Entity Framework 4.1 Release Candidate

“Final Release to Web (RTW) of Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 (EF 4.1). This is a fully supported, go-live release.” – said ADO.NET team on April, 2011.

ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 RC introduces two new features:

The DbContext API is a simplified abstraction over ObjectContext and a number of other types that were included in previous releases of the ADO.NET Entity Framework. The DbContext API surface is optimized for common tasks and coding patterns. DbContext can be used with Database First, Model First and Code First development.
Code First is a new development pattern for the ADO.NET Entity Framework and provides an alternative to the existing Database First and Model First patterns. Code First is focused around defining your model using C#/VB.NET classes, these classes can then be mapped to an existing database or be used to generate a database schema. Additional configuration can be supplied using Data Annotations or via a fluent API.

Overview of Entity Framework

The Microsoft® ADO.NET Entity Framework 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. Using the Entity Framework, developers issue queries using LINQ, then retrieve and manipulate data as strongly typed objects. The Entity Framework’s ORM implementation provides services like change tracking, identity resolution, lazy loading, and query translation so that developers can focus on their application-specific business logic rather than the data access fundamentals.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937709

MSDN –

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937723

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg696172(v=vs.103).aspx

Upgrading to Entity Framework 4.1 RC – http://johnpapa.net/upgrading-to-entity-framework-4-1-rc