ADO.NET Data Services is the new name for project "Astoria", and it's been built from the ground up using the lessons learned from the "Astoria" prototyping phases. You can download the new CTP as part of the ASP.NET 3.5 extensions.
Here's what you get as part of this CTP:
Support to create ADO.NET Data Services backed by:
- A relational database by leveraging the Entity Framework.
- Any data source (file, web service, custom store, application logic layer, etc)
Serialization Formats:
- Industry standard AtomPub serialization
- JSON serialization
Business Logic & Validation
- Insert custom business/validation logic into the Request/response processing pipeline
- simple infrastructure to build custom access policy
Access Control
- Easily control the resources viewable from a data service
Simple HTTP interface
- Any platform with an HTTP stack can easily consume a data service
- Designed to leverage HTTP semantics and infrastructure already deployed at large
Client libraries:
- .NET Framework
- ASP.NET AJAX