Microsoft is grabbing the idea of nettier for itself,
using their new technology in C#2 and the syntax extension of the coming C#3 (not C# Framework 3 just released, C# v3 !! )
The example, an admin generation tool with an entity tier using SQL Query Library:
http://www.asp.net/sandbox/app_blinq.aspx?tabid=62
Note that this tool uses another M$ tool which generates to a XML file any database shema, and that this tool will be included in the next version of Visual Studio along with a designer.
The C# Entities SQL Query library (take a look at the first doc, it is amazing ....):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/ref/linq/