ADO.NET vNext Provider Writer Event Summary

The ADO.NET team recently held an event for ADO.NET provider writers. Representatives from DataDirect, IBM, MySQL, SQLite and Sybase converged on Microsoft headquarters in Redmond to attend the three day event.

The goal for the event was to help provider writers understand how they can enhance their providers to support the next version of ADO.NET and to get feedback on our provider model. Each provider writer had their own lab space to work on their providers. Members of the ADO.NET team presented material on the provider model and query tree structure to the attendees and answered various questions on those topics.

The event was a major success. Representatives from five provider writers attended. By the end of the event, each provider writer was able to execute basic queries using all three layers in the ADO.NET vNext Entity Framework - the Map Provider, Object Services and LINQ to Entities.

Here are a couple quotes taken from blog posts of two of the attendees:

• "It's clear Microsoft has made a big commitment to supporting 3rd party providers in the new Entity Framework. ... When the next LINQ CTP hits the streets, I'll be releasing a corresponding SQLite alpha provider for it." – Robert Simpson, SQLite. See the SQLite blog post about the event here: http://sqlite.phxsoftware.com/blogs/sqlite/archive/2006/08/03/1725.aspx

• "Microsoft's strenuous efforts to closely involve third-party vendors provides a better foundation for the Entity Framework." – Jonathan Bruce, DataDirect. See the DataDirect blog post about the event here: http://jonathanbruceconnects.com/jonathan_bruce/2006/08/recap_adonet_providerpalooza.html

We look forward to working more closely with provider writers going forward and will keep the community informed of our progress.

David Sceppa
ADO.NET Program Manager