Data Management

T07 So Many Choices, So Little Time: Understanding Your .NET 4.0 Data Access Options

03/27/2012

10:45 am - 12:00 pm

Level: Intermediate

Leonard Lobel

MVP

CTO

Sleek Technologies, Inc.

We all know that Microsoft loves to drop new data access APIs in our laps, but since .NET 3.5 SP1, and now with .NET 4.0, the variety of new capabilities and options available is unprecedented, even for Microsoft. The .NET 3.5 SP1 framework gave us Entity Framework (EF), Language-Integrated Query (LINQ), LINQ to SQL (and a variety of other LINQ providers) and ADO.NET Data Services. Now .NET 4.0 sports a revamped EF 4.0 with N-tier support and adds on WCF RIA Services.

How to you sort out this chaos? Is conventional ADO.NET dead? Is it possible to bridge the DataSet with Silverlight? How do you build an n-tier Silverlight app using domain services and EF 4.0? Lenni will answer these questions (and more) to help demystify the Microsoft data access juggernaut. We’ll compare the real advantages and disadvantages across this set of technologies so that you can choose the best architecture for your application. Attend this session and develop a clear perspective of .NET data access in today’s world.

You will learn:

  • Understand the evolution of .NET data access
  • Clarify the role of conventional ADO.NET and DataSets
  • Learn about the Entity Framework
  • Leverage WCF Data Services and WCF RIA Services