Terminology

This article is relevant to entity models that utilize the deprecated Visual Studio integration of Telerik Data Access. The current documentation of the Data Access framework is available here.

This topic defines some terms frequently referenced in Telerik Data Access documentation. Links are provided to relevant topics where additional information is available.

Term	Definition
Service Wizard	The Service Wizard is a tool that automatically creates the C# or VisualBasic code and necessary project files for using Telerik Data Access entities with various Web services, saving the developer time and eliminating syntax errors and bugs. Read more
Association	The definition of a relationship between persistent classes. For more information, see Working with Associations.
Conceptual Model	An abstract specification for the persistent classes, complex types, associations in the domain of an application using Telerik Data Access. Generally, these are the domain classes defined in the Visual Designer.
Concurrency	A process that allows multiple users to access and change shared data at the same time. By default, Telerik Data Access implements an optimistic concurrency model. Read more
Domain Model	A set of concepts that describe the structure of the data, as persistent classes and relationships, regardless of its stored form. For more information, see Database First Scenario.
DSL	DSL stands for Domain Specific Language. Generally, if you see the DSL term, you could consider the Visual Designer.
Eager Loading	The process of loading a specific set of related objects along with the objects that were explicitly requested in the query.
Lazy Loading	When objects are returned by a query, related objects are not loaded at the same time. By default, they are loaded until explicitly requested using a navigation property.
Foreign Key Association	An association between persistent classes that is managed through foreign key properties. For more information, see Working with Associations.
Primary Key	The attribute of a persistent class that specifies which property or set of properties is used to identify unique instances of the type.
LINQ to OpenAccessContext	A query syntax that defines a set of query operators that allow traversal, filter, and projection operations to be expressed in a direct, declarative way in C# and VB.NET. Read more
Mapping	A specification of the correspondences between items in a conceptual model and items in a storage model.
CRUD Procedures	Stored procedures that are used to insert, update and delete data that is in the data source. These functions are used in place of Telerik Data Access generated commands. Read more
Multiplicity	The number of entities that can exist on each side of a relationship, as defined by an association. Also known as cardinality.
Navigation Property	A property of a persistent class that represents a relationship to another persistent class, as defined by an association. Navigation properties are used to return related objects as a collection or a reference, depending on the multiplicity at the other end of the association (e.g. product.Category and category.Products).
Persistent Class (Domain Class, Entity)	The entity is the fundamental building block for describing the structure of data within the domain model. Entities are constructed from properties and describe the structure of top-level concepts, such as products and orders in a business application. Simply, you can consider domain model entities as regular CLR classes.
OpenAccessContext	The context is a child class of the OpenAccessContext which can either be generated by the Add New Domain Model Wizard, or defined by you if you are using the code-only approach. This class contains read-only properties that return an IQueryable of each type that you want to work with. You can use these properties to read the objects you want from the database. For more information, take a look at the CRUD Operations section.
Relationship	A logical connection between persistent classes.
.RLINQ File	An XML file that contains the conceptual model, the storage model and the mappings between them. The .RLINQ file is created by the Telerik Data Access Create Model Wizard. For more information, see Database First Scenario.
Role	The name given to each End of an association to clarify the semantics of the relationship.
Scalar Property	A property of a persistent class that maps to a single field in the storage model.
Simple Type	A primitive type that is used for defining properties in the conceptual model (e.g. Int32, Boolean, Decimal).
Storage Model	Defines the underlying tables, columns, stored procedures, foreign keys and indexes in the Visual Designer.
Telerik Data Access	A set of technologies that support development of data-oriented software applications by enabling developers to work with conceptual models that are mapped to logical schemes in data sources.