CHAPTER 21 ADO.NET PART I: THE CONNECTED LAYER
Understanding ADO.NET Data Providers
ADO.NET does not provide a single set of objects that communicate with multiple database
management systems (DBMSs). Rather, ADO.NET supports multiple data providers, each of which is
optimized to interact with a specific DBMS. The first benefit of this approach is that you can program a
specific data provider to access any unique features of a particular DBMS. The second benefit is that a
specific data provider can connect directly to the underlying engine of the DBMS in question without an
intermediate mapping layer standing between th