How to categorize SQL Server data access for papers?

Question

Hello everybody!

We are writing this paper about database access in a web app and have to distinguish between the different categories of the database access layer.

All books and PDF's given us provide only information to JDBC or OLEDB.

Researching on the web brought me to the point that access to a Microsoft SQL Server trough linq-to-entities or linq-to-sql through ADO.Net can't be put under the same category as JDBC or OLEDB (middleware).

What would be the exact definition/category for Microsoft SQL Server-access through the .NET facilities such as LINQ2Entities or LINQ2SQL?

Answer 1

LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework both fit (to varying degrees) in the category of ORMs. Both sit on top of ADO.NET and cannot be used without it. ADO.NET is essentially a .NET replacement for OLE-DB, which, itself, was a replacement for ODBC.

Answer 2

ADO.NET is the next step after OleDB - and it's definitely in the same category as OleDB or ODBC / JDBC.

Linq-to-SQL and Linq-to-Entities are more high-level - they don't solve low-level data access problems, they're more about OR-mapping and providing models to work against. I would put those in a similar category as Hibernate in the Java world.

Marc