Let's look at an overview of the .NET ecosystem to understand the different frameworks that act as the foundations of ASP.NET Core. Some of the information provided here may sound obvious, but it is essential to clarify the differences between different runtimes and frameworks:

The first block is related to Desktop Packs, which provides the tools for the development of desktop applications starting from .NET Core 3.0. We will not use these tools in this book since they are strictly related to desktop development.

The second block is related to the cross-platform part of .NET Core. This set of tools allows developers to build applications on the WEB, DATA, and AI/ML domain. The WEB section refers to ASP.NET Core, which is a collection of libraries that comes with .NET Core. Usually, ASP.NET Core is combined with the DATA access part. Later in this book, we will see how we can use EF Core to access the database layer. Finally, the AI/ML section, which will not be discussed in this book, provides useful tools in the machine learning domain. At the bottom of the preceding diagram, we have a common layer, that is, .NET STANDARD. It allows developers to build third-party libraries that can be used by the Desktop Packs and by the WEB, DATA, and AI/ML parts.

In conclusion, the new .NET ecosystem can be used by any developer, including cloud developers, web developers, and desktop developers. As we mentioned previously, it also runs anywhere and on any platform. In this book, all of our examples will be based on .NET Core.