Understanding Data Providers

A Data Provider is an implementation of ADO.NET that includes the types necessary to work with certain database implementations. Some may be very specific, such as Microsoft's SQL Data Provider, which enables fast native access to SQL Server databases. Others are very generic, including the OLE DB and ODBC Data Providers, which provide access to databases that expose an OLE DB or ODBC interface, respectively. The newest type of Data Provider is the Borland Data Provider (BDP) for Microsoft .NET, which targets multiple databases in an efficient manner. Although the following sections focus primarily on BDP, the concepts are similar across all data providers.

The Borland Data Provider

BDP is unique in that it allows connections to multiple databases with a single provider, including IBM DB2, Borland Interbase, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle9i, and others. It is also a high-performance provider, accessing the native protocols of many individual databases, rather than using intermediate layers such as COM Interop. It should be noted that BDP does not access SQL Server 2000 through the native SQL Server protocol, TDS. So, although BDP is a fast generic solution, it is not guaranteed to be faster than Data Providers written directly for a specific database implementation.

BDP exposes an extensible interface for third parties to plug into and provide native access to their databases. Because of its multiple database support with a single provider, code targeting BDP is generic, making it easier for applications to support multiple databases in a single application. For more information on these interfaces, see the ISQLConnection, ISQLCommand,and ISQLCursor interfaces in the C#Builder IDE help files. BDP offers consistent and logical data type mapping for each database implementation, which minimizes database dependencies.

Other Data Providers

C#Builder ships with the .NET Framework Base Class Library (BCL), which includes the SQL Server, OLE DB, ODBC, and Oracle data providers. SQL Server and Oracle are high-performance data providers, but specifically target a single database. OLE DB and ODBC providers may be used with any databases that expose an OLE DB or ODBC interface, respectively.