A data access application programming interface (API) that supports access to any data source for which an ODBC driver is available. ODBC is aligned with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Standards Organization for (ISO) standards for a database Call Level Interface (CLI).
OLE-DB
A COM-based application programming interface (API) for accessing data. OLE-DB supports accessing data stored in any format (databases, spreadsheets, text files, and so on) for which an OLE-DB provider is available.
one-to-many relationships
These relationships exist when a single instance of an entity (the parent entity) relates to many instances of another entity (the child entity). One-to-many relationships are the most common relationships in the real world.
one-to-one relationship
Occurs when one row or thing of an entity is associated with only one row or thing of another. One-to-one relationships are uncommon in the real world.
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
A technology that uses multidimensional structures to provide rapid access to data for analysis. The source data for OLAP is commonly stored in data warehouses in a relational database.
Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)
A data processing system designed to record all the business transactions of an organization as they occur. An OLTP system is characterized by many concurrent users actively adding and modifying data.
operator
An individual that can potentially receive messages from SQL Server via email, pager, or Net send.
ORDER BY
A sub-statement found in the SELECT statement used to order the rows in the resultset in either descending or ascending order: DESC and ASC, respectively.
OSQL(ODBC Structured Query Language)
An interactive command prompt utility provided with SQL Server that enables users to execute T-SQL statements or batches from a server or workstation and view the results returned.
