Q&A: Will my favourite ORM Foo work with SQL Azure?

Note: Cross posted from IUpdateable from Eric Nelson.

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short answer: Quite probably, as SQL Azure is very similar to SQL Server

longer answer: Object Relational Mappers (ORMs) that work with SQL Server are likely but not guaranteed to work with SQL Azure. The differences between the RDBMS versions are small – but may cause problems, for example in tools used to create the mapping between objects and tables or in generated SQL from the ORM which expects “certain things” :-)

More specifically:

  • ADO.NET Entity Framework / LINQ to Entities can be used with SQL Azure, but the Visual Studio designer does not currently work. You will need to point the designer at a version of your database running of SQL Server to create the mapping, then change the connection details to run against SQL Azure.
  • LINQ to SQL has similar issues to ADO.NET Entity Framework above
  • NHibernate can be used against SQL Azure
  • DevExpress XPO supports SQL Azure from version 9.3
  • DataObjects.Net supports SQL Azure
  • Open Access from Telerik works “seamlessly”  - their words not mine :-)

The list above is by no means comprehensive – please leave a comment with details of other ORMs that work (or do not work) with SQL Azure.

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