Connection strings

Question

Hi

I have the following connection string in my Web.Config which was automatically generated with my Entity Framework and SQL Database setup. The first part is the Entity Framework map and the second is the SQL Database map.

<add name="DCECommerceDBEntities" 

connectionString="metadata=res://*/DataAccess.DC.csdl|res://*/DataAccess.DC.ssdl|res://*/DataAccess.DC.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;

provider connection string= Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\DCECommerceDB.mdf;Integrated Security=True; 

User Instance=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient"/>

My question is, im not sure as to why the provider keyword is present before the connection string of the SQL Database map, is this really needed?

Regards

Steven