Data : Visual Studio 2008

Entity Framework & Data Services Available in VS2008 SP1 Beta

dpblogs — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:30:00 GMT

We are very excited about .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and what this update means for developers who use ADO.NET for data development. This beta marks the entry of the ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services (aka project Astoria) as part of the overall .NET/Visual Studio beta install. This public release is also the final beta before the RTM of these two technologies. In addition, we have a revision of LINQ to SQL that introduces the new date time functions for SQL Server 2008.

In the space of a few short months developers have been able to experience a wave of innovation in the .NET data programming space. We began with the introduction of LINQ in .NET Framework 3.5 for providing a compile time query experience over in-memory objects, XML and relational data, and now we’re adding the Entity Framework runtime and graphical entity designer into the mix. The Entity Framework extends the reach of ADO.NET, providing a new data model that will be the foundation for a range of data services moving forward. We’ve also enhanced the common ADO.NET provider model enabling a LINQ programming experience against 3^rd party databases. The Entity Framework designer in Visual Studio works with 3^rd party databases as well and enables developers to visualize the data model being used by the application.

Over the last year or so we’ve seen a growing trend in the way people build services. They tend to either be operation-centric with a focus on actions occurring on either side or they are resource-centric, where the focus is on working with the data or resource on either side. For operation-centric services the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow (WF) teams have done a bunch of work in .NET 3.5 to make it easier to build these action oriented service interfaces as a workflow. On the data-centric side, the Data Programmability team has been working with the WCF team to deliver ADO.NET Data Services. This is one of the most exciting new additions to the platform in some time, providing the foundation for building the next generation of data-driven applications and services today. These data services build on the WCF classes to provide an end-to-end experience for building data-centric REST based services in .NET. They have a REST based query model, a means of exchanging metadata (in terms of the Entity Data Model) and client and mid-tier API’s that let people build rich data services and clients in a way that is easier than ever before. Developers can start with the Entity Framework and expose relational data via the Data Services Framework, they can expose non-relational data using a custom provider, or they can use some of the existing services that already expose these protocols.

· Live App Storage

· Live Spaces Photos

In summary, it is an exciting time to be working with data on the .NET platform. The team is looking forward to your feedback. We invite you all to download this beta and start using these technologies today.

Sam Druker

General Manager, Data Programmability

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

Connecting to Pre-Release Versions of SQL Server 2008

dpblogs — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:45:00 GMT

Testing has identified some issues connecting to versions of SQL Server 2008 from applications using the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 or developers using Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008. These connectivity issues should be considered before upgrading any end-user systems to Vista SP1 Beta or Windows Server 2008 RC0, upgrading a backend database to SQL Server 2008, or upgrading developer systems to use Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 or RTM.

Design-Time Connectivity Between Visual Studio and SQL Server 2008

Developers using Visual Studio 2005 or any version of Visual Studio 2008 will be unable to connect to any instance of SQL Server 2008. This is most significant for Visual Basic and C# developers as it will effectively block the use of any RAD features to aid in the development of their project.

This connectivity issue is principally caused by an incompatibility between the SMO layer that ships in Visual Studio and the SMO support provided in SQL Server 2008. Future updates will replace the appropriate Visual Studio components and allow connectivity and RAD feature support to the SQL Server 2008 November CTP and later.

Runtime Connectivity to SQL Server 2008 Using System.Data.SqlClient

On systems that have installed the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1, applications that use System.Data.SqlClient to provide data access will be unable to connect to certain versions of SQL Server 2008 depending on the .NET Framework version installed on the client and the SQL Server 2008 version installed on the server. If either end of the connection is updated without consideration of the system as a whole, applications that were previously working would no longer be able to connect.

System.Data.dll, which contains the System.Data.SqlClient namespace, ships as part of the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1. This version of the .NET Framework ships with Visual Studio 2008, Vista SP1, and Windows Server 2008 and with each release of these products (beta, CTP, or release) there is a slightly different version of the .NET Framework. This is not unexpected with pre-release bits, as this is a normal part of the development cycle for each of these products. The released versions of these products will be interoperable and will allow for limited support of other pre-release components.

Below is a chart that identifies whether or not a connection can be established between managed data access applications using System.Data.SqlClient and particular versions of SQL Server 2008 (Katmai).

	SQL Server 2008
	June CTP	July CTP	Nov CTP
Any OS with .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 RTM redistributable¹ (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0. 50727.1433)	No	No	Yes
Any OS with .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 Beta2 redistributable² (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0. 50727.1378)	No	Yes	No
Vista SP1 Beta (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0.50727.1427)	No	No	Yes
Windows Server 2008 RC0 (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0.50727.1427)	No	No	Yes
Any OS with Visual Studio 2005 RTM Or .NET Framework v2.0 RTM³ (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0.50727.42)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Any OS with Visual Studio 2005 SP1³ (System.Data.SqlClient, version 2.0.50727.832)	Yes	Yes	Yes

¹ the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 RTM redistributable is installed as a pre-requisite for the RTM versions of Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework v3.0 SP1, and .NET Framework v3.5
²the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 Beta 2 redistributable is installed as a pre-requisite for the Beta 2 versions of Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework v3.0 SP1, and .NET Framework v3.5
³ connection utilizes SQL Server 2005 data type compatibility

How Does this Impact Feature Availability

The chart below identifies the SQL Server 2008 features that are supported between different combinations of the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 releases and SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) releases.

SQL Server 2008

July CTP

Nov CTP

Future CTP/RTM

Any OS with

.NET Framework v2.0 SP1

RTM redistributable¹

(System.Data.dll,

version 2.0.50727.1433)

No connectivity

Table-Valued Parameters³

New date/time data types³

Large UDT³

Filestream³

Table-Valued Parameters

New date/time data types

Large UDT

Filestream

Any OS with

.NET Framework v2.0 SP1

Beta 2 redistributable²

(System.Data.dll,

version 2.0.50727.1378)

Table-Valued Parameters³

New date/time data types³

No connectivity

Vista SP1 Beta
(System.Data.dll,

version 2.0.50727.1427)

No connectivity

Table-Valued Parameters³

New date/time data types³

Large UDT³

Filestream³

Table-Valued Parameters

New date/time data types

Large UDT

Filestream

Windows Server 2008 RC0
(System.Data.dll,

version 2.0.50727.1427)

No connectivity

Table-Valued Parameters³

New date/time data types³

Large UDT³

Filestream³

Table-Valued Parameters

New date/time data types

Large UDT

Filestream

¹ the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 RTM redistributable is installed as a pre-requisite for the RTM versions of Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework v3.0 SP1, and .NET Framework v3.5
²the .NET Framework v2.0 SP1 Beta 2 redistributable is installed as a pre-requisite for the Beta 2 versions of Visual Studio 2008, .NET Framework v3.0 SP1, and .NET Framework v3.5
³this feature not available in managed stored procedures

Note that Vista RTM ships with the RTM version of .NET Framework v2.0 and, as such, does not contain support for any of the new SQL Server 2008 (Katmai) features that were introduced in .NET Framework v2.0 SP1.

Jason Smith
Development Lead, Data Programmability