Summary

The success of XML has certainly not diminished the need for relational databases. They contain a wide variety of data within the enterprise. InfoPath, based on its extensible structure, can leverage these types of data sources and extend them to develop data-driven applications. This chapter has covered how, using SQL Server and Microsoft Access, InfoPath can leverage the ADO Adapter as a way of accessing these data sources.

Using a similar structure as we saw earlier with Web Services and XML, InfoPath accesses these relational data sources and returns information. Both SQL Server and Microsoft Access 2003 are powerful relational databases that are designed for very different types of environments. SQL, with its string enterprise-wide connectivity and built-in scalability, is ideal for mission-critical applications. On the other hand, Microsoft Access is an ideal solution for client/server-based applications that don t have a string mission-critical need. Depending on the solution designed, they are both accessible from InfoPath. In the next several chapters, we will start to discuss how you can use both databases and Web Services to develop workflow solutions. These types of solutions provide an ideal application path for InfoPath-based solutions.