Appendix A. ADO.NET Providers
This appendix gives a thumbnail view
of the ADO.NET providers discussed in this book.
It also describes where you can find some additional ADO.NET
providers, including ODBC .NET, Oracle .NET, ODP.NET, and SQLXML. All
these providers are freely downloadable. (Version 1.1 of the .NET
Framework SDK includes ODBC .NET and Oracle .NET).
If you can't locate a managed provider for your data
source, the next best option is to use an OLE DB driver with the .NET
OLE DB provider classes. If your data source doesn't
provide an OLE DB driver, your final resort is to use a lower-level
ODBC driver in conjunction with the ODBC .NET provider. Many data
sources, and nearly all database products include an OLE DB or ODBC
driver.
