Application development in any business environment typically centers on the display and management of data. With the volume and complexity of data present in most enterprise environments, effective data access from applications can have a profound impact on the ability of the organization to conduct business and any shift to currently implemented data access strategies cannot be taken lightly.

Entity Framework is the data access API currently being recommended by Microsoft as the preferred method of retrieving and manipulating data from applications built using Microsoft Visual Studio. While many of the concepts that the Entity Framework are built upon are no longer new, the most effective use of the framework within an enterprise environment will require a shift in the strategies of many organizations.

This paper discusses the advantages that a tool like Entity Framework brings to development organizations and then examines challenges to its effective use in an enterprise environment along with potential solutions for these challenges.