What are providers? What is the difference between OLE DB and ODBC?

Question

I need to read files dbf. I found a tutorial to read the same where the author uses these two providers. I only saw differences in the connection string.

What are these providers? What is the difference between them?

Answer 1

ADO.NET

To microsoft documentation tell me what it is. I’ll just summarize.

They are components to give access (read) to data coming from a given source, probably a database. There are common operations that these providers must provide. ADO.NET treats them abstractly and providers implement them concretely according to the specificities of the data source.

The idea is that access to any data source should be made transparent. It seems that everything comes from something common, that it is not necessary to understand the specific functioning of the source. this simplifies even the exchange of one source for another.

These providers act as if they were the drivers ODBC and Oledb but implement a more suitable way for . NET.

If you understand how the dbf works, maybe understands what are the RDD (Replaceable Data Drivers). It’s basically the same thing.

Some providers defined by Microsoft can be found here. Anyone can define their own providers. There are companies that specialize in this and some databases in the market provide providers for ADO.NET. Examples.

Oledb

How do you see yourself drivers ODBC and Oledb are ADO.Net providers.

The Oledb provider can only access data sources that can communicate with this technology. Microsoft itself is abandoning its support on some of its products.

ODBC

ODBC is a more universal way of accessing data sources.

Both should be avoided because it is an extra layer, has an extra processing cost, although Oledb avoids this a bit. More specific providers for a database or other source is always more advantageous. Their implementation is more efficient because they know how to access the data in the best way. More generic providers are used, such as the two examples cited, when there is no more specific provider.

Formal definitions can be found in links above.

Answer 2

The difference is in the resources that each account and the databases that it supports.

The ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is a standard for access to database management systems (DBMS). They are drivers for numerous databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, Postgresql, Mysql and others.

The OLE DB is an API developed by Microsoft that acts with an interface that allows universal access to various data sources.

They have basically the same function, with the difference of OLE DB access data sources other than Relational Databases.

Although several databases provide support to OLE DB, Microsoft itself discourages its use in favour of ODBC, so much so that the OLE DB will be Discontinued from SQL Server 2012 and it will be removed in future versions.

Answer 3

Provider is something that helps you, which provides something in case a connection.

OLE DB and ODBC are Apis that allow access to a range of data sources.

• (ODBC), is an international standard for manipulating relational data using the SQL query syntax in different data sources. ODBC has the advantage of being an international standard that allows to manipulate a wide variety of relational data sources through several Microsoft ODBC drivers and third-party vendors. A main disadvantage of ODBC is that it is limited to relational, syntax SQL based on data.

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• OLE DB is Microsoft’s strategic low-level interface for data throughout the organization. OLE DB is an open specification developed to provide the success of ODBC by providing a open standard to access all data types. OLE DB does not impose no specific limitation on query syntax or structure of the exposed data as it can be recovered in tabular format. An OLE DB data provider is analogous to an ODBC Driver, exposing a data source for a consumer OLE DB, such as ADO. A variety increasing data providers of OLE DB being made available by suppliers of Microsoft and third parties. The first provider of OLE DB data, Microsoft OLE DB provider for ODBC Drivers, allows that you expose to any ODBC data source to a consumer of OLE DB.