What is ADO.NET and Full form of ADO.NET?

What is full form of ADO.NET?

The full form of ADO.NET is Active Database Object .NET.

What is ADO.NET?

Business Application need to manage voluminous data. Data is generally stored in relational database in form of related tables or it stored in text format in XML documents. 

Most business application allows users to retrieve the data stored in a database and present it in a user friendly interface without writing the database commands. 

Therefore, ADO.NET is a model used by .NET applications to communicate with a database for retrieving accessing and updating the data. ADO.NET is used as a data access technology. 

ADO.NET can be used with all .NET framework compliant programming languages as visual basic.NET, VC# etc. Microsoft has created a family of data access technologies to help programmers build efficiently application to manage data regardless of data. 

ADO.NET is a part of .NET framework architecture. If its model used by .NET application to communicate with a database form retrieving, accessing and updating data. 

So, the various types of client applicants can connect with these data source using ADO.NET.         

What is main objective of ADO.NET?

ADO.NET enables application to connect to data source and manipulate the data. It is based on an object model that is based on the standard laid down by the World Wide Web consortium (W3C). 

By using ADO.NET, data can be retrieved from data source and saved in another. Ex. Data can be retrieved from MS Excel and then saved in an XML documents. 

In ADO.NET object model, data residing in a database is retrieved through a data provider. Data providers provides data to the application and updates the database with the changes made in the application. 

Data providers provides data to the application and updates the database with the changes made in the application. ADO.NET also enables to create an XML represent of a dataset. 

In the XML dataset, XML Document and XL Schema are used by XSD.

What are the components of ADO.NET?

The components of ADO.NET object model are Data Providers and Data Set.

What are Data Providers?

Data Providers: A data provider is used for connecting to a database, retrieving data, storing data in dataset, reading the data and updating the data.

The four main types of data providers are:

For SQL Server: The system.data.dll assembles implements SQL server .NET framework data provider in system.data.sqlclient namespace.

For OLEDB: The system.data.dll uses OLEDB through CMO assembles implements OLEDB .NET framework data provider in system.data.oledb namespace.

For ODBC: The system.data.odbc uses assembles implements OBBC This assembly is not part of visual studio .NET application.

For Oracle: The system.data.OracleClient uses Oracle Client Connectivity Software assembly implements Oracle .NET framework data provider in system.data.OracleClient namespace.

The four components of a data providers are:

Connection: it is used to establish a connection with a data source as databse.

Data Reader: It is used to retrieve data from a data source in a read only and forward only mode.

Command: It is used to retrieve data, insert data, delete data or modifiy data in  a data source.

Data Adapter: It is used to transfer data to and from a database. A data adapter retrieves data from a database into a dataset and updates the database.

What are Data Sets?

The DataSet is a memory based relational representation of data.

A DataSet is a part of the Disconnected Environment.

A DataSet is a disconnected, cached set of records that are retrived from a data bases.

A DataSet contains a collection of one or more DataTable objects, made up of a rows and columns of data as well as constraints and relation information about data in the database objects.

A DataSet is present in DataSet class in the System.Data namespace. The components of a DataSet are:

DataTableCollection: If contains all the tables retrieved from Data Source.

DataRelationCollection : It contains relationships and links between tables in a dataset.

DataTable: It represents a table of DataSet.

Data Row Collection: It contains all the rows in Datatable.

Data Column Collection : It contains all columns in Data table.

An application can access Data either through a Data Set or through a Data Reader object.

Using a Data Set: Data is cached in Data Set and the application access the data from the Data Set.

Using a Data Reader :  A Data Reader object, which is a component of Data Provider, uses the connection object to connect to database, uses the commands object to retrieve data, and provides data to application in a read only and forward only mode.

What are the features of ADO.NET?

Disconnected Data Architecture:

ADO.NET also support disconnected architecture. In retrieving and updating the data application is connected to database. After the data is retrieved,, the connection with database is closed, when the database needs to be updated, the connection is re-established. 

So the application connects to the database and keeps the connection open till the application is running.

Data Cached in Data Sets

A Data Set is a common method of accessing data in ADO.NET because it implements a disconnected architecture.

ADO.NET is based on a disconnected data structure. So Data is retrieved and stored in Data Sets.

Scalability: ADO.NET supports scalability by working with Data sets. Database operations are performed on Data Set instead of on Database. So, Data resources are saved.

Data Transfer in XML format:

XML is the fundamental format for data transfer in ADO.NET.

Data is transferred from a Database into a dataset and from the Data Set to another component by using XML.

We can use an XML file as a Data Source and store data from it in a Dataset.

A data Set is stored in XML format, you can transmit it between different types of application that support XML and any component that can read the dataset structure can process the data.

Read: How To Create Connection With Database in SQL Server

Read: Connected and Disconnected Architecture of ADO.NET