The Role of ADO in Microsoft Data Access

The Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) provide data access that is independent of data stores, tools, and languages. It provides a high-level, easy-to-use interface, and a low-level, high-performance interface to practically any data store available. You can use this flexibility to integrate diverse data stores and use your choice of tools, applications, and platform services to create the right solutions for your needs. These technologies provide the basic framework for general-purpose data access in Microsoft Windows operating systems.

There are three primary technologies in MDAC. ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) is a high-level, easy-to-use interface to OLE DB. OLE DB is a low-level, high-performance interface to a variety of data stores. ADO and OLE DB both can work with relational (tabular) and nonrelational (hierarchical or stream) data. Finally, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is another low-level, high-performance interface that is designed specifically for relational data stores.

ADO provides a layer of abstraction between your client or middle-tier application and the low-level OLE DB interfaces. ADO uses a small set of Automation objects to provide a simple and efficient interface to OLE DB. This interface makes ADO the perfect choice for developers in higher level languages, such as Visual Basic and even VBScript, who want to access data without having to learn the intricacies of COM and OLE DB.