Microsoft creates tools for migration from LINQ to SQL to ADO.NET Entity Framework.

It is widely known that in the last release of the Microsoft.NET Framework there are two built-in object-relational mapping (ORM) solutions. One is LINQ to SQL and another ADO.NET Entity Framework. While the first one was introduced earlier in the .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, an ADO.NET Entity Framework appeared later on in the .NET 3.5 SP1 with support in the Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

Although ADO.NET Entity Framework is younger and provides more simplistic functionality than LINQ to SQL it has gained recognition and being developed very dynamically by Microsoft. Its new version will be improved and enhanced with new features in the upcoming release of the .NET framework..

Moreover, Microsoft has already released the first version of Visual Studio 2010 templates for LINQ to SQL (.dbml) metadata migration to ADO.NET Entity Framework (.edmx) models which proves their strategical intentions to abandon LINQ to SQL in favour of ADO.NET Entity Framework.

That said, it does not necessarily mean that one day all software built using LINQ to SQL will stop working, but it could cause serious obstacles for the migration of existing applications to the following versions of the .NET Framework. From this perspective ADO.NET Entity Framework is undoubtedly more attractive for cost-effective and low-risk migration solutions.


The article has been prepared by Denis Nikolayenko. The original version of this article on Russian can be found here