Data : Data

Data + XML + “Oslo” = “It’s All Data” (the new Data Developer Center)

dmgblogs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:05:00 GMT

After some months of planning and execution, we’re delighted to present you with the newly redesigned and expanded Data Developer Center on MSDN!

The expanded part here comes from the fact that the Data DevCenter is now home to what used to be two other separate centers, XML and “Oslo”. Actually, the XML DevCenter already joined with Data back in early October more or less intact. The former “Oslo” site, on the other hand, has merged with Data as of PDC 2009, a natural result of “Oslo” becoming SQL Server Modeling and taking a clear place within the larger ecosystem of data development technologies.

The redesign part then really came up as the natural result of this merging. Back in early July, Elisa Flasko (the owner of the Data DevCenter at that time) and myself (owner of the “Oslo” DevCenter) started to explore how best to present all the diverse technologies that we’d be supporting on the merged DevCenter.

The challenges were immediately apparent, as were the opportunities implicit in the solutions to those challenges. For one, the Data and XML DevCenters were very much oriented around currently shipping technologies, as well as ones with a multi-version history. SQL Server Modeling/“Oslo”, on the other hand, was 100% pre-release. But that gave us the clear opportunity to ground our presentation of SQL Server Modeling in the context of the most recently data technologies, like the ADO.NET Entity Framework, as well as the entire arc of data development technologies over the last two decades.

Second was the need to answer a perennial question: with all these different data development technologies, which one do you use for what purpose, and when? It’s a question I’ve been hearing over and over from developers, one that stems from the undeniable fact that after twenty-five years or so, Microsoft’s overall development platform is just plain big. Very, very big! The opportunity, then, was to start exploring ways to help you—the developers who live and breathe MSDN—navigate your way through that bigness, by leading you through distinct steps that quickly reduce the overall surface area of what you need to think about and understand. What we’ve done on the Data DevCenter, which I’ll discuss more in a moment, is our first step.

The third major challenge was to create a DevCenter structure that could continue to support the healthy developer communities that have grown up around the individual technologies while at the same time encourage the growth of an “It’s All Data” community. The opportunity here was to think beyond just having a single community stage—that is, a single aggregation of data-related community blogs—to create “mini-DevCenters” for main individual technologies along with really a “best of” aggregation on the Data DevCenter home page.

And, of course, we had the challenge to do all this in time for PDC 2009, especially with the redesign of MSDN itself in mid-October that had serious implications where page layout was concerned. But truly, this was an opportunity both to keep ourselves focused and to reevaluate (by necessity!) how we utilized your screen real-estate.

Whew!

Well, we hope that the new Data Developer Center has met these challenges and created a framework upon which we can grow.

Now if you want to continue reading, the sections that follow go into a little more detail about what you’ll find on the site. But of course you’re wholly invited to just go there yourself and start exploring!

The Home, Community, and Support Pages

Upon visiting the site, you’ll see that the home page is designed to help you find your place in the overall data technology stack. Instead of a flat list of technologies, which assumes you already know what they’re used for, we’ve grouped them into .NET technologies, “native” (e.g. Win32) technologies, and the ever-available “future stuff” bucket, with direct, one-sentence descriptions. I also wanted to illustrate—literally, with diagrams—how the technologies within these groups relate to one another, a real act of self-discipline for one who loves to wordsmith. Thus was born the short Data Development Technologies At-a-Glance article (as well as individuals At-a-Glance topics for Entity Framework and Data Services). As an expanded version, I also wanted to understand and illustrate how all these technologies developed over time, which you’ll find in Data Development Technologies: Past, Present, and Future. (My associates have described this as a real “archeological job,” for which I’m grateful to whoever ditched an old 1999 copy of Inside SQL Server 7.0 in one of the Microsoft mailrooms!)

We’re also happy to offer the much more detailed piece by Bob Beauchmin, Guide to the Data Development Platform for .NET Developers, as well as our Top Ten Questions & Answers on Data.

