An ADO.NET

ADO.NET

ADO.NET is a set of computer software components that programmers can use to access data and data services. It is a part of the base class library that is included with the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is commonly used by programmers to access and modify data stored in relational database systems,...

 data provider is a software component enabling an ADO.NET consumer to interact with a data source. ADO.NET data providers are analogous to ODBC drivers, JDBC driver

JDBC driver

A JDBC driver is a software component enabling a Java application to interact with a database. JDBC drivers are analogous to ODBC drivers, ADO.NET data providers, and OLE DB providers....

s, and OLE DB provider

OLE DB provider

An OLE DB provider is a software component enabling an OLE DB consumer to interact with a data source. OLE DB providers are analogous to ODBC drivers, JDBC drivers, and ADO.NET data providers....

s.

ADO.NET providers can be created to access such simple data stores as a text file and spreadsheet, through to such complex databases as Oracle

Oracle Database

The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....

, Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...

, MySQL

MySQL

MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...

, PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...

, SQLite

SQLite

SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard...

, DB2

IBM DB2

The IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition is a relational model database server developed by IBM. It primarily runs on Unix , Linux, IBM i , z/OS and Windows servers. DB2 also powers the different IBM InfoSphere Warehouse editions...

, Sybase ASE

Adaptive Server Enterprise

Adaptive Server Enterprise is Sybase Corporation's flagship enterprise-class relational model database server product. ASE is predominantly used on the Unix platform but is also available for Windows.-History:...

, and many others. They can also provide access to hierarchical data stores such as email systems.

However, because different data store technologies can have different capabilities, every ADO.NET provider cannot implement every possible interface available in the ADO.NET standard. Microsoft describes the availability of an interface as "provider-specific," as it may not be applicable depending on the data store technology involved. Note also that providers may augment the capabilities of a data store; these capabilities are known as services in Microsoft parlance.