Question - What are the data providers in ADO.NET?
Answer -
Data providers are used to transferring the data between the client application and the data store. It encapsulates the database-specific details. Data providers are helpful for database connection, data retrieval, storing the data in a dataset, reading the retrieved data, and updating the database.
The data providers that comes along with the ADO.NET Framework are:
- OLE DB: The OLEDB provider is available under System.Data.OleDb namespace. This provider can be used to access Microsoft Access, DB2/400, SyBase, and SQL Server 6.5 and earlier.
- ODBC: The ODBC provider is available under System.Data.Odbc namespace. This provider is used when there will not be any newer provider is available.
- SQL Server: The Microsoft SQL Server provider is available under System.Data.SqlClient namespace. Classes available under this provider will provide the same functionality as the generic OLEDB provider.