The ADO.NET Architecture

Data Access in ADO.NET relies on two components: DataSet and Data Provider.

DataSet

The dataset is a disconnected, in-memory representation of data. It can be considered as a local copy of the relevant portions of the database. The DataSet is persisted in memory and the data in it can be manipulated and updated independent of the database. When the use of this DataSet is finished, changes can be made back to the central database for updating. The data in DataSet can be loaded from any valid data source like Microsoft SQL server database, an Oracle database or from a Microsoft Access database.

Data Provider

The Data Provider is responsible for providing and maintaining the connection to the database. A DataProvider is a set of related components that work together to provide data in an efficient and performance driven manner. The .NET Framework currently comes with two DataProviders: the SQL Data Provider which is designed only to work with Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 or later and the OleDb DataProvider which allows us to connect to other types of databases like Access and Oracle. Each DataProvider consists of the following component classes:

The Connection object which provides a connection to the database
The Command object which is used to execute a command
The DataReader object which provides a forward-only, read only, connected recordset
The DataAdapter object which populates a disconnected DataSet with data and performs update