Datasheet

Displaying Data on the Web

InformixMySQL

OLE DB-Compatible stores

Other data stores

ADO.NET

OLEDB Provider

Application

Data Access Layer

Database

Birdstep

ODBC stores

SQL Server

Custom Provider ODBC Provider

SQL Server

Provider

Standard Providers

Microsoft ships the .NET Framework with two data providers as standard: the SQL Server .NET data

provider, and the OLE DB .NET data provider. The first of these provides a means of connecting to a

SQL Server v7.0 (or later) database, and the classes that it comprises can be found in the

System.Data.SqlClient namespace. The second allows access to any of the multitude of OLE DB-

compatible data stores that are on the market, and implements similar functionality to the SqlClient

provider; it resides in the System.Data.OleDb namespace.

A third data provider, which supports ODBC, is available but not installed by default; at the time of

writing, it could be downloaded from http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/

downloads/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/668/msdncompositedoc.xml. Once installed, the

classes for this provider can be found in the Microsoft.Data.Odbc namespace. Further data

providers are under development, including one for Oracle that's in beta at the time of writing. This is

also available for download from Microsoft's web site.