What is Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework

The Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF) is an Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) framework that enables developers to work with relational data as domain-specific objects, eliminating the need for most of the data access plumbing code that developers usually need to write.

The Entity Framework works with Microsoft SQL Server and 3rd party databases through extended ADO.NET Data Providers, providing a common query language against different relational databases through either LINQ to Entities or Entity SQL.

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