Farther down the home page you’ll also find aggregations of our top team and community blogs—those we’ve hand-picked to feature—while on the main Community page you’ll find aggregations of all the blogs we monitor. The main Community page is also home to training partners, an index of user groups, and the best data development books and community sites.

And we should mention too that the main Support page is also an all-up gateway to all the different data development MSDN forums and the data development Connect sites.

The Learn Page

The main Learn page now is the one that we consider of top importance, second only to the home page. It’s really here that we hope newcomers will land when they really want to know what they should be investigating more deeply.

What we’ve done on this page then, after providing links again to the At-a-Glance, Past/Present/Future, and Guide for .NET Developer articles, is offer the Selection Guide section. This contains a decision tree based on four initial choices: Application Type, Release Timeframe, Storage Technology, and Learning Type. Each of these leads you into a second level of choices that finally present a list of those specific technologies that are really applicable to the choices you’ve made. Because we’ve invested quite a bit of thought into this guide, we’d really love to hear what you think!

Below the selection guide we continue to present the list of technologies we support on the Data DevCenter, organized into Current and Future columns. And rounding out the Learn page is a group of Learning Type links that will take you off to index pages for documentation, videos (shipping and pre-release), articles, samples, books, and more!

Individual Technology Pages (Mini-DevCenters)

Now when you’re on either the home page or the Learn page and click on the name of a technology, you’ll go to another page that helps you dive more deeply into that technology. In some cases, especially with the most mature technologies, those secondary pages are static. In others, especially the most recent and future technologies for which there is significant community buzz, we’ve creating something of the look-and-feel of a separate DevCenter.

For shipping technologies, specifically Data Services and ADO.NET Entity Framework, these technology pages give you quick links to the necessary downloads, a sequenced Beginner’s Guide, a detailed Resources & Community page, and a futures page. Here you’ll also see technology-specific highlight along with team and community blog aggregations.

Those blog aggregations are repeated on the Resources & Community pages for the individual teachnologies, where you’ll also find feeds for the latest videos, articles, forum posts, and Connect feedback, along with links to samples, MSDN library content, product documentation, related technologies, and available hands-on-labs. In short, we designed these each of these Resources & Community pages to be the place where you’ll be spending most of your time once you are actively working with any given technology.

We’re doing a similar thing with pre-release technologies, such as those in the SQL Server Modeling CTP: the “M” language, “Quadrant”, and SQL Server Modeling Services. In these cases we don’t have a separate Beginner’s Guide or—obviously—a “futures” page, because all of that is really folded into the individual Resources & Community pages.

What’s to Come

Well, the first thing I can think of, after writing everything to this point, is that I should sit down and do a video tour of the DevCenter! But as you might expect, many of us are going to be taking some well-deserved vacation after PDC…I, for one, am planning to hit the already-open ski slopes of Mount Hood outside Portland, Oregon, where I live. So I can’t promise a video right away.

What we’ll be doing in the months ahead is really working to deliver new content for the various sections of the Data DevCenter as appropriate for the lifecycle stage of the individual technologies. For example, the Data Services and Entity Framework teams are ramping up their content plans in preparation for the imminent release of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4. With a new SQL Server Modeling CTP just out the door, there are many good content opportunities to pursue there as well.

So watch all those feeds we’ve dropped around the DevCenter, and more than that, do take the time to tell us what you think of this redesign, the Selection Guide on the Learn page, blogs you’d like to see included in our aggregations, and really anything else you can think of (including any glitches you see). “It’s All Data,” sure, but it’s really all about serving you, to help you have the greatest successes you can—and enjoyment!—with Microsoft’s data development technologies. To this goal I and the rest of our whole Community team are completely committed.

You can reach us through dpfback (at) microsoft.com.

Kraig Brockschmidt
Community Program Manager for the Data Developer Center

ODBC DM 3.80 in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

dpblogs — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:45:00 GMT

We’re excited to announce that version 3.8 of the Microsoft ODBC DM (Driver Manager) will be released in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

What’s New In Version 3.80?

