Course Overview

Entity Framework (EF) is Microsoft's object-relational mapper (ORM) for querying and updating relational data using domain-specific objects. With EF, developers can much more easily leverage the power of object-oriented programming (OOP) in their data-driven applications.

Mastering Entity Framework provides developers with the essential knowledge and skills needed to leverage the power and flexibility of the Entity Framework, while avoiding common mistakes and pitfalls. Real-world topics will be covered, such as connection and transaction management, stored procedures, as well as detecting and resolving concurrency conflicts in multi-user scenarios. Students will learn how to build robust and scalable data-intensive web services using test-driven methodologies and domain-driven patterns such as Repository and Unit of Work.

Key Learning Areas

  • Entity Framework design goals
  • When to use or avoid dynamic proxies
  • EntityClient streaming API
  • C# functional programming constructs
  • LINQ syntax
  • Caching and aggregation
  • Use-cases for Code First versus Model First
  • DbContext and DbSet classes
  • Configuration options: conventions, attributes, code-based
  • Executing native SQL via EF
  • Using EF in N-Tier scenarios
  • Asynchronous operations
  • Change-tracking and batch updates
  • Implementing Repository and Unit of Work patterns
  • Dependency injection and service location
  • Tuning transactions for better performance
  • Detecting and resolving concurrency conflicts
  • Using stored procedures for queries and updates
  • Evaluating inheritance mapping strategies
  • Setting up Code First migrations for schema evolution
  • Data syndication with OData using ASP.NET Web API

Course Outline

  • Entity Framework Architecture
  • Language Integrated Query (LINQ)
  • Code First
  • LINQ to Entities
  • N-Tier Services and Asynchronous Operations
  • Domain-Driven Design and Testability
  • Transactions
  • Concurrency
  • Stored Procedures
  • Inheritance and Mapping Strategies
  • Code First Migrations
  • Web API OData

Who Benefits

The time to learn about the Entity Framework is now. Mastering Entity Framework will get you up to speed quickly and efficiently, showing you how to leverage the power of Microsoft’s flagship object-relational mapping technology to build data-driven applications that are efficient, robust and scalable.

Prerequisites

The expected audience for this course is developers who are experienced writing C# code using Microsoft Visual Studio.