External SQL Server access in MVC 3 + Entity Framework for query-only

Question

I'm devoloping a system using MVC 3 with EF 4. In this system, I need to lookup some information that already exists in an external database.

Saving me project's information on my database is OK. I defined my Models on it and let DbContext create the tables on my server.

The problem is when I try to query some data from the external database. I've added the connection string in the properly place on Web.config:

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="ExtDBConnectionString" connectionString="Data Source=path.to.server;Initial Catalog=DBName;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=user;Password=pass;Pooling=True;Min Pool Size=5;Max Pool Size=60;Connect Timeout=2;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Is it possible to just create some queries to this server on my project without the overload of recreating all the Models from this external database? I know I can recover this connection string on my code by using the command System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ExtDBConnectionString"].ConnectionString, but how can I create a connection and instantiate my queries?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: @rouen called my atention I didn't explicitly said the databases are differents. They do not share the same schema! The external database is the output of a report; so, I need to traverse it on my project to import the relevant lines to the local database.

Answer 1

I would just use standard ADO.NET. Use the SqlConnection and SqlCommand classes.

ADO.NET Examples on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dw70f090.aspx

Answer 2

Is the remote database schemantically identical as your local ? If yes, you can pass connectionstring to constructor of ObjectContext/DbContext, and it will use that database.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg679467%28v=vs.103%29.aspx