Setting Up Model Approach in Entity Framework 4

Question

Hello,

I am beginning a new project, so one of the tasks given to us is to determine whether we should create one large Entity Framework 4 model (don't know how many tables yet), or split the model into separate models, one per module within the application.

If we create separate models, we'll have repeated entities within each module, but this way we have less grouped entities, less potential performance problems, etc.

So if anyone can provide insight or their experience when setting up EF models I would appreciate it. What are the pain points to be aware of?

Thanks.

Answer 1

imho you should consider POCOs and only use the entity models to be able to create objectcontexts.

In this way you can have the same POCOs for all modules (put them in a shared assembly) but still have different entity models in each module.

• POCO = Plain Old CLR object = Regular .net class
• Entity Model = Model generated by EF framework containing all objectcontexts.
• POCOs in EF4: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2009/05/21/poco-in-the-entity-framework-part-1-the-experience.aspx