Chapter Summary

• SQL Server 2005 supports the following four network protocols: Shared Memory, Named Pipes, TCP/IP, and VIA. You can specify a particular network protocol in the connection string.

• The Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) library is the appropriate data provider when you are writing native code that targets Windows or you need to provide data access for an ASP application, Visual Basic 6.0x COM, or C++ application.

• The SQL Native Client (SNAC) was introduced with SQL Server 2005 and can be used to access new SQL Server features, such as MARS queries, database mirroring, and the XML data type.

• ADO.NET is the appropriate data access provider when providing data access to a managed code application for the .NET Framework.

• Non-Windows users can connect to SQL Server 2005 through HTTP endpoints. This is a way of exposing data from SQL Server through Web services. Endpoints can be set with one or more of the following authentication methods: Basic, Digest, Integrated, NTLM, or Kerberos.

• In a disconnected model, the client is disconnected from the data source after the DataSet has been populated. A data adapter is used to fill the DataSet with data retrieved from a command object.

• In a connected model, the client remains connected to the data source until the connection is specifically closed. The DataReader object is used to return a read-only, forward-only stream of data.