Entity Framework Features

•Cross-platform: EF is a cross-platform framework means platform independent which can run on Windows, Linux and Mac.

•Modelling: Entity Framework creates an Entity Data Model which is based on POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) entities with get or set properties of different data types. It use this model whenever querying or saving entity data to the underlying database.

•Querying: EF allows you to use LINQ queries (C#/VB.NET) to retrieve data from the database. The database provider will then translate this LINQ queries to the database-specific query language for example SQL for a relational database. EF also allows you to execute raw SQL queries directly to the database.

•Change Tracking: It keeps track of changes which occurred to instances of our entities (Property values) which will need to be submitted to the database.

•Saving: EF executes INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE commands to the database based on the changes occurred to our entities when we call the method. EF also provides the asynchronous method.

• Concurrency: It uses Optimistic Concurrency by default to protect overwriting changes made by another user since data was fetched from the database.

• Transactions: EF performs automatic transaction management while querying or saving data from the database. It also gives an options to customize transaction management.

• Caching: Entity Framework includes first level of caching out of the box. So, repeated querying return data from the cache instead of hitting the database.

• Built-in Conventions: EF follows conventions over the configuration programming pattern, and which includes a set of default rules which automatically configure the EF model.

• Configurations: EF allows you to configure the EF model by using data annotation attributes and also by Fluent API to override default conventions.

• Migrations: It also provides a set of migration commands which can be executed on the NuGet Package Manager Console or the Command Line Interface to create or manage database Schema.