Compared to ODBC 3.5x, there are four major improvements in ODBC 3.80.

Streamed Output Parameters

In ODBC 3.5x, applications can only use SQLBindParameter to bind a buffer to an output parameter of a stored procedure. When working with large BLOB data objects, such as images, allocating an extremely large buffer may not be possible. ODBC 3.80 allows applications to retrieve BLOB output parameters in parts via SQLGetData.

ODBC C-Type Extensibility

The list of valid C-Types defined in the ODBC specification is the same for all ODBC drivers. Typically, data store manufacturers create new data types for new scenarios or new customer needs. Applications usually use the generic C-type SQL_C_BINARY to work with these new data-source specific types. ODBC 3.80 allows driver manufacturers to define their own C-Types. This means that a driver can define its own client-side type conversion rule for its new driver-specific data type, and thus provide a better developer experience.

Asynchronous Connection Operation

Before ODBC 3.80, asynchronous mode was only supported on statement operations, such as SQLExecDirect and SQLGetData. We extend this support to connection operations, such as SQLDriverConnect and SQLEndTran. ODBC 3.80 also allows applications to cancel connection operations, just as with SQLCancel on statement operations.

Asynchronous connection operations can significantly improve the performance of many large-scale, mission-critical applications, given the same amount of resources. For example, assume that you want to populate 100 connections in the pool at the application startup time so that all subsequence requests can be more efficiently served. Suppose it takes 1 second to make a connection to a remote server. You may be able to make 100 connections within a few seconds with asynchronous mode in a single-threaded application, compared to 100 seconds with the previous model! Interactive applications that take advantage of this new feature could, for example, render a progress bar, and also cancel long-running connection operations easily.

Better Management In ODBC Connection Pooling

ODBC Drivers are now notified when the ODBC Driver Manager puts a connection into the connection pool. This was previously opaque to the driver. Upon receiving the signal from the Driver Manager (via a newly introduced connection attribute SQL_ATTR_RESET_CONNECTION), a driver can reset some of its attributes to their default states. This can provide a more consistent behavior to an application when it reuses a connection from the pool.

For more detail about each of the above new features, you can download the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: RC.

Why Update To Version 3.80?

Application compatibility was our highest priority when the ODBC 3.80 features were designed. Since the new features in ODBC 3.80 introduced new behavior, we upgraded the version to 3.80 from 3.5x (shipped on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008). This guarantees that:

- Existing ODBC drivers and applications (ODBC 2.0 or ODBC 3.x) will still work properly under Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

- ODBC 3.80 is optional for new development of drivers and applications.

When Can I Use These New Features?

For ODBC driver writers, the release candidates of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 have these features. Try out the Win7 RC bits today!

For application developers, please read the SDK (link above) to better understand how these features may fit within your environment. At the moment, ODBC 3.80 drivers are not available; however, we are in contact with several driver vendors about supporting ODBC 3.80. Please work with your driver vendor to better understand their plan for ODBC 3.80 support.

Does SQLODBC Driver (Inside WDAC) Support ODBC 3.80?

No. SQLODBC is now in maintenance mode. Its sole purpose is for backward compatibility.

Pak-Ming Cheung

Microsoft Developer, WDAC team, Data Programmability

Announcing Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver 2.0

dpblogs — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:21:00 GMT

We are excited to announce the newest release of the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver! This version of the JDBC driver provides support for the JDBC 4.0 API, including new national character set conversion methods, new metadata methods, and new data types like SQLXML, as well as a host of performance improvements and bug fixes. The latest version also enhances the tracing operation by logging the entry and exit points of public methods and by providing better distinction between the trace levels. Please feel free to download a copy and see for yourself!

- JDBC Team

Announcing Entity Framework & ADO.NET Data Services RTM!

dpblogs — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Announcing Entity Framework & ADO.NET Data Services RTM!

