The Problem
Anybody who has ever connected a web page to a simple database is probably
familiar with Microsoft’s Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface.
This is the interface that enables a developer to assign a Data Source Name
(DSN) to the
database, and then interact with it in a consistent fashion regardless of the
specific flavor of database behind the DSN.
In combination with Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP), ODBC became
a very popular technology, because it’s very simple to use and it works.
In fact, if you are developing in a shared hosting environment and are not
paying a premium for access to a SQL or Oracle server, then ODBC may well be
your only reasonable option.
Enter ASP .NET. When Microsoft folded ASP .NET into its high-end development
environment, Visual Studio .NET, they did not include native support for ODBC.
Why not? Because Microsoft has a new technology, called OLE DB, that is supposed
to replace ODBC. As a result, the data server controls that ship with Visual
Studio .NET support OLE DB and database server environments such as SQL Server,
but not ODBC.