GenericServices is here to help you build a Service Layer, sometime called an Application Layer, in your application. I explain why this is useful in the following section in the in the Why GenericServices? page. The diagram below gives you an overview of the recommended architecture.

In my Simple-Talk article Using Entity Framework with an Existing Database: User Interface I explain in detail the sort of application architecture that GenericServices is designed to work in. I recommend anyone who wants a good understanding of GenericServices to read that article.

You can also get a good idea of the architecture by looking at the example web sites listed at the top of the Wiki index.

1. Data Layer: sometimes called the Infrastructure Layer, or Persistence Layer. This deals with the reading and writing data to the database using EF. It should provide IQueryable versions of each table/class for reading.
2. Business Layer. This will contain all the business logic that goes beyond simple read/write of data. The Business Layer accesses the database via the data layer, using either EF commands directly or some form of Repository/UnitOfWork pattern. See my blog article Is the Repository pattern useful with Entity Framework? for my views on that.
3. Service Layer: sometimes called the Application layer. This layer's job is to format the data flowing from the Data Layer and the Business Layer to/from the format that the Presentation Layer needs. This is where GenericService and the associated DTOs are defined to handle the Data Layer to Presentation Layer communication.
4. Presentation Layer: sometimes called the UI (User Interface) Layer. This section’s job is to present the formatted data from the Service Layer to either a user via a web page, to another system via say a RESTful interface.

NOTE. GenericServices is designed to be easy to use with Dependency Injection (DI), which is a way of linking to services. See the section Dependency Injection page in the Wiki for full details of how it is implemented in the SampleMvcWebApp.