We are excited to announce the RTM of the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, including the RTM of the ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services, which raise the level of abstraction for database programming and supply both a new model-based paradigm and a rich, standards-based framework for creating data-oriented Web services. With this service pack, Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 also support SQL Server 2008, making the Microsoft platform the most comprehensive environment for database application development.

“The ASP.NET AJAX improvements and new capabilities like ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services meant we didn’t have to worry about any of the underlying plumbing and could simply focus on building a highly responsive and interactive experience for users,” says Galen Murdock, President and CEO at Veracity Solutions. (Link to Official Press Release)

For more information or to download check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/data

Elisa Flasko
Program Manager, Data Programmability

Interested in working on the ADO.NET Data Services Framework (aka "Astoria") or XML?

elisaj — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:13:00 GMT

Do you want to work on the next generation of data access APIs for the web? If so, the Astoria and XML teams are hiring. If you want to get a feel for the types of problems our team thinks about the solutions we build, check out the earlier posts on this blog as well as

http://msdn.microsoft.com/data and http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml

We have a range of job openings across disciplines (Development, Developer in Test and Program Management) available on the Astoria and XML teams. If you are interested in any of these positions, please send myself (mike.flasko@microsoft.com) and Andy Conrad (aconrad@microsoft.com) email.

For more details on each of the open positions, please see:

ADO.NET Data Services PM

XML PM

ADO.NET Data Services SDE

XML SDE

ADO.NET Data Services SDE/T

XML SDE/T

We look forward to talking with you...

Thanks,

Mike Flasko : ADO.NET Data Services ("Astoria"), Program Manager

Program Manager openings in Data Programmability in 2008

dpblogs — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:43:00 GMT

We’re gearing up for the next release of the SQL Server, and we are looking for people that have a passion for building great data access technologies and frameworks to help with the effort. We have been very busy recently releasing:

· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server aka SqlClient)

· Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack CTP, February 2008 (includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client)

· SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP Community Technology Preview (February 2008)

· Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver 1.2

If you are interested in designing the next set of API’s and tackling challenging technical subjects across all our SQL Server data access stacks and want to work for a team who is focused on shipping great technologies, we’re interested in hearing from you. Drop me a line directly at ddove@microsoft.com.

Debra Dove
Lead Program Manager

Connecting to Pre-Release Versions of SQL Server 2008 – Part Deux

dpblogs — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:26:00 GMT

Since posting on the topic of design-time and runtime connectivity to pre-release versions of SQL Server 2008 on the Data blog in November, the set of affected clients (applications, runtimes, and operating systems) have been officially released: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5, Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Windows 2008. Runtime connectivity from a client system configured with any of these released products to SQL Server 2008 November CTP or later provides full runtime access to the following features (for design-time functionality, see below):

· Table-Valued Parameters

· New date/time data types

· Large user-defined types

· Support for very large FILESTREAM-attributed column data

Design-Time Connectivity Between Visual Studio and SQL Server 2008

Developers using Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 design tools will receive an error when trying to open a database on any pre-release instance of SQL Server 2008 without installing a Visual Studio patch. Pre-release patches for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005 enable the following Visual Studio functionality for SQL Server 2008:

· Server Explorer successfully connects to SQL Server 2008, and database objects such as stored procedures and table data can be viewed and edited.

o Note that table schemas still cannot be viewed or edited in this release.

· SQL CLR projects that target SQL Server 2008 can be created and deployed to the server.

· T-SQL and SQL CLR debugging are now enabled for SQL Server 2008.

· Data binding features in Client and Web Projects are enabled.

Pre-release versions of the design-time patches are currently available: the Visual Studio 2008 CTP patch is available for download here and the Visual Studio 2005 CTP patch is available for download here. Final versions of the patches will be available in the near future. For more information please see the "Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008" whitepaper on MSDN.

Debra Dove

Program Manager Lead, Data Programmability

64-bit OLEDB Provider for ODBC (MSDASQL) Is Now Available For Windows Server 2003

dpblogs — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:51:00 GMT

We’re pleased to announce that 64-bit MSDASQL for Windows Server 2003 is now available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=000364db-5e8b-44a8-b9be-ca44d18b059b. This update will also be available through “Windows Update” soon.

