ADO.NET Data Architecture

ADO.NET Data Architecture

ADO.NET has four layers.

The Physical Data Store
This can be any database, XML files or OLE.

The DataSet
The dataset stores relevant portion of the database on the local machine. It allows data to be loaded in the memory of the machine and is disconnected from the database. The dataset can manipulate disconnected data in the memory. It contains one or more DataTable objects. The DataTable objects contain DataColumns, DataRows and Constraint collections. The DataSet contains a DataRelations collection which allow you to create associations between rows in one table and rows in another table.

The Data Provider
A data provider provides a set of components that helps to extract data from database.
The components are as follows:
- Connection object
- Command object
- DataReader
- DataAdapter

The Dataview
This determines presentation of a table in the dataset. This is mainly used to sort or filter data in the dataset.