Introducing Microsoft Data Access Components

If Universal Data Access is in your mind then the possible answer could be MDAC, the Microsoft Data Access Components. MDAC is the key technology that enables and provides access to information and other classified data across platforms of an enterprise.

Using Universal Data Access you can also have access to non-relational and relational information services and the user friendly programming interface provided by the Universal Data Access can serve as a language independent tool. In many web-based services and servers in LAN environment basically use Microsoft Data Access Components for integrating information in any data-driven applications under client/server architecture.

Further, Microsoft Data Access Components are very useful in managing and integrating resources both from non-relational and relational (SQL) environments. The components of Microsoft Data Access Components include ADO (Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects), OLE DB, and ODBC (Open Database Connectivity).

ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)

The ADO or the popular Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects is an Application Programming Interface (API) and is responsible for giving access to data on a continuous basis and in a consistent manner. With the help of ADO, you can create front-end database clients and can also create mid-level business objects that can use the available languages, tools and applications in an effective manner.

In any single user or multi-user client/server architecture environment, ADO can be deployed for data interface and hence it is very popular in developing any web-based data driven solutions. Out of many beneficial features of using ADO, important features such as high speed, ease of use, low memory space occupation and the requirement for a very small disk footprint contribute to the popularity of ADO today. Further ADO can beneficially used with OLE DB for easy interface and to access any underlying data.

OLE DB

OLE DB is in fact an interface that allows programmers to carry out a system-level programming and it supports an open standard for accessing all kinds of data. Again OLE DB has been designed for use of resources that are both in relational and non-relational categories and is known to support many hierarchical databases including mainframe ones. OLE DB also supports many types of data including text and graphical data, e-mail and file system stores, any kind of geographical data, custom business objects, etc.

In OLE DB environment a collection of COM interfaces are used to implement various effective database management system services after creating required software components. Data providers and Data consumers are the two main components of any OLE DB where in the data providers are the source for data and the data consumers are the service components that process and transport or populate the processed data within the database.

Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

The Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface is considered as a component of WOSA (Microsoft Windows Open Services Architecture) and it serves as an industry standard interface. With the help of ODBC interface you can have access to data from any of the databases, be it from relational or non-relational database management systems.