Programming Visual Basic .NET

Chapter 8.  ADO.NET: Developing Database Applications

Many software applications benefit from storing their data in database management systems. A database management system is a software component that performs the task of storing and retrieving large amounts of data. Examples of database management systems are Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Corporation’s Oracle.

Note

Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access both include a sample database called Northwind. The Northwind database is used in the examples throughout this chapter.

All examples in this chapter assume that the following declaration appears in the same file as the code:

Imports System.Data

Examples that use SQL Server also assume this declaration:

Imports System.Data.SqlClient

and examples that use Access assume this declaration:

Imports System.Data.OleDb

A Brief History of Universal Data Access

Database management systems provide APIs that allow application programmers to create and access databases. The set of APIs that each manufacturer’s system supplies is unique to that manufacturer. Microsoft has long recognized that it is inefficient and error prone for an applications programmer to attempt to master and use all the APIs for the various available database management systems. What’s more, if a new database management system is released, an existing application can’t make use of it without being rewritten to understand the new APIs. What is needed is a common database API.

Microsoft’s previous steps in this direction ...