Guide to Entity Framework with

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But, before we delve deep into this amazing technology from Microsoft, let's take a 
quick look at the prerequisites to learning the concepts covered in this book.
What you should know
As Entity Framework 7 has not been released and isn't mature yet, we will use Entity 
Framework 6.x in this book while discussing the features of Entity Framework 7 as 
we move ahead.
To learn the concepts covered in this book, you should have a basic understanding
of the following:
• 
Programming using ADO.NET
• 
C# 5.0
• 
Using the Visual Studio 2013 IDE
• 
Working with the .NET console and web applications
• 
SQL Server 2012 or later
Looking back
Data-centric applications have two perspective layers. They are the 
data model
and 
the 
object model
. While the data model defines the way data is defined and stored, 
the object model defines how the same data will be represented to the user in the 
presentation layer or how it is exposed to the other layers of the application. The 
data model of the application usually deals with the storage and retrieval of the 
application's data to and from the relational store.
The relational store is used for data persistence, consistency, concurrency, and 
security. It contains the application's data and typically comprises a set of tables, 
views, functions, procedures, and relationships. You typically use T-SQL to query 
against the relational store, which returns result sets that contain columns and rows 
of data.
However, the data returned doesn't necessarily match the application's object-
oriented programming model. Usually, we don't use the data returned in the same 
form in which it is returned from the relational store. We write the necessary code to 
transform the data returned from the relational store into business objects in the data 
access layer of the application. Similarly, you need to write code to transform your 
application's business objects into a form that can be persisted into your relational 
store. But, what if the schema of the underlying relational store changes?

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Introducing the ADO.NET Entity Framework