Question

I am starting a new project and want advice on choosing an ORM. I know this topic has been brought up before, but this topic is specific to either Entity Framework 5 (not 4) or Telerik OpenAccess ORM.

The project will reside on Windows Azure and use Windows Azure SQL Database. I will migrate it to .NET 4.5 once 4.5 is live on Azure.

I am currently a Telerik Ultimate Collection subscriber.

Does anyone in the know have any pros/cons for this scenario? I am slightly leaning towards Telerik OpenAccess at the moment.

Thanks

Answer 1

First off, the comment:

“This is not really an answer – but you may want to keep your eye on the following if you intend to use OpenAccess against Azure: telerik.com/community/forums/orm/orm-express/… ” does not reflect the correct product.

Deals with the FREE version of OpenAccess. Jayantha specified in his question that he is a “Ultimate Collection Subscriber”.

The OpenAccess ORM is now compatible with Azure.

Some reasons to choose OpenAccess ORM over Entity Framework 5:

• Batch operations in Visual Designer
• Code generation for WCF Services
• Code generation for ASP.Net Web API Services
• Dynamic Model Modifications
• Custom Types Framework
• Built-in Validation Frameworks
• .NET 3.5 Support
• Pessimistic Concurrency
• Built-In L2 Cache
• Advanced Connection Pooling
• Pure XML mapping

What you lose when using OpenAccess that EF5 provides:

• Self-Tracking Entities
• Full support for Enumerations in Visual Designer (Partial support only)

Go figure!