What Are the Microsoft Data Access Components?

Microsoft Corporation

October 1997

Microsoft® Data Access Components (MDAC) provide easy-to-use, high-performance access to all types of data throughout the enterprise. Developers creating client/server and Internet/intranet-based data driven solutions use these components to easily integrate information from a variety of sources, both relational and non-relational. Microsoft Data Access Components consists of new versions of ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO), OLE DB, and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) which are released, documented, and supported together.

Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 1.5 is the latest release of Microsoft's data access technologies. MDAC 1.5 is for developers building client/server and Web-based data-driven solutions. MDAC 1.5 includes ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) 1.5, OLE DB 1.5, and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) 3.5, which are now released on a synchronized schedule.

The main design goals for MDAC 1.5 are as follows:

1. Integration with Internet Explorer 4.0. MDAC 1.5 provides the data binding technologies used to create data-bound Web pages in IE4.
   
   
2. ADO enhancements for Visual Basic® and Internet Information Server 4.0 Active Server Page developers. These include a more powerful client cursor engine capable of working with data offline to reduce network and server traffic, asynchronous data fetching for faster client response, and expanded options for updating data on a remote client.
   
   
3. Integrated remoting capabilities (merger of Active Data Connector with ADO 1.5).

MDAC 1.5 is available for free via the Internet, and is supported for use with any Microsoft tools, applications, and Internet products running on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0

Microsoft Data Access Components 1.5 includes:

• ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) 1.5

  ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) enables you to write an application to access and manipulate data in a database server through an OLE DB provider. ADO's primary benefits are ease of use, high speed, low memory overhead, and a small disk footprint. ADO supports key features for building client/server and web-based applications.

• Remote Data Service 1.5 (RDS/ADC)

  Remote Data Service is a high-performance Web-based technology that brings plug-and-play database connectivity and corporate data publishing capabilities to Internet and intranet applications. You can use Remote Data Service to build intelligent Web applications that let you access and update data from an ODBC-compliant database management system (DBMS). And because you can implement Remote Data Service with familiar technology—off-the-shelf visual controls, HTML, and Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript)—Remote Data Service integrates seamlessly with existing Visual Basic applications, letting you transport them to the Web.

• ODBC Drivers and Components
  • SQL Server

    The Microsoft SQL Server ODBC Driver now provides Unicode support.

  • Oracle

    This includes the installation of Microsoft Oracle ODBC Driver 2.0. The Microsoft® ODBC Driver for Oracle allows you to connect your ODBC-compliant application to an Oracle database. This version adds additional performance and control features, including access to PL/SQL packages, XA/DTC integration, and Oracle access from within Internet Information Server (IIS). The ODBC driver conforms to the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) specification described in the ODBC Programmer's Reference (Version 2.0) for your platform.

  • OLE DB Provider for ODBC 1.5

    This provides a bridge between OLE DB and ODBC and provides high performance access to ODBC drivers via OLE DB.

  • ODBC 3.5

    Provides Unicode support for ODBC interfaces and connection pooling.