8.13. Implementation Alternatives: Conclusions

What are the alternatives? What is the best choice? Let's review these questions in light of the reasons for exposing data through a OLE DB provider, data provider, or Infoset provider: data exchange, integration with GUI components, and third-party product support.

Data provider writers have at least four major choices to hook into the .NET compatibility space:

  • Write a .NET data provider. This is a good choice for a data source (usually a relational or other database) that uses a proprietary protocol that can be parsed using a set of managed classes. The immediate example is SqlClient, which includes a TDS parser, or the OleDb data provider, which encapsulates a COM-based API. For maximum benefit ...

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