Database-First Approach Of Entity Framework In ASP.Net MVC 5

To address the data access requirements of ASP.NET MVC application, you can use an ORM (OBJECT RELATIONAL MAPPING) framework.

An ORM framework

• Simplifies the process of accessing data from applications.
• ORM is a tool for storing data from domain objects to relational database.

Entity Framework

• The Entity Framework is an ORM framework that ASP.NET MVC applications can use.
• The Entity Framework is an implementation of the Entity Data Model (EDM), which is a conceptual model that describes the entities and the associations they participate in an application.
• The Entity Data Model (EDM) is a set of concepts that describe the structure of data.
• Entity Data Model is a model that describes entities and the relationships between them.
• EDM allows you to handle data access logic by programming against entities without having to worry about the structure of the underlying data store and how to connect with it.
• Entity Framework eliminates the need to write most of the data-access code that otherwise need to be written.
• It is an enhancement to ADO.NET that gives developers an automated mechanism for accessing and storing the data in the database.
• Using the Entity Framework, developers issue queries using LINQ (Language integrated query), then retrieve and manipulate data as strongly type objects.

Database-First Approach Of Entity Framework In Asp.Net MVC 5

• In the database-first approach the Entity Framework creates model classes and properties corresponding to the existing database objects, such as tables and columns.
• The database-first approach is applicable in scenario where a database already exists for the application.
• So if you are working with existing database for your application the Database First Approach is the best way to communicate with the database.

Following figure shows the database-first approach: