Using the MM .NET Business Layer Generator

The MM .NET Business Layer Generator allows you to generate business and data access layer classes from an existing database such as SQL Server or Oracle. You can choose to generate from Tables, Views or Stored Procedures:

Why Generate Business Layer from Database Objects?

Even if you're using the Entity Framework Code First workflow, there may be times you want to generate entities and other business layer classes from an existing database.

Often developers create applications that must work with an existing database. If the database has been designed well, it contains tables, columns, constraints, default values and other information from which business layer classes can be derived. It's pragmatic to leverage the many hours spent designing and fine tuning your database into generating your business layer.

Tables in your database often represent real-world entities. For example, each of the following database tables represents a real-world entity:

Similarly, business objects also represent real-world entities:

The difference is that database objects only model the attributes of real world entities (such as Customer name, address, phone number) while business objects model both their attributes and behavior. Since we can at least derive business object attributes (as well as some business rules), its pragmatic to derive business object classes from database objects to help jump start the application development process.

Generating Data Access Layer from Database Objects

Even if you don't use the Business Layer Generator to generate the business layer, you can use it to generate your data access layer. Specifically, if you are using stored procedures to retrieve and update data, the Business Layer Generator can generate stored procedures and associated data access classes for you.