.netTiers is the object relational mapping software that we currently use for all our applications.  In my experience it is extremely flexible, and saves me the several hours a week I used to spend writing custom CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) methods to various objects in the database.  Plus since it is open-source and template-based, I can go in and change any part of it I see necessary. 

There are a lot of places on the Internet that list what the .netTiers templates provide, but I couldn’t really find anywhere that provided a clear, comprehensive overview of what it provided … without going into too much detail.  So I pieced together the following definition that explains what .netTiers is and the functionality it could provide.  .netTiers really does save me and my team hours of development time every week, so if it sounds like something that might help you out … you should definitely check into it further by going to www.netTiers.com.

.netTiers is a set of free CodeSmith templates that targets an existing datasource and automatically generates a personalized architecture to use in your .NET applications.  The generated code is custom to your domain, uses familiar patterns, and follows the guidance of Microsoft's recommended patterns and practices.  In fact, the .netTiers base architecture is built upon the Microsoft Enterprise Library Application Blocks.  Core features include:

• Generate strongly-typed business entities with a 1:1 mapping to the datasource (an entity for each table or view, with a property for each column):
  • All objects are serializable, and support trigger events
  • Implements an IEntity interface, which contains the columns that are present in every table
  • Each object has a concrete and a base class which it inherit from. The concrete class is generated just once, so after the first time you can then add your custom logic straight in the code-gened files
  • Uses a custom generic List for collections that are sortable, filterable, and directly bindable to datagrid and other ASP.NET and WinForm controls
• Generate Data Access Layer Components (DALC) for tables and views, with following database operations:
  • Support for basic CRUD methods, plus several other useful methods such as Select All, Paged Select, Find (with paging and sorting), etc and allows the addition of your own custom methods
  • Support for queries using primary & foreign keys, as well as keys that are part of an index or junction table
  • Support for Deep loading and saving, with children type selection and optional recursivity
• Option to use stored procedure or parameterized SQL inside the application
• Generates a complete nAnt build file, to compile, test and generate documentation
• Generates a full set of nUnit tests
• All code is fully nDoc commented and follow the Microsoft naming guidelines
• Open-source so you can modify the templates if necessary