Data Development...

.NET Technologies

Use the Entity Framework to easily access databases using LINQ, with direct access to SQL Server and the option to control the mapping between an Entity Data Model (EDM) and raw relational structures.

Use Data Services for a near-turnkey solution to easily create and consume REST-based data services on both the web and intranet.

Use the core ADO.NET technology to manually implement a data access layer on top of any data store, and System.XML for XML access in .NET. Also see LINQ to SQL for access to SQL Server tables represented as objects.

Native Technologies

Depend on Microsoft's XML technologies for working with XML, and on Native Data Access Technologies (ADO, OLEDB, and ODBC), collectively known as MDAC/WDAC, for uniform data access to diverse data sources.

Also visit the SQL Server Developer Center for more direct access to SQL Server including the SQL Server Native Client.

Roadmap to the Future

Look to new features in Entity Framework and Data Services added in the .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.

Look to the SQL Server Modeling technologies for new approaches to textual modeling (the code name "M" language), a new environment for building data-driven applications (code name "Quadrant"), and enterprise-level Modeling Services.