How closely is Entity Framework tied to WCF RIA Services?

Question

I'm trying to build a simple proof-of-concept "business application" in Silverlight and I keep running into a wall in trying to get data in and out of the database. I'm currently trying to learn WCF RIA Services, but I'm stuck because I can't get Entity Framework to work with existing tables in my database (they don't show up in the model designer even though I add them via the wizard).

I'd still like to use RIA Services (I think), but I don't know how much I would lose by abandoning EF in the process. How closely are they tied together?

Answer 1

The WCF RIA Services Wizard for adding a new Domain Service requires either a provider that supports DataContext or ObjectContext. EntityFramework, Linq2sql, and NHibernate fall into one of these two categories.

However, you can feel free to implement a DataService without using the wizard if so inclined.

I'd focus on the EF issues first(sql2005 is supported), as the wizard makes the process very easy to learn.