What is MSDASQL?

MSDASQL is an OLEDB/ODBC ‘bridge’ that allows applications built on OLEDB and ADO (which uses OLEDB internally) to access data sources through ODBC drivers. MSDASQL ships with the Windows Operating System, and Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 are the first Windows releases to include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL.

Isn’t MSDASQL Deprecated?

Previous messaging on MSDN indicated that a 64-bit version of MSDASQL would not be available. However, we have received numerous requests from customers for this technology and we are making it available on the following Windows operating systems: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Microsoft has no plan yet to deprecate this technology currently.

Mo Lin

Program Manager, Data Programmability

Deep EF

SamDruk — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:28:00 GMT

The gang at Channel 9 gave me a soapbox for talking about the Entity Data Model, the ADO.NET Entity Framework, SQL Server, a strong architectural factoring and a bunch of related rambling about how to build composite applications that handle massive quantities of data. Enjoy! (or not, sound off in the thread either way ;)

SamDruk

Data Development Bonus Track - Devconnections Fall 2007

dpblogs — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:59:00 GMT

There's a new Bonus Track at at DevConnections this Fall!

Come and check out sessions in the new Data Access Bonus track to learn more about the many new, and not so new, Microsoft products providing developers with a more positive and efficient experience developing data-aware applications regardless of the technology that you choose as the basis for your app (Windows Forums, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, etc.).

Learn about Sync Services for ADO.NET, the upcoming ADO.NET Entity Framework, how to take advantage of new features in SQL Server 2008, the new Project Astoria technology, and a brand new project that Microsoft is introducing in this space.

Astoria Client Library for Microsoft Silverlight Alpha 1.1

dpblogs — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:34:00 GMT

The Astoria Team is happy to announce the availability of an add-on to the Astoria May CTP that contains a version of the Astoria client library for use in Microsoft Silverlight Alpha 1.1 applications.

The original May CTP release included a client library, but the library was only written to target the .NET Framework and it could not be used in the Silverlight environment. Accessing Astoria services from Silverlight was still possible using the HTTP interface, but this client library simplifies the task of interacting with Astoria data services, making this a valuable download.

The library exposes the same API the original client library makes available, with the addition of an option to execute queries asynchronously.

This is still an experimental release of the Astoria technology. It is not ready for production, but it does illustrate our current thinking and direction. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback on the API design choices, expectations, behaviors, etc.

The CTP add-on is available on the Astoria site.

Elisa Flasko

Community Program Manager, Data Programmability

64-bit OLEDB Provider for ODBC (MSDASQL) Available in Longhorn Server, Starting Beta 3

dpblogs — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:25:00 GMT

We’re pleased to announce that Longhorn Server Beta 3 will include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL, Microsoft’s OLEDB Provider for ODBC.

What is MSDASQL?

MSDASQL is an OLEDB provider that allows applications built on OLEDB and ADO (which uses OLEDB internally) to access data sources through an ODBC driver instead of a database. MSDASQL ships with the Windows Operating System, and Longhorn Beta 3 is the first Windows release to include a 64-bit version of MSDASQL.

Who does this impact?

If you are a customer in one of the following scenarios, you will see direct benefits from this technology when upgrading to or deploying Longhorn Server:

· SQL Server Customers with Heterogeneous DBMS Environments: the Linked Server and Distributed Query features of SQL Server connect to external data sources through an OLEDB provider. The addition of the 64-bit MSDASQL Provider allows these features to leverage the 64-bit equivalents of ODBC drivers that SQL Server applications of 32-bit environments are already using, and to use an ODBC 64-bit driver if a 64-bit OLEDB provider for the target external data source is not available.

