?
• How are we solving it?
• Entity Framework
• Demos

14
Observations

• Very intuitive to use
• Gentle learning curve
• No massive shift in thinking just automates a
  lot of code
• Performance is increasing with each release
• Seems very stable
• Inheritance is a bit buggy in current betas
• LINQ on Entity Framework VERY NICE!!!

15

• Get the Beta http//msdn.com/data
• Questions ???
• Email mail_at_romiller.com
• BLOG http//romiller.com