Overview of ADO.NET

ADO.NET   is Microsoft's latest data access technology. As an integral part of the .NET Framework it is far more than simply an upgrade of previous incarnations of ActiveX^® Data Objects ADO. ADO.NET provides an extensive set of .NET classes that facilitate efficient access to data from a large variety of sources also enabling sophisticated manipulation and sorting of data, and forming an important framework within which to implement inter-application communication and XML Web Services.

ADO.NET is essentially a collection of classes that expose methods and attributes used to manage communications between an application and a data store. Being an integral part of the .NET Framework, ADO.NET simplifies integration of data sharing in distributed ASP.NET applications.

ADO.NET is an expansion of ADO with some of the key concepts retained. It provides access to structured data from diverse sources, which are all accommodated in a consistent, standardized programming model.

ADO.NET can be used in any consumer application that needs to connect to, and communicate with, data sources such as Microsoft SQL Server™, as well as data sources exposed via OLE DB and XML.

XML is used to exchange data between programs or Web pages, which requires a disconnected or remote access to data. Transmitting information in XML-formatted data sets enables programmers to easily separate the data processing and user interface components of a data-sharing application onto separate servers. This can greatly improve both performance and maintainability for systems supporting many users.

ADO.NET also supports the scalability required by Web-based data-sharing applications. Web applications must serve tens, hundreds, or even thousands of users. ADO.NET does not retain lengthy database locks or active connections that monopolize limited resources. This allows the number of users to grow with only minimal increase in the demands on the resources of a system.