· ADO and ASP Customers Planning a Migration to 64-bit: on 32-bit operating systems, MSDASQL is the default OLEDB provider used by ADO. In Longhorn Server Beta 3, applications that specify an ODBC driver in the connection string (e.g. “Driver={SQL Server}...”) are not required to change connection strings when migrating to 64-bit.

· Customers with OLEDB Applications Using ODBC Data Sources: when migrating these applications to 64-bit, the applications can leverage a native 64-bit ODBC driver, provided that one is available for the target data source.

Isn’t MSDASQL Deprecated?

Previous messaging on MSDN indicated that a 64-bit version of MSDASQL would not be available. However, we have received numerous requests from customers for this technology and we are making it available to address the pain experienced in the scenarios described above without 64-bit MSDASQL.

Mo Lin

Program Manager, Data Programmability

John Bocharov

Program Manager, Data Programmability

Data Technologies at Mix '07

dpblogs — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:39:00 GMT

There has been a lot of recent coverage on the participation of data technologies at Mix 07 and the announcements that we, the Data Programmability team at Microsoft, made regarding two new incubation projects that we are working on.

So, if you didn't get a chance to attend Mix, or just didn't get a chance to attend our sessions, here's a quick breakdown of Data at Mix 07.

The Data Programmability Team, including the ADO.NET and XML teams, presented 4 sessions and hosted 2 Sandbox sessions during the course of Mix 07.

· Pablo Castro presented 2 sessions (one repeat) on Accessing Data Services in the Cloud (Project Codename 'Astoria')

· Tim Scudder & Aaron Dunnington presented a Deep Dive session on Data Driven Experiences (LINQ to XML and Silverlight)

· Sam Druker & Shyam Pather presented a session Rapidly Building Data Driven Web Pages with Dynamic ADO.NET (Project Codename ‘Jasper’)

To learn more about these technologies, all sessions are available to view at the above links. You can also checkout more information on Project Astoria and Project Jasper on the MSDN Data and Storage Developers Center.

Elisa Johnson

Community Program Manager, Data Programmability

Microsoft’s Data Access Strategy

dpblogs — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 08:12:00 GMT

Over the last 12 months, Microsoft has been talking a lot about two major innovations related to representing and querying data. The first is the new Entity Data Model exposed as part of the ADO.NET Entity Framework, and the second is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework for integrating queries into the programming language known as LINQ. What are these technologies, how do they relate to one another, and what role do they play in Microsoft’s Data Access Strategy? Let’s start with Microsoft’s Data Access Strategy.

Does Microsoft have a Data Access Strategy?

Yes, it turns out we do. Microsoft envisions an Entity Data Platform that enables customers to define a common Entity Data Model across data services and applications. The Entity Data Platform is a multi-release vision, with future versions of reporting tools, replication, data definition, security, etc. all being built around a common Entity Data Model.

Within the .NET Framework, the ADO.NET Entity Framework is integral to this vision. The ADO.NET Entity Framework builds on our mutual investment in ADO.NET by enabling applications to write to a conceptual data model with strong notions of type, inheritance, and relationships. Through the use of “Client Views”, this conceptual model can be flexibly mapped to existing relational schemas, enabling the creation of new business structures when the underlying database schema cannot be changed and providing a level of indirection that helps isolate applications from naming as well as structural changes of the storage schema (for example, changes in the degree of storage schema normalization). The ability to work with a conceptual model greatly simplifies forms design and web service development where the underlying data store represents the model in a complex way.

Client Views are implemented within a new ADO.NET Data Provider called the Entity Client which supports an extended SQL grammar called Entity SQL (“ESQL”). ESQL provides a common query language across providers by extending the existing SQL language with constructs to work with strong notions of type, inheritance, and relationships from the Entity Data Model. By exposing the conceptual model through traditional ADO.NET Data Provider APIs (Connections, Commands, and Data Readers), existing ADO.NET programmers can immediately benefit from the conceptual model, common SQL language, and flexible mapping of the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

The ADO.NET Entity Framework also supports Object Services for building typed queries and returning, manipulating, and updating results as Business Objects. These Business Objects can be queried using ESQL, or through a new language innovation called LINQ.

