Microsoft is taking the development process associated with building data-centric applications and services a step forward with the availability of the ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3 and the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions preview. Concomitantly with the new releases, the Redmond company highlighted the consistent support from a variety of database providers for the Entity Framework. Following the release to manufacturing of the Entity Framework, database providers will tailor their offerings on the new technology. The ADO.NET Entity Framework reduces the relevance of the back-end database when it comes down to running applications.

"The ADO.NET Entity Framework is a giant leap forward to help developers increase productivity. As part of our efforts, we've reached out to all the leading database vendors and third-party solution providers to encourage them to enable the ADO.NET Entity Framework to connect to their solutions. The response has been overwhelmingly favorable. Together we are meeting developers' needs for a comprehensive data platform that supports all data through a provider-enabled approach that results in writing less code to build rich applications and services," explained D. Britton Johnston, product unit manager for Data Programmability at Microsoft.

Accompanying the Beta 3 for the ADO.NET Entity Framework is the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions preview. Obviously, the two offerings are interconnected. This release is designed to give developers a taste of the new features coming to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET. But essentially, the Extensions will leverage the underlying infrastructure of the Entity Framework during the development of web-based data-centric applications. The preview brings to the table a plethora of components including: the ADO.NET Entity Framework; ASP.NET MVC; ADO.NET Data Services; ASP.NET Dynamic Data; additions to ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight controls for ASP.NET.

ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3 is available for download via this link.

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions preview can be grabbed here.