The ADO.NET Entity Framework: Making the Conceptual Level Real

• Published in: Conceptual Modeling - ER 2006 pp. 552 - 565
• Main Authors: Blakeley, José A., Muralidhar, S., Nori, Anil
• Format: Book Chapter Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2006; Springer
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Computer science; control theory; systems; Data Service; Exact sciences and technology; Impedance Mismatch; Information systems. Data bases; Logical Schema; Memory organisation. Data processing; Metadata Service; Primitive Type; Software; Entity relationship model; Query language; Information system; Relational database; Model driven architecture; Contour line; XML language; Replication; Data models; Abstraction; Conceptual analysis; Service oriented
• ISBN: 354047224X; 9783540472247
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/11901181_42

This paper describes the ADO.NET Entity Framework, a platform for programming against data that raises the level of abstraction from the logical (relational) level to the conceptual (entity) level, and thereby significantly reduces the impedance mismatch for applications and data services such as reporting, analysis, and replication. The conceptual data model is made real by a runtime that implements an extended relational model (the Entity Data Model aka the EDM), that embraces entities and relationships as first class concepts; a query language for the EDM; a comprehensive mapping engine that translates from the conceptual to the logical (relational) level, and a set of model-driven tools that help create entity-object, object-xml, and entity-xml transformers.