What is LINQ?

Microsoft’s new Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that provide common capabilities within the programming language for querying against in-memory data as well as external data sources. LINQ complements our vision for an Entity Data Platform by providing language extensions for querying data as objects within the programming language.

LINQ will ship as part of the next version of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, codenamed Orcas. At the time that Orcas first ships, the .NET Framework will include support for LINQ over in-memory objects, LINQ over XML (XLINQ), LINQ over ADO.NET DataSets (LINQ to DataSet), and LINQ queries directly mapped to Microsoft SQL Server schemas (LINQ to SQL).

A few months after the shipment of Orcas, and within the first half of 2008, Microsoft will release the ADO.NET Entity Framework as an extension to the Orcas version of the .NET Framework. The ADO.NET Entity Framework will fully support LINQ through a feature known as “LINQ to Entities”. LINQ to Entities combines the developer experience of having query integrated into the programming language and the richness of being able to define an Entity Data Model with flexible mapping to relational stores.

What is the difference between LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities?

LINQ to SQL supports rapid development of applications that query Microsoft SQL Server databases using objects that map directly to SQL Server schemas. LINQ to Entities supports more flexible mapping of objects to Microsoft SQL Server and other relational databases through extended ADO.NET Data Providers.

If you are writing an application that requires any of the following features, you should use the ADO.NET Entity Framework:

· The ability to define more flexible mapping to existing relational schema, for example:

o Mapping a single class to multiple tables

o Mapping to different types of inheritance

o Directly Modeling Many to Many relationships

o Mapping to an arbitrary query against the store

· The ability to query relational stores other than the Microsoft SQL Server family of products.

· The ability to share a model across Replication, Reporting Services, BI, Integration Services, etc.

· A full textual query language

· The ability to query a conceptual model without materializing results as objects

If you do not require any of these features, LINQ to SQL may provide a simpler solution for rapid development. LINQ to SQL is targeted at rapid-development scenarios against Microsoft SQL Server and provides a simpler approach and richer design experience in the Orcas timeframe for applications with data classes that map directly to the schema of your Microsoft SQL Server database.

Microsoft is defining a migration plan for customers that start with LINQ to SQL and require additional functionality, such as richer mapping capabilities or access to other stores, to migrate to the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

Sounds great; how do I get started?

Both LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework, including LINQ to Entities, are available now as part of the Orcas Beta 1. LINQ over Objects, LINQ to XML, LINQ to SQL, and LINQ to DataSet will all ship as part of the Orcas release of the .NET Framework. We will continue to ship CTPs and Betas of the ADO.NET Entity Framework that align with Orcas throughout the remainder of this year.

Mike Pizzo,
Architect, Data Programmability

VSLive Keynote - San Francisco

dpblogs — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:29:00 GMT

Britt Johnston, Director, Data Programmability at Microsoft gave a Keynote speech this morning at VSLive in San Francisco. In his presentation, Britt spoke largely about the idea of Conceptual Data Programming and Microsoft's vision for Data Access, raising the level of abstraction around data access to allow developers to be more productive and allow us to write less code.

Britt began by talking about the idea of programming against a Conceptual data model rather than the Logical data model that we currently program to, and ended by delving into the key technoglogies that Microsoft plans to focus on for future innovation including continuing investment in the Entity Framework, an Entity-level services ecosystem (Reporting, Synchronization, etc.), and the Enabling of Dynamic Applications (Conceptual Programming, Integrated Development Experience, Device to Cloud Support, etc.).

Throughout his presentation, Britt went on to showcase 5 short videos or screencasts that demonstrated some of the work, specifically around Tools, that the Data Programmability team has been doing. These videos provide some great information and a preview of the new XML Editor, XSLT Debugger, and EDM Wizard coming in Orcas, as well as a sneak preview of a new XSD Designer and EDM Designer that we can expect to see released after the upcoming Orcas release.