Stop Using In-Memory Data! Connect EF Core & SQL Server in .NET Aspire

.NET Microservices Part - 10 | Entity Framework Core & SQL Server with .NET Aspire In this episode of our **.NET Microservices tutorial series**, we take the next step in building our Catalog microservice by integrating **Entity Framework Core (EF Core) with SQL Server using .NET Aspire**. So far, our Catalog API has used an in-memory data store. In this session, we start building the database foundation needed to persist product and category data using a code-first approach. 🚀 *What You'll Learn in This Video* ✅ What is Entity Framework Core (EF Core), and why do we need an ORM? ✅ Understanding Entities, DbContext, and Migrations ✅ Code-First vs Database-First approach ✅ Adding EF Core 10 and SQL Server packages ✅ Creating Product and Category entities ✅ Configuring entity relationships, primary keys, foreign keys, and navigation properties ✅ Using IEntityTypeConfiguration to keep database configuration separate from entity classes ✅ Configuring column lengths, decimal precision, indexes, and delete behavior ✅ Creating CatalogDbContext with DbSet and ApplyConfigurationsFromAssembly ✅ Integrating SQL Server with the .NET Aspire AppHost ✅ Creating the catalogdb database and passing the connection string securely to the Catalog API ✅ Understanding persistent containers, Docker data volumes, and database startup dependencies 🎯 *What We Are Building* We are evolving our Catalog microservice towards a database-backed implementation using: .NET 10 and C# Entity Framework Core 10 SQL Server .NET Aspire Code-First approach Product and Category entities Central Package Management By the end of this session, you'll understand the database integration foundation and how EF Core maps our C# entities to SQL Server tables. 📚 *Who Should Watch?* This tutorial is for developers learning .NET 10, microservices, Entity Framework Core, SQL Server, and .NET Aspire through a practical, step-by-step project. 💻 *Follow the .NET Microservices Series* Continue learning with our hands-on microservices project, where we build and improve real-world application architecture one step at a time. If you find this video helpful, *LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE* to support the channel! 💬 *Question for you:* Do you prefer the Code-First or Database-First approach in your projects? Share your experience in the comments. #DotNet #Microservices #EntityFrameworkCore #DotNetAspire #DotNet10 #SQLServer #CSharp #CodeFirst